Expressions or requirements that put you off applying for a job

[AnnO'Neemus]

Came here to say the same.
Also, publishing pro-rata salaries instead of actual salaries

In the same vein, as well as salary transparency, I now think employers should publish what constitutes a working week in that organisation, ie is their standard working week 35, 37.5, 40 or what?

The difference between the former and the latter is more than 20 extra hours a month, almost 3 extra day, which over the course of a year you're working around an extra month for free.

So yeah, it makes a difference in that sense, but also when you break it down into hourly rate.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Snack bowls and occasional pizzas.

Just f'ing pay your staff enough so that they can afford to feed themselves.

 

[Epona]

Everything about the process really - I mean I will be interested in what you want me to do if you pay me to do it so I can get my bills paid, sorry if my hobby isn't actually data entry or spreadsheets to do with whatever it is your company does.
And no, I never heard of you before I saw the job advert, I think what I can offer is x number of hours per week of my time and effort in exchange for y amount of pay per each of those hours, and of course it doesn't go any further than that.

Of course there are some jobs that people are passionate about and really want to do, but that model of recruitment seems these days to also be in use for lots of very boring office jobs where as long as you can operate a computer and keep your mouth shut, you'll be just fine.

Yes, my hobby is logistics, and I think your company is a world leader in moving goods for manufacturing industry from point A to B, that is my absolute passion in life and I have been following the progress of your company and wanting to work here for years.

I mean no-one buys this shit, surely?

I think this might be why I don't have a job, I just can't lie sufficiently well to get one. Masking only goes so far.

 

[Epona]

Also references to workplaces like it's a "family"

No thanks, the families I have experienced in my own life are dysfunctional and involve a lot of obligations and rows, don't need that in a work environment.

I did actually work in an office once where it did feel like family, and it resulted in at least one person being reduced to tears a week.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

I did actually work in an office once where it did feel like family, and it resulted in at least one person being reduced to tears a week.

 

[Epona]

The "work hard, play hard" and "close-knit team" thing - ugh, I just want to go in and do whatever hours I am paid for then fuck it all off.

I have done jobs where I have genuinely got along with my colleagues and gone out with them out of working hours, but the idea of management somehow controlling that as a group fun thing is horrific.

 

[scifisam]

"Lively." = Working longer hours than paid for, but you get free shots at the bar with the boss, whoop whoop!

 

[Idaho]

 

[A380]

I mean jobs where people genuinely would have a passion for the work never put 'passion' in the job advert,

In fact job ads for roles that people would be passionate about tend to be very technical about what is required.

 

[Pickman's model]

Any job that entails working

 

[DotCommunist]

imperative ones. You will be an x doing y. Fuckin won't

 

[Cloo]

I mean jobs where people genuinely would have a passion for the work never put 'passion' in the job advert,

In fact job ads for roles that people would be passionate about tend to be very technical about what is required.

Yes - nobody has a passion for media sales, mate.

 

[oryx]

Worst of all are the job ads that turn out to bear no relation to the job that you, as the unfortunate successful applicant, end up doing.

This happened to me three times and each time I left, in a couple of cases after several increasingly disillusioned years, with no job to go to. It always worked out though

 

[Silas Loom]

I have never really understood the language of job adverts -- I mean, how much are you supposed to take seriously or at least pretend to take seriously, and how much is pure convention? I once saw an advert for a promoter of tourism for Milton Keynes. I could only wonder what the interview would be like -- would everyone be silently sniggering as you outlined your proposals for attracting the previously oblivious hordes of visitors? Perhaps I should have applied to find out. It's the cover letter that would have been the problem.

Bletchley Park and affordable hotels could make MK an appealing overnight stop on a whistlestop coach tour of the UK, if someone put in the leg work with tour operators and ground handlers. Meanwhile, anyone with a vague interest in urban planning might be attracted by a design heritage trail covering the main landmarks and infrastructure idiosyncrasies.

Loads to discuss with the MK civic chiefs for a candidate who had cut their teeth promoting somewhere drearier and knew the visitor attraction market.

Why pick on municipal tourism geeks? The job ads that fizz with red flags are the ones for horrible and exploitative companies which expect massive employee churn.

 

[Artaxerxes]

The impression I have to actually do some work

 

[lazythursday]

'fast paced' 'high energy' and other phrases used to indicate you'd better be in your twenties but we're not allowed to put that any more.

 

[Sue]

'fast paced' 'high energy' and other phrases used to indicate you'd better be in your twenties but we're not allowed to put that any more.

See also 'culture fit'.

(In tech companies anyway.)

 

[MickiQ]

"We're looking for a recent graduate" is clearly a filter out the old fogies line
then we have
"Total Benefits Package" which means we aren't going to tell you the salary up front

 

[AnnaKarpik]

For me, a bookkeeper, it's 'employed or self-employed basis'. You can bet your life they won't understand that you can't order a self-employed person onto reception or taking meeting minutes when they need cover, that is until I tell them to fuck right off because I trained as a bookkeeper so as not to do shit I hate.

 

[Spymaster]

"Regular team building events" as a benefit.

 

[A380]

Yes - nobody has a passion for media sales, mate.

Indeed. ‘Passionate for media brand building in a fast paced exciting zany atmosphere, you will embrace passionately the work hard play hard team ethos. Only winners need apply!!!’ = come and sit in a shitty call centre making cold calls to people who never buy advertising…


Versus

Minimum 2500 hours PIC time, IFR and NVG rating. Preference given to those with existing EC135 type rating. £56,000 PA plus pension contributions and child care vouchers. = come and fly our air ambulance.

 

[MickiQ]

I saw a job advert once (did not apply) that said "We're looking for the sort of person who can write code under pressure even if the building were on fire" This did not strike me as the sort of environment conducive to the writing of good quality code.
Sat in a front of a computer in a comfy chair with a cup of tea close to hand is far more my style.

 

[baldrick]

If the building was on fire the last thing anyone would do is write code fgs. What's wrong with these people

 

[dessiato]

"Regular team building events" as a benefit.

I worked for an academy that obliged staff to go on "outings" every weekend, and drinks one Friday a month. I lived a two hour drive away but was expected to attend. I once got a phone call telling me I wasn't at the Friday drinks and had to go. I didn't. As soon as the contract ended I was gone, never looked back.

 

[Silas Loom]

Indeed. ‘Passionate for media brand building in a fast paced exciting zany atmosphere, you will embrace passionate the work hard play hard team ethos. Only winners need apply!!!’ = come and sit in a shitty call centre making cold cools to people who never buy advertising…


Versus

Minimum 2500 hours PIC time, IFR and NVG rating. Preference given to those with existing EC135 type rating. £56,000 PA plus pension contributions and child care vouchers. = come and fly our air ambulance.

Quite agree in principle, although I can’t think of anything more terrifying than a job where you have to fly a helicopter.

 

[a_chap]

If the building was on fire the last thing anyone would do is write code

Bug-fixing the fire alarm code?

 

[Griff]

Lol! at some of this stuff.
Was at a gig with an Urb last year and he was telling me some of the new work-place ghastliness he has to endure, there was some fucking phrase like 'workplace shopping' or something equally cringeworthy. Christ!

 

[ElizabethofYork]

"Are you hard-working with a 'can-do' attitude?" means are you willing to work long hours and do stuff that isn't in your job description, and is above your pay grade?

err..... no. I'm not.

 

[Brayfart]

'fast paced' 'high energy' and other phrases used to indicate you'd better be in your twenties but we're not allowed to put that any more.

I once had a thirty year old (and therefore a millennial) manager at an interview tell me that he didn't trust 'millennial' workers as they moaned too much and didn't just get on with it like people of my (not his) generation. I think he even used the word old. I took this as meaning he was a lazy fucker and I'd be run ragged. Unfortunately I needed the job but I didn't stay long because I was right.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I had my first job interview in over 20 years today.
Loads of moments I would like to go back and smack myself in the face for.

But also some daft stuff on the other side of the table. These guys were obviously younger and much more inexperienced than me. On the way home I figured they wanted me to answer their questions on a much more basic level. . . I think at the time I assumed they must have been talking about something else, because why would they bring up something so basic at interview stage. They must have looked at the CVs right? These were hour long interviews.

. . . of course the most obvious question "Why do you want to take a job here?"