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United States
If you’ve seen one, you’ve probably seen a 1,000 more: jobs that all read like exact (and I mean exact), clones of each other.
So worried – it seems – are recruiters about not being seen to fail, that (ironically) they increasingly appear to default to picking the same hackneyed phrases everybody else uses [‘self starter’; ‘dynamic individual’; ‘fast-paced environment’].
But not does it render these carbon-copy ads meaningless, it’s also the height of laziness, and according to one HR practitioner, they increasingly do nothing for the candidate experience either – not least when job hunters actually find out (possibly too late), that ‘fast-paced’ really meant ‘too much work, not enough support’.
So why can’t HR professionals/recruiters show a bit more flair and thoughtfulness in their job ads? You know, thoughtfulness that might actually tell candidates what the job they’re applying for is 'actually' all about?
Too much puff, not enough ‘stuff’
“What I’m seeing is increasingly a patch-work of horrors,” says Paul Neal, who until last month was HR director at Regency, and was formerly director of HR, at Kent Fire & Rescue Service. “It sort of feels like it’s easier for recruiters to simply copy what others do,” he says, “rather than write something original. But the result is that it’s not targeting people they actually want, and it’s doing a dis-service to those that are reading it.”
Even recruiters themselves seem to be getting fed up of what they see crossing their desks from their HR clients. Emily van Eyssen, is Founder of Remote Recruitment. She says: “I'm seeing the same tired buzzwords constantly crop up in job ads – things like 'rockstar', 'self-starter' and 'fast-paced'. But they rarely explain what the job actually involves or what success really looks like.”
While employers seem to want to put whole paragraphs of sales puff about what a ‘world-beating’ or ‘industry-leading’ business they are, candidates are already switching off
Samantha Price, talent services director at RPO1 is firmly on Neal and Eyssen’s side. “While employers seem to want to put whole paragraphs of sales puff about what a ‘world-beating’ or ‘industry-leading’ business they are, candidates are already switching off – long before they’ve got anywhere near reading about the role and why it might interest them.”
She adds: “One recent advert I saw, used the word ‘strategic’ six times. I’m even seeing jargon used for technical roles, instead of stipulating knowledge about specific systems or processes. These are just hackneyed phrases that have been recycled for decades.”
Continues Eyssen: “Most of the time, these ads are copied from old templates in a rush. They end up packed with corporate jargon instead of giving a clear picture of the role or the kind of person who'd thrive in it. Phrases like 'go-getter' or 'dynamic team player' might sound impressive, but they don’t say much, and candidates notice. People applying for jobs are more switched on than ever. If the language is vague or full of fluff, it puts them off before they’ve even had a conversation.”
