When recruiting UXers' remember this: their minds don't work like other people's

Okay a quick one this time, and a familiar theme, just because it's too wordy to put out as a normal post. Recruiters and Hiring Managers, in the spirit of giving (and with tongue firmly in cheek), I hope you'll find this useful.

I’m becoming more and more convinced that UXers’ brains are just wired differently to other people’s, especially when it comes job adverts. Maybe we’re more cynical or maybe we just over-analyse everything (it is in our nature, after all), but after checking in with some peers and connections on my network I think this is a fairly accurate model of how we react to cut-and-paste job adverts.

What the adverts says: Offering a competitive salary

What a UX asks: Competing with who or what, exactly?

What the adverts says: You'll have budget control

What a UX asks: But not the setting of that budget, right?

What the adverts says: Guerrilla testing a must

What a UX sees: We have no testing facilities or in-depth customer research capability

What the adverts says: Mid-weight to Lead UX

What a UX sees: Mid-weight or a Lead who is prepared to work for mid-weight money

What the adverts says: Heavy-weight UX with strategic planning and process creation experience

What a UX asks: We're looking for a Principal or Head of, but we're not sure of who or what is a Senior, a Lead, a Principal or what any more. (To be fair you have my sympathy on this one).

What the adverts says: Mostly remote 

What a UX sees: Not remote

What the adverts says: There will be a design test

What a UX sees: We like free UI design work

What the adverts says: Must have <insert software here> experience

What a UX sees: This is basically a UI job with prototyping

What the adverts says: Works under own initiative

What a UX sees: Our line management is non-existent or ineffective

What the adverts says: Stakeholder management skills

What a UX sees: We have really stroppy stakeholders!

What the adverts says: Advanced stakeholder management skills

What a UX sees: You'll need to know when to shut up and just get on with it

What the adverts says: Knowledge of Agile

What a UX sees: Must know how to cut corners and hit arbitrary deadlines

What the adverts says: Must be able to hit the ground running

What a UX sees: Oh hell, we’ve just remembered we need UX and the project is about to start!

What the adverts says: Immediate start

What a UX sees: We really didn’t plan ahead and/or our last UX just quit

What the adverts says: Agency experience preferred

What a UX sees: Lots of work but must work faster and cheaper than client-side

What the adverts says: UX Unicorn or Ninja or Rockstar

What a UX sees: We read a lot of comics growing up and really like buzzwords from a decade ago

What the adverts says: Must be able to wireframe and produce user journeys and personas

What a UX asks: We're still cutting and pasting from job adverts from the turn of the century

and finally

Recruiters and Hiring Managers, if you're guilty of any of these you might want to reword your adverts just a tad to make reading between the lines just a little more unnecessary. Sorry, we're a difficult lot and tend to look at problems from every angle, it's not you it's us, but... we're not going to change so you might want to avoid the cut-and-paste unless you want a cut-and-paste candidate as well.

Anymore, anyone?