Tuesday, December 18, 2007

At a subtle level, is this person trying to be ironic?




This ad was found on a website that is oriented toward freelance workers. I have blotted out the identifying details to spare the company some degree of embarrassment. The idea is that people who freelance go to the site and post a resume and/or view the jobs available section that describes jobs that companies are trying to fill. Unless there has been a drastic change in the English language recently (and if there was, why wasn't I sent a memo?), the project details section of the jobs available section is supposed to describe the job or at the very least list some minimum skill set that a worker would be expected to possess in order to be considered for the job. So why does this project description do neither? This is for a company that specializes in communication so in a cynical way I find it rather funny that the project description says nothing about the job requirements or what the company is looking for in a worker and instead tries to market the company to prospective workers at what is probably the most general level possible. The company wants a "Web Developer" but that job title could mean anything from a code monkey who can use HTML and CSS to translate content into a format easy to read and navigate to a person with extensive experience with database/website integration. Is the meta message here that the company is really flexible about what it requires from prospective workers to fill a given task or is it rather that the company scarcely has a clue as to what it wants?