Today’s professionals know full well that companies depend on them. Accordingly, they want to be courted. They want a four-day week, flexible working hours, a home office and more money. What they get: a fruit basket. Or a “great creative freedom” in a “dynamically growing work environment”, preferably with “flat hierarchies”. Instead of providing concrete information in their job advertisements, companies often annoy job seekers with empty phrases. This is the result of the job portal “Meinestadt.de”, which surveyed 3,000 employees between the ages of 18 and 65.
Job seekers would like much more relevant information: 58.2 percent of those surveyed consider the list of job content to be particularly important. You just want to know what you do all day long – and not whether you can eat an apple for free. 50.2 percent want information about the security of the job offered and 49 percent want to know how much money there is for the whole thing.
Instead of hackneyed phrases, it would be better – as in all situations in life – to tell the truth. Max Frisch already knew that: “The best and safest camouflage is still the bare and naked truth. Strangely enough, nobody believes it!” said the writer. That would be an important step in winning over the discerning employee: throwing harsh reality in his face. Instead of “flat hierarchies”, companies could openly admit that the boss is not competent and has no idea what his employees are actually doing. At the latest when the discerning employee starts working for the company, he will notice it anyway. Then why pretend something in the job advertisement?
Honesty brings more than hackneyed phrases
And when it comes to “dynamic working environment”, the experienced applicants know anyway that that’s a euphemism for: People quit almost every week because it’s so unbearable here, so you have to get used to new colleagues every few weeks. That doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing; After all, the Kotz colleagues are gone again quickly. If you then convey to the employee that he actually has no contact person and is left completely alone (aka “great creative freedom”), the job advertisement could blow the discerning employee away with its authenticity. What would then be the icing on the cake and probably more for the more daring employers: instead of “going the extra mile”, simply write: “Here the employees are completely exploited.” In this way, one would at least keep away all those colleagues who value a punctual end of the day.
A few days ago, entrepreneur Carsten Maschmeyer compiled a list of absurd “benefits,” as they say in boss slang, on the LinkedIn careers platform. This includes 20 days of vacation, free drinks – and punctual payment. In other words, the absolute minimum standards that a company should meet. Although the drinks sometimes seem to draw. One of the comments under the post says: “We have free drinks of the employees’ choice.” And then, in brackets: “The 18-year-old whiskeys that many like to drink cost a lot of money.” But, it goes on: “What don’t you do for your people”.