Job-Ads from the other side

Last month, being on XING, I noticed a fun written job-ad by BFFT, a (not so well known to me) automotive engineering company. The Job-Ad was for a an Internship in Personnel Marketing who obviously belonged to the Pinky and Brain Generation. It sounded truely like fun to me, however, it was "just" an Internship. For career starters of three years working experience for instance, such ads appear disappointing. 

Nevertheless, this kind of ad actually made me think about why a probably not young staffed company would start or at least try to speak the language of current all age 17-25...

Three days later I came across the job-ad by Lululemon seeking for a new CEO on Hawai'i. Businessweek wrote about it. Now this company is surely no nine day wonder. In fact Lululemon is a grant success in regards to Yoga-Fashion.

Companies trying to speak the "young ones language" is okay. However it has to walk the same talk as the corporate culture does! Having a frumpy or very old-fashioned corporate culture does not make you morally eligable to display a wrong image of a younger company on job-ads. After all, Job-Ads are the first thing that intrigues potential employees to apply for the job. The only acception is a total image change has happened, which is usually only done when the company is in trouble or merged with another firm.

Lululemon did it right tho. And boy, that ad went offline quickly, too. Their somewhat healthconscious hippy target group naturally speaks as the ad did. And if the company is supposed to be lead just as it was or as easy-going" as before it is surely right and fun to portrait such image via job-ad. If you need a CEO to be a firefighting leader, however, employers should reconsider the language in their job-ads. Especially when you write the ad all fun, but you are a stick-in-the-mud company, things are going to be a waste of time for both sides. 

Dearest companies, please, act accordingly - or like the old Hawai'ian would say: ho'opono.