Behind the Ironic Column

I read job ads – sometimes for fun, sometime in the search for a different job, and sometimes as an exercise in psychology.  I don’t remember that my psych professors made us read employment ads – but they certainly made us do an assortment of other things calculated to turn up interesting human idiosyncrasies.  To be honest, I don’t think employment ads used to be as interesting as they are now.  Of course, back in the day, they were separated by male and female…  So we have come a long way on some issues.

Anyway, in my occasional perusal of ads, I’m sometimes struck by a description and wonder what the poster could possibly mean.  In other instances I know all too well what they mean even if they didn’t say it particularly well.  Today, for instance, I saw an ad that required “familiarity with common and uncommon tools.”   I’m sure what they’re hoping to find is someone who knows all the basic tools of the trade in question plus some of the more advanced ones.  And by leaving it deliberately vague instead of listing specific tools, they hope to avoid people who will just repeat the list back to them.  They want their candidate to come up with the list of what he or she considers common.  By making that part of the application process, they’re hoping to get a sense of the person who’s applying. 

I always want to turn the tables on that kind of question.  What does the person  who’s hiring consider common – would he be able to come up with a list if you asked him in casual conversation?  I once had a conversation with a restaurant owner who mentioned that he was planning to start opening for breakfast.  When I inquired as to what kinds of breakfast he would have, he replied that they would have all the “common breakfast foods.”   That’s the kind of phrase that is not “commonly” understood.  When I’m back in North Carolina, a common breakfast food is grits.  But when I’m here in Portland, I don’t see grits on a breakfast menu.  It’s not common.    So when a job ad refers to “common” tools, I suspect that they either don’t know what they want or are trying to get at some other aspect of potential candidates by being vague.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS