In today's frenetic job search world, you need to keep on your toes. Here are some job description buzz-words and what they really mean:
Flattened hierarchy = the head of the company will yell at you directly. Everyone will be able to tell you what to do.
Dynamic = chaotic and poorly planned
Energetic = you're going to work lots of overtime
Self-starter = we expect you to figure it out
Fast-paced = our sales people will give you work on the same day as the deadline
Organizational skills = do you own filing and don't screw anything up
Effective time management = Must work fast. Fast!
Customer service experience = sales people will pawn off their customers to you for the tricky questions
Monitor status of site functions = watch the servers crash, then reboot them
Provide updates to internal stakeholders in the event of site problems = explain it to non-techs without making the IT department look bad.
Optimize and maintain database infrastructure = Our last guy had an epic fail at database administration.
Develop and maintain technical documentation = Our last guy never put anything into the intranet Wiki
Manage the daily activities and performance of the IT staff = We don't think our IT staff are doing anything with their time.
Develop and enact corrective actions to address performance related issues = Plan how we can fire our deadbeat IT works, now that the Canadian dollar has tanked and we stupidly moved our manufacturing offshore when we were financially viable in the long term.
Ensure a proper succession plan is in place = Figure out who does what, so that when you need to fire them, you hand their tasks down to the next schmoe.
Serve as the single point of contact for vendor relationships = The non-techie manager who was doing this job got confused about mHz vs. gHz when he signed off on a contract
Expert knowledge of XML and XSL = The last guy said this stuff was cool, but we still can't figure it out
Comfortable working in different OS platforms =
Option A. The guy with a Mac refused to trade to a PC.
Option B. Linux sucks as a desktop OS, so our users are still using XP, except for the sales manager who upgraded to Vista-- he's having problems opening PDFs-- can you help?
Flattened hierarchy = the head of the company will yell at you directly. Everyone will be able to tell you what to do.
Dynamic = chaotic and poorly planned
Energetic = you're going to work lots of overtime
Self-starter = we expect you to figure it out
Fast-paced = our sales people will give you work on the same day as the deadline
Organizational skills = do you own filing and don't screw anything up
Effective time management = Must work fast. Fast!
Customer service experience = sales people will pawn off their customers to you for the tricky questions
Monitor status of site functions = watch the servers crash, then reboot them
Provide updates to internal stakeholders in the event of site problems = explain it to non-techs without making the IT department look bad.
Optimize and maintain database infrastructure = Our last guy had an epic fail at database administration.
Develop and maintain technical documentation = Our last guy never put anything into the intranet Wiki
Manage the daily activities and performance of the IT staff = We don't think our IT staff are doing anything with their time.
Develop and enact corrective actions to address performance related issues = Plan how we can fire our deadbeat IT works, now that the Canadian dollar has tanked and we stupidly moved our manufacturing offshore when we were financially viable in the long term.
Ensure a proper succession plan is in place = Figure out who does what, so that when you need to fire them, you hand their tasks down to the next schmoe.
Serve as the single point of contact for vendor relationships = The non-techie manager who was doing this job got confused about mHz vs. gHz when he signed off on a contract
Expert knowledge of XML and XSL = The last guy said this stuff was cool, but we still can't figure it out
Comfortable working in different OS platforms =
Option A. The guy with a Mac refused to trade to a PC.
Option B. Linux sucks as a desktop OS, so our users are still using XP, except for the sales manager who upgraded to Vista-- he's having problems opening PDFs-- can you help?
Comments