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.

The Five Most Important Things

Translated from Ralf Junge'es blog entry "Die fünf wichtigsten Dinge"

What if your company´s employées come to work each day with a bright smile and are embracing their job because it gives them the feeling of accomplishment and fulfills them? - Unrealistic! Yer, I thought so, too.

Lately I have looked more intensively into the subject of Corporate Culture and Leadership and I came upon this interesting book named  "The Big Five for Life" by John Strelecky. If you did read his book, you wouldn't find the intial question of mine less unrealistic as it appears. More likely it is a question of the Coporate Culture after all. 

Strelecky describes a leadership principle which aims to accomplish a balance between personal aims of Life and Job - these aims are the "Big Five". The idea goes back to having Safaris in Africa which are only titled successful when the five infamous animals of the wild were really seen - Lion, Leopard, Rhino, Elephant and Buffalo. As there are also the five most important things man has on his personal bucket list. The accomplishment of those are ones own benchmark for success and realization. The Big Five serve the compliance of the "Purpose for Existing (PE)" which every person and company should define in the first place. The better the employée's PE fits to the company's the higher the likelihood of a long and fulfilling employer-employée-relationship for both parties. 

For that matter a Corporate Culture has to develop in which well qualified people are hired who will have receive the freedom to figure out how to work successfully - again for both sides.

As written in the book, talented "people don't need somebody monitoring their behavior."  They don't work that well because they are monitored, but because they can identify themselves with their work and like their job.

When recruting new employées already, Human Resources Decider have keep an eye on the matter if the preferred candidate fits to the Corporate Culture, not if the candidate fits the profile of the vacant position in each detail. If employées find fulfillment and accomplishment in their Job, the risk of psychological diseases such as Burn-Out Syndrome is reduced and more energy and creativity is put in as effordt by the employée.

Nothing hinders a project more than a person who has the wrong job or is notoriously unhappy.   

„The Big Five for Life“  is a very interesting book which certainly contents some impulses and much food for thought in regard to the own Corporate Culture and ones own Leadership. It nudges to question a few things - the own way to work, leadership and certainly the own path to self-realization.

RJ