My palms are currently adhering to the underside of a mahogany conference table… I find myself staring at a dust mote dancing in a shaft of light, wondering if that speck of debris has a clearer sense of its career trajectory than the executives sitting in front of me.
I lean forward and ask the question that usually ends the honeymoon phase of any recruitment cycle: ‘What does the actual, day-to-day work for this position look like on a Tuesday afternoon?’
The Void of Function
The silence that follows lasts exactly 13 seconds. They have a vision, sure. They have KPIs that look like they were generated by a neural network trained exclusively on Dilbert comics. But they don’t have a job. They aren’t hiring a contributor; they are hiring a sacrificial lamb to toss into the gears of a machine they no longer know how to operate.
This is the Great Corporate Delusion. We spend 53 hours a week drafting job descriptions that are essentially Frankenstein’s monsters of contradictory desires. We want a ‘visionary’ who also enjoys ‘meticulous data entry.’
The Chemist’s Precision vs. The Corporate Spaghetti
Take my friend Parker P., for instance. Parker is a sunscreen formulator. His life is defined by the rigid, uncompromising reality of chemical interactions. He understands that for a product to work, every single element must have a specific, non-negotiable function.
Chemical Requirements vs. Hypothetical Role Demands (Analogy)
Yet, in the world of white-collar employment, we operate with the precision of a toddler throwing spaghetti at a velvet curtain. We are reporting to problems, not to people.
“
I was told my role was ‘pivotal for the digital transformation’ of a mid-sized firm. By day 3, I realized ‘digital transformation’ was their code for ‘the CEO doesn’t know how to turn his Excel spreadsheets into PDFs.’
– Experience Recalled
The Construction Analogy: Foundation First
When a homeowner decides to renovate, they don’t just say, ‘I need some stuff for the floor.’ They realize that a kitchen requires a different durability than a bedroom. For example, when choosing the right materials, they might consult with experts like DOMICAL to ensure that the foundation they are laying is actually suited for the weight it will carry.
We buy the ‘flooring’ of human capital before we even know if we’re building a kitchen or a bathroom. Then we act surprised when the wood rots or the tile cracks under the wrong kind of pressure.
Clarity is a mercy that most corporations are too cowardly to afford.
To define the tasks is to define the limits of the role, and modern management hates limits. They want you to be a shapeshifter who can fill any hole that opens up in their leaky boat. But a shapeshifter has no core. Eventually, they just become the water they are trying to keep out.
The Preservation Factor (Parker P.)
If you don’t preserve the integrity of the role with clear boundaries and understood tasks, the person you hire will spoil. Their enthusiasm will curdle into cynicism within 123 days.
The Honesty of the Need
I think back to that commercial I watched this morning. The reason it made me cry wasn’t just the sentimental music or the soft lighting. It was the clarity of the need. The grandmother needed to see her grandson. The technology provided the bridge. There was no ambiguity.
💡
Honest Ask
“Fix this broken process because we lack expertise.”
🚫
Frankenstein JD
“We need a visionary disruptor for synergy.”
Instead, we hide behind the ‘Frankenstein job description.’ We pretend that we are looking for a ‘partner’ when we are actually looking for a servant.
The Final Stance
Does the vacancy exist because work needs doing, or because you fear the silence?