Are Job Postings Too Authoritarian?

Take a close look at job postings these days and you’ll find a whole lot of paternalism. Most brim with such opening phrases as "You will be responsible for …" or "You will be required to …." The message is clear. If you want this position, you will do as you’re told. The tone and words of these statements take the average job seeker right back to the days of being admonished to wash their hands before meals and to put their napkin in their laps. If that’s the kind of employees your organization wants to hire -- obedient youngsters who will do as they’re told -- then, by all means, it should continue with such parent-like postings.

If you want to hire people who will think on their feet, who will be creative and innovative in their work performance, then you will have to write a very different kind of posting. What would it look like? A recent survey by the New York Times may give us a clue.

The poll queried almost 1,200 people in July asking them about their values and goals in life. Its findings paint an oddly divergent portrait of today’s employee. The respondents felt pretty good about themselves, but were much less sanguine about others. Look at their responses:

The study’s author, Andrew J. Cherlin, a professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University, considers two causes for this strange bifurcation in people’s world view. The first is that people see society as a much less pleasant place than the subset of the whole which they inhabit. Call this the "grass is greener on my side of the street" perspective. It suggests that most people think they’re just fine, but the rest of us are a bunch of selfish, self-centered jerks.

The other possible cause, according to Mr. Cherlin, is that these decidedly unneighborly views are really the result of people projecting anxieties they secretly harbor about themselves onto their fellow citizens. In other words, we’re less than thrilled about the values and behavior we see in our own lives. We’d never admit it to anyone else, but we’re not very proud of how we act -- at least part of the time. I’ll call this the "use whatever chemicals it takes to make my grass greener than the neighbor’s and don’t worry about the runoff into their yard" view.

Although these outlooks appear to be substantially different, they actually share a common underlying dynamic: one’s self image and sense of self worth are determined by comparing our status to that of others. As long as our yard is greener than the other guy’s, we can feel good about ourselves, however relative that superiority may be. It’s a classically adolescent perspective. As teenagers, we fretted about how we were viewed by our peers, and did whatever it took to be popular. We measured ourselves against others. Thankfully, it was a stage of development that most of us grow out of.

Except at work. Within the workplace, employers have crafted an environment of perpetual adolescence. Just look at those job postings. They describe work in authoritarian tones. They focus on telling prospective employees what they must do, how they must perform, what is expected of them. Most of today’s job postings have the look and feel of a parental lecture and evoke about as much enthusiasm from potential candidates.

Imagine a job posting that didn’t wag its finger in the face of job seekers. Imagine a job posting that spoke to what people want from their work, not what employers need to get the job done. Such a posting would have a very different look and feel from that of most employment ads in cyberspace. Why? Because it would be a message addressed to adults. It would relate the open position to their aspirations, not their obligations. It would describe the opportunities for growth and accomplishment the job offers, not its requirements. And best of all, it would show candidates how working in that job would enable them to achieve their personal best.

I think that was the true message of the survey. It listed 15 values and asked people to identify which were most significant. According to 97% of the respondents, the most important value was "Being responsible for your own actions." People are hungry to do something that’s important to them, and they’re more than willing to be held accountable for that effort. But it’s up to the organization to figure out how to connect that application of their talent to its bottom line. Most job seekers today have a more personal motivation. According to the survey, they yearn for opportunities to express their skills and knowledge, to push their limits, to be better at what they do. They want to do something with intrinsic value, accomplish something that represents the pinnacle of their capabilities. They don’t want to grow grass that’s greener than the other guy’s -- they want to grow the greenest grass they can. And be proud of that achievement.

A job posting with that simple proposition would be both extraordinary and wonderfully alluring to the adults who read it.