Limited Language Recruiting and the Art of Haiku

tpfccdlfdtte pcaccplircdt dklpcfrp?qeiq lhpqlipqeodf gpwafopwprti izxndkiqpkii krirrifcapnc dxkdciqcafmd vkfpcadf.

Need a hint? It’s a Twitter recruiting message.

Another? It’s a simple (they tell me) substitution cipher.

Give up? Don’t care? Clearly you are not NSA material. (That would be the National Security Agency.) The agency may have its problems keeping its secrets secret, but the clever recruiters there sure know how to use Twitter.

That gibberish at the top of this post was tweeted out May 5. It wasn’t long before the crypto-addicts had figured out the message: “Want to know what it takes to work at NSA? Check back each Monday in May as we explore careers essential to protecting our nation.”

Explained NSA spokeswoman Marci Green Miller, “NSA is known as the code makers and code breakers.” The tweet is “part of our recruitment efforts to attract the best and the brightest.”

Those of you whose idea of Twitter recruiting is tweeting your open jobs, don’t you feel just a wee bit humbled?

Jobs In Haiku

Speaking of short form, have you considered haiku job ads? Over on RecruitingBlogs, recruiter, consultant, and self-described “Pipeline Populating Magician,” Steve Levy started an outpouring of 3-line creativity by offering up a collection of haiku about job descriptions, ATS, Big Data, LinkedIn, and a few others.

Here’s his job description haiku:

The Title screams –
Yes, a Software Developer
Does code…really?

Jerry Albright, a search firm owner and recruiter, took issue with Levy’s haiku structure (which only offers further evidence of why a liberal arts education is necessary for recruiting). Albright then penned this:

Just made a placement

In my Spiderman PJ’s

Now back to Facebook

Go read the rest for yourself.

Jobs in No Words

For the final chapter today in our limited language recruiting tutorial, I bring you “Employment Agency Sketch,” in which you see how to communicate with and understand a non-verbal job applicant.