招聘广告背后的小秘密

    多任务处理。神经科学告诉我们，人类大脑实际上并不能成功地同时处理多项任务。尝试同步完成不同的任务，每项工作的表现和效率都会降低。弗莱明说：“多任务处理完全违背现实。他们想说的是‘我们可能在事先不告知你的情况下调整你的工作职责，我们希望你对此没有意见。’”乌尔里克表示，员工可能需要能很快判断各项任务的轻重缓急，确定哪一项任务是最重要的。

    积极主动。“它的意思是，‘当我们没有给你任何方向的时候，我们希望你能从无形中找到方向’，”弗莱明如此解释说。“主动性意味着‘你能否承担模糊且缺乏方向性的工作？’”

    注重结果以及自我激励。“它真正的意思是他们想找的人应具有惊人的动力，通常暗指那些有提成的销售岗位，”纽约职业咨询和培训公司Stratus Careers的创始人兼首席执行官肖恩•奥康纳说。

    初创阶段或风投支持，这类词汇用来描述已经获得风投资本家支持的初创公司当然合情合理，但搞清楚它们背后的潜台词很重要。乌尔里克解释道：它们的意思是，“这里没有多少资源；你可能挣不了太多钱；我们希望你能为公司上市或投资者的成功退出而努力工作。”。

    有创业经验。同样地，任何描述为“创业职位”的招聘广告都要求求职者必须乐于接受老板指派的任何任务。奥康纳表示：“这项工作肯定不适合那些希望明确划分职责的人，也不适合那些连自己办公桌都不愿清理的人。”

    拥有“打破常规”解决问题的创造力。如果你喜欢开拓创新，可以试着回复一下那些提到“创造力”、 “解决问题的能力”和“打破常规”思维方式的招聘广告。“这句套话的意思是我们自己都还没有想明白，”乌尔里克说。

    当然，这些套话也有可能会出现在你心仪的招聘广告中。明白了它们的潜台词就能更好地判断这项工作是否适合你。而且，不要指望招聘广告中的套话会很快消失。

    “招聘广告满是套话，就跟发胖食品中加糖是一个道理，因为它会让人感觉良好，”弗莱明说。“招聘广告中说这份工作举足轻重、责任重大，多少会让人有些飘飘然。”

    译者：老榆木

    Multitask. Neuroscience tells us it's actually impossible for the human brain to multitask successfully. By trying simultaneously to complete different tasks, we reduce our performance and effectiveness at each individual job. "Multitasking is an utter violation of reality. What they're trying to say is, 'We may switch up your job description without telling you and we want you to be okay with it,' " Fleming says. You'll need to be able to quickly prioritize initiatives and figure out which competing task is the most important, Ullrich says.

    Self-starter. "It's saying, 'When we don't give you any sense of direction, we want you to pull it out of thin air,'" interprets Fleming. "Self starter is a code phrase for, 'Can you make ambivalence and lack of direction work?' "

    Results-oriented or self-motivated. "What this really means is that they want someone with incredible drive, often used to opaquely reference sales positions where you will have to work to make commission," says Shawn O'Connor, founder and chief executive officer of Stratus Careers, a career counseling and training firm based in New York.

    Early-stage or venture-backed. While these phrases legitimately describe startups backed by venture capitalists, it's important to understand the subtext. "There aren't a lot of resources; you may not get paid a lot; and we hope you're going to work for that Holy Grail of going public or some successful exit," Ullrich translates.

    Experience in an entrepreneurial setting. Similarly, any job ad that describes an "entrepreneurial position" will demand a willingness to do whatever task needs to be done from the person who takes the gig. "This job is definitely not the right fit for someone who wants clearly delineated responsibilities or doesn't want to have to take out his own trash from his desk," says O'Connor.

    Creativity for "out of the box" solutions. If you relish charting your own course, respond to the job ads that reference creativity, problem solving and "out of the box" thinking. "That's jargon for: we don't have it figured out yet," Ullrich says.

    To be sure, any one of these phrases might appear in an ad for a position that you'd happily fill. But when you understand the hidden meaning, you'll be in a better position to decide whether the tradeoffs that come with this job make sense for you. And don't expect the jargon to disappear from help wanted ads any time soon.

    "Job ads are full of jargon for the same reason sugar is part of good fattening food: it feels good," Fleming says. "There's a little bit of a high when you say the job you're looking for has impact and has a bandwidth that's powerful."