This is from a sales ad for a large U.S. company:

Qualifications

To be considered for this role, candidates must meet the following criteria:

• Bachelor

Perhaps that is a truncating problem, but I am feeling left out as a married man.

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South Korea.  At least according to some survey mentioned in this Forbes.com article.  This may make your job look better:

If you thought you worked long hours, consider 39-year-old Lee from South Korea. A civil servant at the ministry of agriculture and fisheries, Lee gets up at 5:30 a.m. every day, gets dressed and makes a two-hour commute into Seoul to start work at 8:30 a.m. After sitting at a computer for most of the day, Lee typically gets out the door at 9 p.m., or even later.

By the time he gets home, it’s just a matter of jumping in the shower and collapsing into bed, before starting the whole routine all over again, about four hours later. This happens six days a week, and throughout almost all of the year, as Lee gets just three days of vacation.

That’s right. Three days.

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Well, this is only fair - ERE offers up an article with the real definition of common recruiting buzzwords/phrases.  Some of the buzzwords from the rather extensive list:

Ad-hoc (adj.) Usage: “There will also be some ad-hoc projects required.” Definition: A catch-all phrase used by corporations to describe the countless hours of manpower invested in activities unrelated to one’s job function, generally evoked at the whim of departmental heads.

DOE (acr.) see also depending on experience.Usage: “I am unable to provide a salary range for the position as it is DOE.” Definition: Whereby a company unable to pay market rate for a position compensates by placing the blame on candidate deficiencies.

Feedback (n) Usage: “I’ll provide feedback from my hiring manager as soon as I get it.” Definition: Generally construed as a one- or two-word answer by which hiring managers summarily reject top candidates.

Next steps (phrase) Usage: “We’ll be in touch regarding next steps.” Definition: A phrase used to put off rejecting marginal candidates for as long as possible until an offer is accepted by a more qualified party.

Overtime (n) Usage: “There may be some slight overtime involved.” Definition: An institution imposed by corporations to increase shareholder value without increasing headcount by maximizing working hours of employee population, up to and including Saturdays, holidays, and seminal life events.

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The title of a resume I found online:

Experience Hard Warker

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From the outstanding resume file - a resume I received yesterday for a Project Manager position:

Personal Attributes
I am highly enthusiastic, hard working, opinionated and motivated to work under my own initiative or as part of a team.

1. I have extensive practical experience of fault-finding…

Which explains why his team wants him to work on his own initiative. In all fairness, the candidate goes on to finish item #1 with:

…and problem solving systematically.

Certainly  a lot easier to do once you’ve established blame.

There’s a sentence later in the letter that suggests English isn’t a strong suit –

My team were involved in maintenance, repairing and servicing of general electronic equipment down to component level, I was responsible for a team of ten technical staffs, managing them on a day to day basis, and helping them with any problems, and ensuring the team achieved their targets within set deadlines and planning work for staff and monitoring the progress, defining where appropriate, providing regular reports to my company board and conveying practical solution on designing systems to my R&D department and risk assessment of my work.

Well if that doesn’t get him an interview, perhaps his response to the ‘Are you willing to relocate?’ question will:

Yes, London 100% and Minneapolis 50%

That’s a shame, because our position requires 100% attendance, which might be tough if the candidate is always in England, but maybe it’s like that old Superman episode (and I mean Steve Reeves, not the guy from Smallville) where Superman splits himself in two through force of will.

The kicker is probably not as funny as the writing – the position the candidate is responding to has not been on an active job board for at least a week. But with credentials like that, who cares if you take your time responding to the opportunity?

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CareerBuilder.com offers up another list with “wacky” in the title.  For web purposes, wacky is a euphemism for link bait, but I’ll bite.  The list is comprised of the most unusual excuses provided by employees for being late.

1.  
   1. While rowing across the river to work, I got lost in the fog.
   2. Someone stole all my daffodils.
   3. I had to go audition for American Idol.
   4. My ex-husband stole my car so I couldn’t drive to work.
   5. My route to work was shut down by a Presidential motorcade.
   6. I wasn’t thinking and accidentally went to my old job.
   7. I was indicted for securities fraud this morning.
   8. The line was too long at Starbucks.
   9. I was trying to get my gun back from the police.
   10. I didn’t have money for gas because all of the pawn shops were closed.

As a manager, I would find #8 completely acceptable.

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This post was no joke on April 1.

I give you my backyard this morning:

Add to that 31 degrees and you may understand the overall somber mood up here.  Last weekend was sunny and 75 degrees.  One thing about living in Minnesota, we love to whine talk about the weather.

Now, perhaps, you understand why.

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Spelling errors in a resume are bad, but spelling errors in ads may be worse.  I’m looking through ads this afternoon and found an ad that spelled Minnesota this way - Minnasota.  Yeah, that isn’t going to impress the locals.  However, I think I have seen the worst error ever.  One company has the word “electrical” in their name…they misspelled it.  They misspelled their own company name.

Unbelievable.

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The Killian Newsletter is out which means another fabulous installment of Cover Letters From Hell.  This edition features some dandies:

…take this full of life, creative, fun, hardworking, quick learner, hands-on, intelligent, good looking, individually and help him by giving him the best possible experience, so he can continue the legacy of provided high level, knock your socks off advertising.

That’s why one should have important letters read – out loud – by someone else.

We’ve always had food-industry clients, and yes, we talk about food a lot, but we’ve never before been ordered to actually be food:

… being a member of the (name withheld) Organization, and, braise yourselves, even participating in a folk dance ensemble for the last 14 years.

Please except this statement and resume as a good sign that I am interested.

Therefore, making it easy to decide on whether or not to meet with me. Given that I will go on…

Oh, you’ve made it easy.

You guys are different. You guys small.

I am an “out of the box” thinker.

… who avoids clichés?

Read the entire thing.

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Well, I should qualify that; I suppose an Oscar, Grammy, Tony, etc. is a timeless award.  However, I just read an employment ad from a large recruiting firm that had this bolded statement at the top:

#1 Ranked Executive Search Firm - January 2006

January 2006?  My first thought was who beat them out for the past 2 years.  Maybe they have drastically declined in some way?

Call me a minimalist, but I prefer to get right to the meat in an employment ad.  In fairness to this firm, this was an internal hire.  Still, I would think they would have a bit more sense to remove that statement since it is more than outdated.

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