I see these sort of crazy ads all the time. Usually It something along the lines of:

Hiring junior designer with 3-5 year experience. Must know print publication and be capable interface designer. Know Adobe CS3, Dreamweaver, Flash, Cold Fusion, Java, Javascript, XHTML, CSS. Be willing to work nights and weekends and kiss no-name art director’s ass because he paid a $500 entry fee for an award from a free monthly design publication. Your one interesting client will be a local Shakespeare company that can only afford two-color printing.

Pays $35,000

I’ve seen ads like that, too! I’ve also seen an increase in absurdly long job descriptions that seem to encompass several full-time positions, then finish with something like “This position is part time. Limited benefits include employee id and discounted parking.”

It’s the economy, right? Why else would a company want their graphic designer to do their accounting?

Saying ’Quark’ instead of ’XPress’ is a pet peeve of mine. That stood out more than any of the other typos.

James...went to a web conference this weekend where I was on a panel discussion where that very topic came up. It’s a VERY strange trend in the web world. We concluded that there’s just one stock job description for every web related gig so that you should just ignore it and apply for the job anyways.

I saw one last week that asked for proficiency in Ndesign. It only paid $12.50 an hour and was asking for 3 to 5 years experience.

>Saying ’Quark’ instead of ’XPress’ is a pet peeve of mine.

The typo sticks because Quark is a one-trick-pony.

I just went back and found it and it was even funnier than I remembered. Nice space bar usage.

“•Experience with Adobe suite of products such as N design, also , Acrobat, Freehand; Quark, Express; Microsoft Office and related software”

Who left their tag open? Tsk tsk.

Sorry, with the edit function off I can’t fix it.

James...

Perhaps a moderator can do their business.

Cheers, Si

Fixed. :^)

Yay! Thanks!

Most people I know refer to Quark as Quark, not XPress.

Most people are WRONG. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG! ;o)

I also cringe when people say “Adobe” but mean “PDF”.

Same with “Internet” when they mean “My Web Browser”.

I also cringe when people say “Adobe” but mean “PDF”.

I find that they usually say Acrobat instead of pdf. I got into an argument with an author who kept asking me for acrobat files. I sent her pdfs, for some reason she couldn’t open them (I downsaved them to like v4) and she’d email me again asking for the acrobat file.

That said, Quark has entered the vernacular as the name for that application. If you tell someone you work in XPress you will get a blank stare. Deal with it!

And now I need to stop playing around on the interwebs and get to work. It’s a series of tubes!

I applied for, and got, a job in 1987 that required 5 years experience on a Macintosh computer. At that time only the original seven (I think) guys who invented the Mac would have qualified.

What they really wanted was more than 5 years experience on a computer, with some Mac experience. I qualified.

As for the first posting, don’t blame the advertisers. Newspapers paying $6 an hour for classified ad takers (no spelling skills required if you work for cheap) and no more proofreaders mean that errors like this are common.

Point taken, Don, but these ads weren’t in a newspaper. They were online, on websites with no “classified ad taker” to be a creative speller. Sadly, it’s ignorant (or illiterate) employers.

Macintosh wasn’t released by Apple until 1984, so technically that requirement was impossible. But, had I not been 17 years old, I may have qualified for that job! My dad was a salesman and worked for Apple when I was a kid - in 1980, dad brought home an Apple II Plus for his study. I learned to write a little program that drew a happy face on the monitor. When I was 13, Dad got an Apple IIe, but I think I fell in love with Rick Springfield that year and the computer lost it’s appeal.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen XPress spelled “Express” or “Xpress” in ads. My guess is that these ads are dictated to someone who doesn’t use the applications and hence does not know the proper spelling or capitalization... But even then, I would expect the ads to be proofread before being posted!

Quarque Expresse. “The last time I called it was printed ’Pagemaker with photoshop for low paced environment’. “Yes, we are accepting reusmés and hopefully in couple of weeks we decide”... On many occasions it is sign related but that is “Corel”.

> Macintosh wasn’t released by Apple until 1984, so technically that requirement was impossible.

Actually, I usually mention when I tell that story that the only people who would have qualified were the eight or so members of the Macintosh development team.