Deciphering 7 Job Ad Phrases and What They Really Mean

Deciphering 7 Job Ad Phrases and What They Really Mean Sometimes reading a job description is a bit like trying to decipher The Matrix. While some phrases are literal, others are more cryptic, leaving you to wonder, â€Å"Is this really the right job for me?† This handy crib sheet can help you understand what employers really mean when they write job descriptions. 1. â€Å"Multitasking†Ã¢â‚¬Å"Multitasking† sounds like a great skill, right? Being recognized for your ability to do many things at once is, on the surface, a positive one. However, while the job description may simply mean that you will be expected to balance, prioritize, and complete work in order of importance, it can also have an underlying meaning: that your employer will expect you to do anything and everything - whether or not it actually falls under the roles and responsibilities of your job.If you like to have understanding of what your job will entail, and prefer to stay within those guidelines, then the â€Å"multitasking† keyword may set off alarm bells for you.2. â€Å"Team Player†In our increasing era of collaboration, the need for team players goes without saying. So what does it mean when a job description highlights this fact? Along the same lines as â€Å"multitasking,† this may cloak what employers are really looking for: someone to do the dirty work in the form of the department’s most untenable work. Or, you may be asked to put aside your own work to help a teammate who dropped the ball. Over time, this can become a major frustration.3. â€Å"Entrepreneurial†Entrepreneurial skills are highly prized in today’s business world. While some companies may be looking for movers and shakers, others may be cloaking an unclear or irregular job description.Rather than being given a firm set of responsibilities, you may be expected to intuit where you need to be and when, which can be a recipe for disaster in uncertain situations.4. â€Å"A Fast-Paced Job Environment†This one m ay sound like a thrilling opportunity. After all, who wants a job that’s slow and boring? But this description may be a hidden warning that you’ll be working in a pressure-packed environment. While this may work for you if tight deadlines and frenetic work hours help keep you motivated, if you prefer a more stable environment, think twice.5. â€Å"Must have a good sense of humor†A sense of humor is an addition to any office, but that goes without saying. However, if a good sense of humor is requisite for the job - and the job doesn’t involve working in comedy club - then more likely than not this may indicate that the company culture leans toward the off, unusual, inappropriate, or even alienating.It may also mean that they are looking for an employee who will laugh in the face of adversity†¦and thereby that adversity exists.6. â€Å"Perfect for stay-at-home moms and students.†Stay-at-home moms and students may be looking for flexible hours, so job descriptions which put these words front and center may be particularly appealing to them. However, this may also be a way of suggesting that both experience requirements and pay are minimal.Many people in need of part-time work are also willing to work for less so the competition may be surprisingly steep.7. â€Å"Passionate†It’s good to be committed to your job, but not if â€Å"passionate† means â€Å"willing to work for much less to do what you love.† It may also mean that an employer expects candidates to be willing to put their jobs above all other commitments.As the competition for the best candidates becomes fiercer, employers are getting savvy about crafting job descriptions that catch the attention of potential applicants. Savvy applicants, meanwhile, can be prepared to decode job description lingo and find a job description that matches their expectations when it comes to a real-world job.

These five techniques will transform your technical writing - Emphasis

These five techniques will transform your technical writing These five techniques will transform your technical writing Here is the gist of a conversation I had with a scientist a few years ago. I was teaching a one-day technical-writing course that she was (reluctantly) attending. ‘What do you write?’ ‘Mainly records of experiments and field trials.’ ‘And do you enjoy writing?’ ‘No, I absolutely loathe it.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because it’s just going to sit in a dusty folder somewhere and no one will ever read it.’ My first thought was that it was going to be a long, hard day. Happily, I was wrong. In this short post, I wont go through the protocols and conventions unique to technical writing, as thats not necessary to get results (although you may find this article on  how to write a paper useful). No, the key is to approach it from first principles – the disciplines every writer, technical or otherwise, should be aware of and practise. 1. Be clear and logical I usually enjoy training scientists. They have one essential quality that’s gold dust for a writer – they’re trained to think logically and clearly. While their PhD may be in low-temperature physics or fluvial dynamics, they bring a rigorous way of thinking thats incredibly helpful when it comes to writing up their work. Refreshingly, they’re also often among the most enthusiastic and intelligent students. When I’m training, the one thing I want people to take away is the power and importance of writing. It obviously helps if you have a love and respect for language as well, but that’s a personal thing. If I could instil in the scientist a sense of pride in her writing, at least, I thought, that would be a start. 2. Focus on the audience For some 15 years, I was the lead writer for Jaguar. I wrote the launches of their cars and all the company’s major conferences and speeches, some of which were highly technical. But the first question any writer has to ask, regardless of the material, is always the same – who is going to read this? Or, if it’s a speech, who is going to listen to it? An automotive engineer, for example, will have a clear understanding of terms such as ‘horsepower’ and ‘torque’ and how they influence a car’s performance. They will also be familiar with the host of abbreviations and acronyms that are common parlance in the engineering community. (Is there a sector that doesn’t have its own jargon or buzzwords?) If a piece of writing is peer to peer, it’s generally fine to use these terms without explanation (but sparingly, please). An engine’s performance may simply be expressed in measurements, graphs and charts – if the information is simply and clearly presented, the knowledgeable reader will be able to extract what they want and interpret it. The writing will have served its primary function, which is to communicate. 3. Consider every word Most drivers, however, would struggle to explain ‘horsepower’ and ‘torque’, let alone the difference between them. Unless they’re fully paid-up petrolheads, all they may know is that a powerful car will have a lot of both. Car manufacturers know this, of course, and that’s when (supposedly sexy) language starts creeping into the writing. ‘Effortless’ and ‘refined power’, for example, are words Jaguar often use to describe torque delivery for the layman. (I fought long and hard to suppress the truly awful ‘waftability’, but it seems to have crept into the marketing.) The point is that you use the appropriate language for the audience. The engineer writing the technical report isn’t selling the car, so they don’t need to use adjectives and adverbs (modifying words) to communicate performance – they can let the stats do the talking. In fact, if they submit their findings to scientific journals, they’ll find that most editors delete modifiers anyway, because at best they’re subjective, and at worst vague and confusing, especially for an international audience. Editors encourage authors to ‘unpackage’ concepts – to present them in simple, clear sentences. 4. Keep it brief Most people have a lot of things they could be doing rather than wading through 50 pages of turgid, unfocused waffle. Know your reader, know what you want to say and know why you’re saying it. Is it relevant to your reader? If not, why are you making them read it? And although you may have spent ages writing something, be aware of ‘Mr Skippy’ – the person who will just skim through the text. He may only read the sub-heads, so make sure they tell the story clearly. 5. Be active and engaging Get people into your writing. The passive voice (‘the trials were conducted †¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢) may be the default in most technical writing, but the active voice is more direct (‘we conducted the trials †¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢). You dont have to do it all the time: a balance between passive and active is best. But we’re people and we like to read about ourselves, even if it’s just a humble pronoun (‘we’). Incidentally, a surprising number of journals recommend the active voice in their instructions for authors, including Nature. And the reluctant scientist on my course? I saw her for a follow-up class a couple of months later and her writing had improved immeasurably, largely because she was now thinking clearly and writing short, clear sentences. Most importantly, she was taking pride in her writing and even starting to think of publishing her work. It had been a day well spent. Jack can help you improve your team’s technical writing. Call us on  +44 (0)1273 732 888 for a chat to explore how.