Most of the time, recruiters and HR reps either aren’t given much to work with or don’t know much about impressing potential candidates during initial phone screens. The conversation often goes something like this:
Screener: So, uh are you actually a person?
Interviewee: Yes, I’m real.
Screener: Cool, so you have done some work?
Interviewee: Yes, the background on my résumé is legit.
Screener: Awesome, awesome. Well we are a great place to work … flexible … you know, people that are so accomplished … work hard of course, we don’t sit around … play hard too … great quality of life, access to the outdoors … open door policy … fast paced work … everyone is so passionate … doing exciting things … make the world a better place … we really only hire the best people after all… blah, blah, blah.

Normally, marketing professionals like to emphasize unique value propositions to potential clients and customers. What’s happened here is the screener is trying to sell the company using a long list of common non-differentiators. It’s akin to a car salesman pointing out that the vehicle comes with a horn, a bag of dark chocolate bon-bons, four tires, and the seatbelts have unicorn stickers. In other words, nothing of any substance. Features that should be givens, or inconsequential features that most shoppers don’t care about.

Nonsense.

Nobody really cares about how your organization:
has such a collaborative vibe
hires the best people
has the most accomplished leadership team
is in a prime location for recreational activities
offers exciting challenges
offers highly competitive salaries
is a fast-paced environment
has the best culture
offers the greatest benefits
has an open door policy
has a dynamic workplace
is looking for rock stars

Nobody really cares about how your workers:
work hard and play hard
are the smartest people
are great multi-taskers
love working together
are so passionate about the work
want to make the world a better place

These are claims made by recruiters for just about every company with which one may ever connect. Many of these are unquantifiable judgements that can be neither proven nor disproven. Their meaning is excruciatingly vague. There’s not a single unique or compelling factor on this list. Some are silly; most should be a given.

Saying “we only hire the best” just makes you sound pretty foolish. Every company says and believes this. So if every company is only staffed by the best, then everyone is the best, and therefore no one is. The difficulty of qualifying the statement makes it vacuous. What you are actually trying to do is hire the right people for you. So say that, and then prove it by paying attention to your interview process.

Consider the phrase “fast-paced environment”. By what metric is it fast? As opposed to what? Who decided how that is measured? Does the pace fluctuate? How much does the fastest pace differ from the average pace? At what interval are pace measurements taken? Who dictates the pace? Most of these non-differentiators are similarly absurd.

Well, you may think, there’s no harm in trying to accentuate the positive. Possibly. But you should give equal consideration to the idea you might be wrong. The more you emphasize common non-differentiators, the sooner a candidate comes to the realization that there must be nothing really good about your organization at all.