Inside knowledge on job adverts - what is said & what is meant.

JustAnotherSaver

There's not really a serious question here. Just a - what is your experience kind of questioning.

My employer is advertising roles and I've looked at the adverts myself. Obviously having inside knowledge like I clearly will, it makes me wonder what hidden meanings other companies have in their own adverts. For example...

My employer likes to use the phrase -

have a can do attitude.

Expectations without knowledge: Be a positive helpful person.

Real world meaning: Don't ever raise a question. Do as you're told like a robot. If it's unsafe or just generally ridiculous then do it anyway. It's only a problem if you injure yourself, at which point we'll say you should know better, nobody forced you or some other get out clause.

Another would be -

occasional overtime.

Expectations without knowledge: well, exactly that, occasional. Overtime here and there, not so frequent and not so 'over'.

Real world meaning: Basically give up your entire day. You have plans for the evening? Forget it. Come summer time especially there wont be a single day where you're not working beyond your finishing time. Overtime is expected, not offered. People outside of the bubble will tell you that you don't have to do it but better believe if you say no then you'll be shouted at, sworn at and heavily weighted on to do the overtime. You may be called in to the office and given a royal dressing down, told it is part of the job, like it or lump it. Finishing an hour or more beyond your 'finishing' time will not be uncommon.

There's more but i've typed enough. Does your company have similarly hidden meanings in their wordings that innocent outsiders will be totally unaware of?

General_Grant

Not quite what you are asking about but I was once appointed to a post which was advertised in The Times with the heading of "Chief Executive requires Keeper willing to accept a salary of £X".  (It was so long ago that if I wrote in the amount rather than £X it would look closer to a weekly figure than an annual one.)

[Deleted User]

My favourite over the past year: “no experience necessary - we will train you” these worded vacancies are the pits, it appeared in the job advertisement I went for last year and this most recent - in reality what it means is after half a day you’ll be doing the job and really god help you if you are not. I wonder what would have happened if on day 0.5 or 3 I refused to answer calls under ‘no experience’ But I really don’t get what these companies would do if someone truly was straight out of school and had not set foot in the workplace before.?? I wish companies would stop offering to train when they clearly don’t have time, skill or resources.
And what is the harm in letting someone know in advance of them starting that you’ve decided to change their role. I just don’t get how anyone can go from being a Collector with no previous admin experience needed to targeted sales. Rant over cos it’s made me feel sick enough.

JustAnotherSaver

Ahh yes. Empty promises from management. Got to love it haven't you.

"We will give you the time you need" ... if you haven't mastered it within the next 5 seconds then we'll harass you for the rest of your days.

"We will speak with [person] that you've raised concerns over" .... what we haven't specified is which lifetime that will be.

My personal favourite which has caused me no end of irritation over the previous 12 months - "what can we do to support you" ... Can you name the things you need help with the most that we will then completely ignore and then we'll act all clueless as to why you seem unhappy in your role.

Back to the original post...

"Weekend on rotation" - you're basically only getting 1 day off per week. You will have more chance of winning the EuroMillions 10 times in your lifetime than you will have of getting a decent run of weekends off work.

General_Grant

General_Grant said:

Not quite what you are asking about but I was once appointed to a post which was advertised in The Times with the heading of "Chief Executive requires Keeper willing to accept a salary of £X".  (It was so long ago that if I wrote in the amount rather than £X it would look closer to a weekly figure than an annual one.)

Perhaps I should have said that what was meant by "Keeper" was "Secretary", which was the title given in the advertisement which appeared for the role in The Daily Telegraph.  (It was actually a PA job working for two people each of whom had selected a title and medium.)

Grumpy_chap

The exact opposite to what the OP mentioned, there is a local food delivery business (cooked food) that hails from the time before all these app-based services came online and the advert for a delivery dogs-body basically read:
"Desperate person who just needs the money required.  Uninteresting and deadly routine job.  Awful hours.  Unpleasant customers.  Miserable boss.  Poor pay.  Apply within."
At least whoever got that won't be disappointed.

JustAnotherSaver

Grumpy_chap said:

The exact opposite to what the OP mentioned, there is a local food delivery business (cooked food) that hails from the time before all these app-based services came online and the advert for a delivery dogs-body basically read:
"Desperate person who just needs the money required.  Uninteresting and deadly routine job.  Awful hours.  Unpleasant customers.  Miserable boss.  Poor pay.  Apply within."
At least whoever got that won't be disappointed.

Haha, that's actually quite funny.

Where I work, the lower level managers have actually mentioned this kind of thing to the upper level when advertising and especially when interviewing.

And that is ..... just be honest with people.

Tell them that at the very least in summer time they better write off their entire weekdays and have no plans, unless those plans are like 9pm onwards. Their starts may be 7am, may be 6am, may be 5am depending on the job. You basically wont know when you're finishing until you've got that clock card in hand and you're inserting it in the machine. 15mins before that, for all your knowledge you could be working another 30mins, 60mins, whatever.

Tell them that their weekend situation will basically suck, unless you're one of these people who have the POV of life is about work-work-work and that is the sole purpose in life.

The recruitment process will take longer but at least when you take someone on you wont be dealing with people walking out after a week saying this is the total opposite to what i've been told. I've seen countless numbers of those people.

They're also wishy-washy about pay. I've also seen so many walk out after a week saying this is not what I was told i'd be getting paid at all.

Sandtree

I personally always love the ones when they try to cover all bases "Works well independently but also well in a team"

Pretty much, we don't really know what we want so lets put down something that covers everything and make it up as we go along.

cattom

when they advertise a job, they have to write something, and these phrases they use are what's been proven over the years as being best to fill in the spaces. 
they cover a multitude of sins and generally taken with a pinch or two of salt.

elsien

Computer literate:

The reality - we have replaced our shonky old intranet for a shiny new one we’ve paid stupid amounts of money for. It’s even worse than the old system but please don’t ask how it works because no/one here knows,  but we expect you to be proficient in it anyway.