To think that job descriptions / advertisements are terrifying!

[AlwaysSomethingThere]

You MUST do this, you MUST have that, you WILL be this, you WILL do that.

Lighthearted, but they scare the shit out of me before I've even finished reading them!

Me too, it's pointless. Some of the specs I see could be 20k or 80k, they are so vague - they may say "you will be responsible for organising the company's widget seminars".

But does that mean doing the email mail merge to a list you've been given and then booking the refreshments for an existing format that's been done for years already?

Or writing a brand new seminar programme from scratch, sourcing expert speakers, deciding on who should be invited, working out and managing the budget for it, holding sole responsibility for P&L on the event/s etc etc?

It's a good test of a recruitment agent to ask them questions like this.

It's important to distinguish between "essential" criteria and "desirable" criteria.

Do yourself a favour and set out clearly how you meet each of the essentials - and if you don't, explain the extent to which you do (eg 3 years exp instead of 6) and what you are prepared to learn to fill the gaps and what else you can contribute that's related.

Makes the selection panel's job MUCH easier - which helps you get that interview,.

I'm quite senior in my industry now and get really hacked off when job ads are massively over-written - effectively describing an entry-level role as though it was being pitched at my level, followed by the ever-irritating clause 'competitive salary'.

Ergo, when mid/seniors apply, HR have the time-wasting and slightly embarrassing job of telling them what the job actually entails, which wastes everybody's time.

'Competitive salary' really is the single most annoying phrase in modern recruitment. TBH, I now generally don't bother applying for anything that doesn't state a salary band now, as most of the time anything else is shorthand for 'as little as we think we can get away with paying you, but we're too embarrassed to say'.

It's also an excellent indicator of employers who know nothing of the role they're attempting to recruit for and haven't bothered to do any industry research.

(That turned into a much longer rant than I intended when I started replying...)

Yes, yes about being terrified to apply for your own job - my department are looking for new people, I saw the advert and had to ask what the job was because it sounded nothing like what I do. It turns out it is what I do, but if that had been the ad I'd originally seen I wouldn't have dared to apply!

‘Competitive salary’ has come to teaching, alongside academies (teaching traditionally had a formulaic pay scale so you knew exactly what you’d earn almost anywhere). I saw a really interesting looking job that was a step up, my job but across a number of schools, the opportunity to create policy and systems for an academy chain in response to new legislation.
I finally managed to drag out of them they wanted to pay me less than I was getting for doing the job in one school. A small school. That had a very very tight governing body when it came to salaries.

@SarahSissions The not disclosing salary thing really winds me up.

I had an MD of a company contact me on LinkedIn, she was interested in my expert and in talking to me about a job she had, we agreed to meet for an informal chat over coffee. At the end, she said she thought I would be a great fit and asked if I could come to her local office the a few days later for a formal interview, meet the team and to see the offices, she also asked me to do a short presentation. I agreed and broached the subject of remuneration, she said if the job is agreeable for me that we'd "work that out, not a problem", she knows how much the going salary for the level of job is etc.

She loved my presentation, the team liked me so she then asks me to travel 50 miles, to her office in London the following week, to meet her directors for an interview and to share my presentation with them too.

I caught the train to London. The interview went great. She called me that night, gushing about how much they all agreed to offer me the job.

I broach money again and it turns out we are £10k apart in the maximum she'd pay and the minimum I'd work for!!

She wasn't happy that I didn't consider the office closing over Christmas on top of annual leave to be a deal-maker in leiu of ten grand!

Waste of everyone's time. Lesson well and truly learned by me and hopefully by her.