A good friend of mine showed me a job vacancy of a multinational site for the function of online content creator. There was something remarkable about it. Next to the usual technical and other skills one would expect the ideal candidate to possess, the adjective “humble” was also included.
Now, I would be the first to genuinely welcome humbleness as a virtue given its potential on today’s mostly ego-driven workplaces.
I would also readily go for the inevitable jokes that this word in the specific context is bound to bring up in the minds of anyone that has been through a couple of job interviews before: unspoken lines such as “I am indeed very proud of my humbleness”; “I am the most humble person I know” etc.
Apart from the predictable reactions, however, I believe that the specific mention signals something more than a clearly communicated profile characteristic. It indicates the completion of a paradigm shift from the last golden era for job applicants (the good ol’ times of the dot-com bubble) to the current post-financial-crisis reality.
Pre-crisis Internet content (and not only) venues aimed with their vacancies more for the “ambitious”, “independent” folks with a strong character and a clear idea of how things work. These were expected to work individually, unattended and take the right initiatives when working under stress, a stress envisioned as being more of a challenge than something to passively accept and subdue to.
Don’t get me wrong: the big egos are still here and they are still very much wanted: “an established online presence”, “an expert in their field” (read: some thousands of followers) appear to be assets that can help when negotiating in a job market where clicks are valued more than the words that generate them.
But these are just two sides of the same coin: both the self-made content guru whose face is shown on the first page as well as the young starter that humbly and without complaint steadily reaches absurd daily quotas in treadmill CMS entries next to a million other tasks.
There is one thing that these two have in common: the post-crisis Internet content venue has not invested and will not invest a penny in them; nothing next to the agreed price-per-piece, price-per-view or (in rare cases) monthly salary. “Invest” not in the exotic and long-gone notion of “educating your personnel” but not even in paying them for some time to align themselves to the company strategy, to do their research, their homework.
It is not necessary: the strategy is already there and it’s all and only about maximizing clicks and profits no matter what. For this, the content guru just needs to do what she already does, being offered in return a platform that increases her market reach and thus value, plus the employment tag that distinguishes her from the amateurs struggling to climb up the social media ladder. Not only you don’t need to change these people, you actually shouldn’t: they have their own office, their own phone/laptop, their own habits, their own manners. You don’t need to know about any of these, since -when the inevitable time comes for the guru to jump to a bigger venue, her successor will be fully equipped on their own and in their own way.
The strategy for maximum clicks/profit at the minimum of costs is already there for the humble content editor as well, who will submissively start producing from day number one, without ever complaining on the lack of instructions, lack of resources, lack of sense. Because, at the end of the day, if you don’t lack any or all these things, what the need for humbleness?
Eventually, the paradigm shift I am trying to describe is the best expressed in the sentence with which the same friend that showed me the vacancy concluded our discussion:
“I am Greek, born in 1980: I am born to be humble”
Unfortunately, she did not let me credit her by name for this genius quote which would actually make the perfect cover letter line for this specific position, if only it would not shamelessly (and not humbly) reveal its and therefore the applicant’s brilliance.
“Telling the truth is the least humble of tasks, my dear. You are rejected.”
I guess she would not let me credit her, because she is too humble for it, right?
