This was one of the many phrases I came across recently while dissecting job descriptions, and after the fifth or sixth time I found a similarly vague and buzzword laden line item, the only thing I could think was “someone has too much time on their hands”.

The individual who sits around combining phrases [...]]]>

“Synergistic Implementation Abilities”

This was one of the many phrases I came across recently while dissecting job descriptions, and after the fifth or sixth time I found a similarly vague and buzzword laden line item, the only thing I could think was “someone has too much time on their hands”.

The individual who sits around combining phrases to make the job seem more complicated than it actually is has done no one a favor, including the Human Resources and Recruiting folks that have to fill those positions.  Give me real skill sets. I speak engineering, programming, retail management, training, OD and all facets of human resources and I couldn’t translate this one into anything reasonable.

So I suppose that meant they should be looking for someone who speaks “buzzword” as their second language.

Let’s drill down:

Synergism: the interaction of elements that when combined produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual elements, contributions, etc. (synergistic: pertaining to, characteristic of, or resembling synergism) – there are also medical related and theological definitions, which have no bearing on the industry or position in question.

So we want candidates who possess the ability to implement programs where the total outcome is greater than the sum of its parts. What we have here is a buzzword to cloak a cliché.

No kidding.

Instead of recycling the words from the medical, theological  or legal industries to support the needs of some business professionals to sound more intelligent, lets recycle the mindset that we need fifty cent words to communicate. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t intend to bifurcate the conversation, nor is it my goal to be disingenuous in my critique of this confounding obfuscation of organizational development.  (Hattip to Laurie, I couldn’t resist)

Perhaps with unlimited space in our website job listings, we’ve gotten “wordy”.

However, that line item simply had no business in the skill set. It didn’t mean anything. Someone needed a third for their list.

Common Sense can kill the buzzword. It doesn’t need to be fancy, it needs to be real.

Share your examples of nightmare wording, or buzzwords you‘d like to see tossed in the bin.