I don't think I've ever seen "awesome" or "superstar" in a recruitment ad, but then I (mostly) work on the editorial side not the tech side. On the whole, I don't really see the point of that sort of language, or indeed the quoted replacement language. It's all boilerplate at the end of the day. I suppose it may be trying to convey what it's like to work somewhere, or at least what you'd need to be comfortable with to fit in, but it ends up filtered through so many layers of self-delusion, HR policy and statutory requirements that you might as well just list the actual job requirements.
Quit being persnickety, your friend just meant that he appreciated the sandwich.
Haha recreational bickering about trivial expression is a way of life for many a boutique bloguette. Next you will explain that I should just go with the flow and accept that "No Problem!!" has replaced "You are welcome." I would be happy with "De nada," though.
At some point I linked to jpv's list of regionalisms, and "no problem" instead of "thank you" is specifically what he identified for those of us from north central Florida. We will come to dominate the earth.
The aspirational language isn't much different - surely what mattered was the explicit openness to people with less experience, which is thin on the ground in job postings.
Since "awesome" was once (and sometimes still is) considered appropriate for describing God, isn't using it to describe a (by all accounts very impressive) sporting event an example of doing the thing you're complaining about?
Like we're cheapening the sandwich by applying the word "awesome" to American Ninja Warrior Kacy Catanzaro?
I look forward to the day when to dispute the evolved usage of "awesome" meets with the same reception as it would for "awful".
actual requirements
For all too many jobs:
Do not threaten management staff with ostentatious competence. Solve the intractable quickly, cheaply, and meekly.
8: I was going to bring up "awful", actually.
I'm literally awfully awesome.
What I got from the first wording is "we will work you until you drop." The second one is less that way, and indicates a somewhat more normal working environment.
4
That's a great point, too. Most tech ads are so targeted that it's a wonder anyone qualifies for the positions. Hiring managers seem to forget that the targeted hire with "5 years of Swift experience" [sic] will be using some other language or tool in six months.
8, 11-12: I guess the Charles II story about St. Paul's has been debunked, but I was going to mention it.
And to a small extent, the references to learning and "those around you" I think imply a more mutually supportive environment, rather than "you must be perfect out of the box and become more perfect".
Generalizing madly -- isn't there an underlying issue in this kind of thing, where people hiring treat a wildly inflated self-assessment as if it were a vocational qualification? An ad looking for 'rock stars' or 'superstars' is looking for competent people, but is written by someone who thinks that a competent person who believes that they're incredibly unusually good at what they do is likely to be a better employee than someone who thinks of themselves as normally competent. Asking for rock stars is meant, on some level, to screen out modest, unassuming applicants, because of a belief that modesty makes you a bad employee.
This seems incredibly counterproductive to me; not only are you screening out people who are just as good for no reason, you actually seem to me to be screening out people who'd be better to work with. Holding the actual level of competence steady, I'd much rather work with someone modest than with someone self-inflated.
8 et al: Can we just settle on awesome being a weaker form of awful?
I overuse awesome. Deal with it.
Generalizing madly -- isn't there an underlying issue in this kind of thing, where people hiring treat a wildly inflated self-assessment as if it were a vocational qualification? An ad looking for 'rock stars' or 'superstars' is looking for competent people, but is written by someone who thinks that a competent person who believes that they're incredibly unusually good at what they do is likely to be a better employee than someone who thinks of themselves as normally competent. Asking for rock stars is meant, on some level, to screen out modest, unassuming applicants, because of a belief that modesty makes you a bad employee.
Indeed. Also, I work in a pretty specialised field with maybe a dozen directly experienced people in the whole continent, and then a couple hundred partly-qualified potentials, and a huge sea of grad trainee types. If you're actually a "superstar", I'm going to ring you up directly, I'm not going to advertise in the hope you apply.
After years of dodges I'm finally at the point of having to answer some of these tech ads, gack. I thought I could pick up a Flying V knockoff and show up to the rockstar interviews in shredded jeans AAALL RIIIGHT; but in the moment of truth, all the superlatives just make me feel like a worm.
Asking for rock stars is meant, on some level, to screen out modest, unassuming applicants, because of a belief that modesty makes you a bad employee.
That is exactly what bugged me about the post (or rather, about the problem that the post purported to identify and solve).
What I got from the first wording is "we will work you until you drop." The second one is less that way, and indicates a somewhat more normal working environment.
I would agree with that, but what do you think about the wording change contributes to that change in tone?
You know who you really don't want to work with, as a rule? Rock Stars. I mean many are nice people but they really aren't great colleagues in a professional environment.
I've seen advertisements looking for rock stars, and they are stupid. You aren't going to get rock stars through a Dice.com ad. What you might get - and what you should actually want - are talented studio musicians, or maybe even a well-regarded singer-songwriter with a moderate local following.
People think they should hire Lynyrd Skynyrd, but what they really want is The Swampers.
23: You mean literal rock stars, don't you, Halford?
They do enough cocaine, and they become incapable of comprehending figurative speech.
Oddly the linked article made the same joke.
As much as it's irritating to see these 'performance superlatives' used in job ads, it's also just plain hilarious to imagine what it would be like to literally hire one. -- Rockstar: Music would be too loud. And think of the tantrums. Would refer all pull request comments to their agent.
I'm going to need some hyphens in 26 before I agree.
Also, let me highlight one other bit from the linked post:
As well as re-orienting the main focus of our ads, there are lots of other, tiny things that help to make an ad more inclusive, and again it comes down to imagining how a candidate would describe themselves, not how you think of them or even how you think of yourself. In our flexible working section, we had an example of how you might want to adjust start and end times to accommodate a sports schedule. It now also includes the example of a nursery or school run.
It seems remarkable that the first example they could think of to illustrate why somebody would want a flexible schedule would be for sports! I'm glad that they added the possibility of picking up children from school, but I'm concerned that he discusses it as an after thought.
27: He does work in IP in Hollywood.
22: I think "drive yourself beyond your own expectations" reads to me like "you will have absolutely no personal life because you will be working all the time," in a way that "push yourself to do better" does not.
These "rock star" kinds of ads also seem aimed at young people, either millennials or whatever the generation is that is graduating college now. That's probably related to the implication of no work-life balance. I wouldn't apply because I would assume they wanted someone younger.
30: I think that was exactly his point -- "When I thought of why someone would need a flexible schedule, I thought sports. Then I thought about it some more, and included child pickup to be more appealing to people who aren't me." It was an afterthought, but at least he did think enough to include it.
30: I think that was exactly his point
Yes, and I go back and forth between being glad that he wrote the post and and shaking my head at it.
Mostly I appreciate his writing it, and am glad that he's conscious of the issue and trying to address it.
32 to 22
Well put, and the wording change refers to other people working as a (one hopes) supportive team.
To be fair, rock stars do a lot of committee work and their dedication to transparency via mass public meetings and the distribution of transcripts and recordings is admirable.
Writing ads that convey the message that only young people will be hired is a definite switch from writing ads that say "Must have 5 years experience with this, 8 years experience with that, and be licensed in six states".
A remaining recruiting problem for FT Labs would seem to be the "cityscape" on their jobs page. Who cares how hard you work when your headquarters is a sitting target for every monster, meteor, tsunami, or plague passing through?
On a more personal note, I don't think anyone wants to find out how much free fruit I can eat. So that's some useful screening. I am a little curious about how much free fruit Mothra can eat.
I think most of the awesome / Rockstar language is aimed at intermediaries - management, HR departments, agencies - who have systemic reasons to try and control wages and cover arses on the HR side, and to spam with people who don't have a clue on the agency side. That is all bundled in one job spec that the candidate are also trying to parse.
|| Turns out the hotel I booked as a less expensive alternative to the conference hotel for the conference I'm attending is the same place that used to have the Brickskeller. Didn't that used to be a meetup place?
Anyway, I didn't call for a meetup because it looked like I would have stuff to do every evening and it seems to be turning out that way. I won't know about tomorrow until it's too late to put something together. Maybe another time. |>
So, I'm on vacation next week, and for complicated reasons the family isn't going anyplace. So I signed up for a week's worth of surfing lessons. (On Long Island. They have surfing.)
Am I going to die? I'm a perfectly respectable swimmer, and generally fairly durable. But I'm slightly terrified.
42: Well, since no one else has answered your question, I guess I should, even though I don't have any particular expertise on the subject.
No.
Since nobody who doesn't over generalize has answered your question, you aren't going to increase your odds of dying but those odds will remain non-zero.
42. That's great LB. Where on LI? My brother used to surf a lot on LI but I think he's mostly given it up. He's a lifeguard at Jones Beach.
And you'll be fine.