What technical talent thinks about your job descriptions

I wanted to point out a super piece last week on the Smashing Magazine blog, (a site about and for Web Designers), titled 'The Difference Between Good and Bad Job Requirements', that provides a great look into what technical, (and often hard to find) talent thinks about the typical job descriptions they encounter online.

Long story short - it is clear that the Web Designer that authored the post, and almost all of the 50+ commenters, don't have very many positive things to say about how most design job descriptions are presented.  Their chief complaints - most job postings contain a ridiculously long laundry list of technical skills and acronyms that are just not relevant for the job being posted, and are almost impossible for a single individual to possess with any level of mastery.  Additionally, most job ads focused to a large degree, (if not exclusively), about what things a candidate should have already done, not what things they will actually do on the new job, and how they might grow and develop professionally. Lastly, the piece takes a few shots at job ads that in trying to paint a realistic picture of their workplace culture, perhaps go too far with statements like, 'Candidate will need to perform effectively in a demanding environment and show resiliency to stress.'  

Wow, where can I sign up?

There are several excellent pieces of advice for writing more effective technical job ads from the author as well as from many of the commenters, but the best line from the piece, and one that has applicability to recruting advertising for any field is this comment, when assessing a job ad that was much more positive and effective:

What they do is so much more than just telling you what you should have already done by now. They’re telling you what you could become working for them.

That is a key point, one I think we overlook all the time.  It continues to assume it is an employer's market, and while that may be true in some regions and fields, it certainly is not true in others, certainly for any roles you are having a hard time in filling.

Some final words of advice from the piece that I think are worth remembering in our continuing quest to attract the best talent for our organizations: 

We all understand it’ll be hard work and that we’re supposed to be good at it. So try not to tell us what your ideal employee is. Try to tell us what a great designer we could become should we want to join your team.

It's not always about you, the employer.  Sometimes, and maybe more often than you think, it is about them.

Have a great week everyone!

'We just pulled the Shuttle through Los Angeles'

I guarantee this is the coolest thing you will see this week.

Check the video embedded below, (email and RSS subscribers will have to click through), describing the final leg of the upcoming journey of retired Space Shuttle Endeavour to its new home, the California Science Center in Los Angeles, as part of NASA's winding down of the long time shuttle program. 

I told you that was pretty cool, right?

And what makes it so cool from a marketing/branding perspective, is that the (essentially) stock Toyota Tundra pickup truck will tow the massive payload, in front of an enormous audience, and in a manner that is shockingly more relatable than just about every other advertisement you'll see for similar trucks.

Most truck marketing and advertising consists of showing the trucks doing incredible, trained professional driver, closed course, dramatization-don't-try-this-at-home stunts that might make for fun TV commercials but don't do anything to actually communicate to the average user the real capability and practicality of the vehicle. And I get that if all ads simply showed pedestrian and utilitarian applications, consumers would get bored, but does a dramatization of a truck launching from a ski jump and barreling down the side of a snowy mountain convince anyone it is the right vehicle for picking up mulch at the Home Depot?

A write up of the Tundra-Endeavour project on the Graphicology blog says it better than I can:

The Shuttle Shuttle is a once in a lifetime event and Toyota is taking advantage of it in a way that isn't terribly obvious (ie: it doesn't commercialize the experience too much). They could single-handedly put an end to an entire genre of television truck demos. If Chevy or Ford shows an ad of their trucks pulling something heavy, all Toyota has to do is point to this. "We just pulled The Shuttle through Los Angeles." Way, way more dramatic and convincing than anything the other manufacturers could tow behind their rigs. Sure, there is a special setup and trailer that is being pulled which makes the whole thing feasible, but that's not something the public will focus on. All they will see is a Toyota pulling a Space Shuttle. And for a brand, you couldn't make this up.

Really cool story and cooler message. You can talk about doing incredible things. You can create some kind of faux reality where amazing things happen, (think every beer commercial you have ever seen during the Super Bowl broadcast), or you can actually do incredible things, and in a way that are understandable and relatable to your audience.

What do you think people will remember?