I am not Thinking that Word is Meaning what You are Thinking it Means

[Geek King]

So I've been on the job hunt while working some contract jobs through some contracting agencies. The contractor I work for now sent me to an interview that might lead to a permanent position doing desktop support at a factory that makes U-bolts. Everything sounds good, job is described as mostly break/fix work. Right up my alley.

I go to the interview. Answer some questions for both the HR guy and the fellow who currently does the IT work. Things go fairly well for a first meeting, and the interview lasts almost an hour. A couple of days later, I hear back from the recruiter that I didn't get the position. Well, shoot. I asked if they had any feedback, and was told they said I wasn't proactive enough.

Um, you described the job as almost purely REactive. Maybe I should have offered to go break things when work was slow that day?

[Pixelated]

I hate it when you try to follow the job description in the ad, and then get told they wanted you to do something else.

Sorry this happened to you. Hope something better comes along quickly.

[Food Lady]

That's kind of the situation in my new job. The ad said basic customer service but what they really want is account managers. I'm being told our team is doing too much for our callers (send it to the back office, they tell us) but honestly their workload is too much so we just fix a lot of things ourselves instead. Our own boss is fine with that but she's been out a couple of days and the other managers are giving us grief. I read the latest round of hiring ads and they still don't give a good picture of what the job actually is...

[Captain Neon]

In my experience, the worst communicators are the ones that think they communicate well. They know what the job does, and while the description isn't much like the job at all, the author believes that he has summarized the essence of the position.

When it comes to feedback, I think a lot of people just make stuff up. They claim to want someone with more experience, but then hire the 22 y/o buxom brunette recent college cheerleader that came to the interview wearing a miniskirt. She can barely write a sentence, and doesn't know what HACCP is, but somehow she has more experience.

I have an acquaintance that her whole career can be summed up with "1st Runner-up Miss Alabama." When she stops being the cutest girl interviewed, one hopes that she will have developed enough skills that they can't find a way to fire her.

[mjr]

I read the latest round of hiring ads and they still don't give a good picture of what the job actually is...

Because they probably don't know.

[Food Lady]

Because they probably don't know.

Truth. The system is doing so many crazy things that no one really knows what we're going to have to do from week to week.