Help wanted ads are hardly helpful

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GUEST COLUMN
March 24, 2010
Help Wanted Ads Are Hardly Helpful
By: Michael Albert
The answer is “aggressive, hands-on, shirt-sleeve, results-oriented achiever.”
Is the question: (a) How would you describe your tailor? (b) How would you describe your fourth grade bully? (c)
What are some of the most common words used in help wanted advertising for middle and senior management
staff?
As any middle management job seeker knows, choice (c) is correct.
If you need to verify this, simply surf on over to your the job listing on this site and click any link to just about any gig.
Read the ads that you find attractive carefully.
One of the first things you will notice is that the phrases “hands-on,” “shirt-sleeve,” and “aggressive” appear, well, ad
nauseam. Frankly, if I knew any one with these “qualities,” I would be extremely suspicious of this person, and I
would certainly not want to spend most of my waking hours in the company of such a volatile automaton.
Just what do companies that advertise for such beings want? What in the world does “hands-on” really mean? Does
it describe a particularly lecherous manager? What does"aggressive," that most tired of business banalities, actually
mean? Does it mean they want yet another ladder-climbing bully in the corporate ranks. We already have too many.
As for “results-oriented,” what manager with any drive doesn’t want to see the results of his or her labors?
Another desired quality in vogue among employers is “entrepreneurship.” This is merely a nod to the dreamers of the
world who really want to achieve something meaningful. It is also used in the most ludicrous of situations. To
describe, say, a product manager’s position deep in the honeycomb of some corporate giant as “entrepreneurial” is
somewhat akin to saying the world is flat. A true entrepreneur would last all of five minutes in such an infrastructure.
All of this is, to me,
somehow symptomatic of
narrow and unproductive
thinking and promotion of
American business on the
subject of people. After
reading the postings at the
leading job sites and elsewhere, it seems that companies are in the market for a set of character traits that borrow
heavily from Machiavelli. How nuts is that?
What about the well-rounded, humane personalities that true leaders historically possess? Maybe they are not
needed -- as they might cost firms some coveted short-term profits.
This kind of limited corporate thinking is further reflected in online job postings (and the few traditional adverts in
Sunday newspapers) that give specialization new meaning. Any day now I expect to see a job for a software project
manager that requires a B.A., Ph.D., fluency in Armenian, and willingness to travel 80 percent of the time and be a
former All-American, ambidextrous third baseman with extensive experience in nitrogen microcircuitry; or one for a
marketing manager that insists on a B.S. in economics and an MBA (top schools only), with five to 10 years
experience in human resources, seven years in natural resources, and eight years in information resources. This one
would have to be a pretty resourceful, character, wouldn’t you say? Probably began career training in the crib.
What's funny is I always thought that concern for the individual was an inherently American business value. You’d
never know it to read through recruitment text. Undoubtedly, the employment community’s disclaimer is likely: But
they work!
True, but in these times what wouldn’t? Just about any notice that promises a decent job (for some, any job that pays
decently) to desperate or restless middle managers is going to elicit a ton of strong interest.
About the
Author
Michael Albert
A Sales & Marketing Conquistador, Michael
Albert’s mantra is: concept, implement &
profit. He’s best suited for a gig needing
strategy at 10,000‘ and execution at sea
level. From promoting casinos & web
services to specialty foods and even
recruitment advertising, he’s taken on
audacious projects and run them as the
lead. Relentlessly positive, his 2010 pet
project is to become ambidextrous.
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I’d love to see job opportunities with requirements like: Be relentlessly positive; able to visualize complex projects
and imagine alternative possible outcomes; have charisma to easily engage with strangers and actually enjoy selling
ideas to them; be good at listening to stories and using them to change your mind; be comfortable with ambiguity
and rarely ask for detail or permission; find satisfaction in reaching self-imposed goals and willing to regularly raise
the bar on those goals; be intellectually restless and care enough about new ideas to read plenty of blogs and books
and curious enough about what others think of your ideas that you publish your own blog; understand that the
system is intertwined, that your actions have side effects and you not only care about them but work to make those
side effects good ones.
It’s just that in light of today’s economic struggles and ebbing morale, current help wanted ads, and more important,
the kind of thinking they reflect, are no help at all.
Comments
Add Your Comments
Johanna Derbolowsky (NYC) on 26 Mar 2010 at 1:24 am
My blood boiled as I read this, triggering many feelings I have had when on a job search. First as a budding artist and then as
an AD. Never once have I read a recruitment ad where I felt it was describing me, or any real person, particularly in the digital
art field. Nothing really changes.
Mildred (Phoenix, AZ) on 25 Mar 2010 at 2:07 pm
Clever piece. Would like to read more of this style of messaging. Direct, to the point and insightful. Kudos to TZ for publishing
this.
Frank Lake (Boca del Vista, CA) on 25 Mar 2010 at 4:47 am
I was wondering if you could tell me where you saw that ad for a software project manager. I'm a former All-American Green
Beret, Director Emeritus of the Nitrogen Microcircuitry Department at MIT, I'm fluent in Armenian (all seven dialects),
especially after I've had a few shots of Bourbon, and I play third base for the Penobscot Pile-drivers during the off-season.
And, oh yeah, I have over 59 years experience in software project management. Do you think they'd be interested?
Lori Lee (Wisconsin) on 25 Mar 2010 at 12:54 am
It would seem that most HR types went to the same school for absurdity. In a time when a significant portion of our work force
is now transitioning from one field and occupation to another, their focus should be on the utilization of transition skills and not
on word play. Unfortunately, that would require outside-the-box thinking which doesn't come pre-packaged like the rules HR
seems to follow. However, I have met a few HR people who do understand this, and who have not gotten caught up in the
game. For them I say "thank you! for taking the time to do your job well. You have restored a little bit of the faith that I had
lost in the past year."
Jake (Planet Earth) on 25 Mar 2010 at 12:47 am
The biggest problem with finding the right person for a job are the majority of people entrusted to be the keepers of the talent
management sector are useless! For every honorable and seasoned vet that remains, they are thousands of totally
unqualified individuals who have neither any talent nor the ability to manage much of anything...
Most are dream-squashers, who feel that they should endeavor to run interference and keep a candidate from being fairly
and honestly evaluated on a level playing field. The prevailing attitude that many HR types have admitted to me is that they
like to push the limits to see what a candidate will endure to get a job.
I believe that if a company treats a candidate unprofessionally in an interview process, it's a harbinger of how much worse
that company will treat you if you get the job...
Most recruiters, HR-types and others of that ilk tend to be the embodiment of unprofessional. This is because most agencies
hate or can't be bothered to put the time and money into getting qualified talent evaluators. So few exist and the pay levels
have plummeted so many have bailed out of the profession.
Since a lot agencies have reduced talent acquisition down to a priority akin to sweeping floors and cleaning toilets, "a get it
done and don't bother me with it" type of scenario, it attracts the worst possible element - people with major issues and
copious!
HR types typically feel it is their job to impede the path of qualified candidates. They believe that if they put together an ad
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2 of 3 3/27/10 8:54 AM

filled with a lot of over-engineered terms they don't understand, throw in some meta-tags they saw online and then lace it with
pithy euphemisms, they
thorough, diving deep to find the hidden treasures and really know how
to extract potential.
The reality of the HR and talent management sector is that it is populated with unambitious individuals who pad their
workload to fill a 8 hour, 9-5 day. They don't realize that they are glorified admin support
at best, and many seem to think that interacting with potential job candidates is a social opportunity afforded them.
The horror stories I have heard about the depths of unprofessional behavior perpetuated by these fools is beyond the pale.
My take away is that they must think their job description is to emulate a self-medicating judge on American Idol.
I believe that they get away with this behavior because they are largely unsupervised and allowed to run amok because no
one wants to take ownership or responsibility of doing a better job at finding talent.
Help ads that are hardly helpful are as a result of the people who are
entrusted to produce them. It always amazes me that ad agencies want to emote this perception of themselves as being so
great, yet a core competency of our industry "talent" is entrusted to the completely void of talent! No wonder clients hate us
now...
anon (los angeles, ca) on 24 Mar 2010 at 6:40 pm
Agree with how absurd the ad postings and "requirements" are for the jobs. If you took a poll, could most of the people
currently working at these places qualify? Probably not. It's an epidemic of carpetbagging created by the crap economy. I
have seen ads for creatives that require DEEP coding knowledge as well as an advanced degree and award-winning design
aesthetics. For $30k a year. I'm sure the position was filled in record time by someone living with her or his parents, as a filler
until "something better comes along". Note to that employer - IT WILL. You can't keep people this way. Good people anyway.
Those of us who are sharpening our skill set will be better off in the long run. It's just waiting to see that pendulum start to
swing back that's the hard part. But it will.
Natalie on 24 Mar 2010 at 5:22 pm
You see it all of the time. I'm glad an article on this was finally published. But it's not just middle management. Even
administrative positions require experience with quantum physics. Plus the lists of tasks that are necessary to the job go on
forever. I agree, a lot of job postings make me wonder about the person who is doing the hiring. Since I am not unemployed,
do i really want to meet them? No, not really.
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