(Bad) job opportunities

A Web designer announcement

The candidate should perfectly know Dreamweaver, Flash, CSS, AJAX, Photoshop, Illustrator, 3D Modeling.

He should also know very well PHP, MySQL, ASP.

He should be able to work under pressure and cooperate with colleagues.

He should be no more than 35 years old.

We offer good salary.

Does it look familiar to you?

I picked an average announcement around my activities to show what’s wrong with it. It is actually a bad job position though it doesn’t look like. Obviously the one who wrote it has no idea about Web design and he also needs to refresh his grammar skills. The words “perfectly” and “very well” can’t reveal what’s on his mind.

First of all, this announcement covers at least two different positions. To come up to the expectations a candidate should have abandoned sleeping by the day he became 20. Since then he should try to prepare such a salad of requirements.

Why? Because the perfect usage of Photoshop for example is something that very few people can do. If someone is a Photoshop guru and he also is a Flash expert then we are talking about a phenomenon. How much he should gain per month? €3000? Sounds like a good salary indeed. So if you find this employee don’t worry about pressure and cooperation.

Two more things: What 3D Modeling has to do Web design? I don’t know. Furthermore, Dreamweaver is just a tool. There are dozens of tools which do the same. So if you find someone who has no idea of Dreamweaver but he knows HTML would you reject him?

Beyond what is required, such an announcement suffers from what it doesn’t require. If someone really wants a good Web designer, he should also care about Information design, Usability, Accessibility, SEO, Web Standards and Semantics. Unless he really cares for an Indiana Jones of IT.

Last but not least, a job position includes more than technical abilities. How about judgement, rationale, logic, organization etc? How about opportunities for personal development via certain ways e.g. conferences?

I won’t try to reveal what is hidden behind such announcements, about the people who compose them or their companies. And I won’t talk about what is really meant behind the “We offer good salary” context. I ‘d rather see the clumsy and funny side of such “opportunities” which certainly prevails over the serious one.