Jargon in ads for jobs

 

Jargon should be avoided in speeches and in advertisements for jobs. At Canva.com there is an undated article titled The Jargon of Jobs that likely is from June 2021. I saw it referred to by Ellen Gutoskey at Mental Floss on June 9, 2021 in an article titled The most distinctive business jargon used in each state. It also was discussed by Tonje Odegard on June 22, 2021 in two articles at College Recruiter: one titled Part 1: How prevalent is jargon in graduate job adverts? and another titled Part 2: The problem with jargon in graduate job ads and why you should avoid using it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The above bar chart shows the states where the most jargon was used in job ads. Washington (343) was first, California (339) was second, Colorado (321) was third, Utah (316) was fourth, and Idaho (302) was fifth, just above three-way tie (301) by Delaware, Massachusetts, and Oregon.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Canva article has a US map labeled with jargon for each state, which I have converted into the second bar chart shown above with abbreviations for all 50 states. Peel the Onion was the bizspeak phrase used by 8 states, Make Hay by 7 states; 4 states each used Action Oriented and Cloud First, 3 states each used Drill Down, Granulation, and Lased Focused. The most salacious term was Open the Kimono (used in both North Carolina and New Jersey).  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A third bar chart shows the most common terms in job ads for the US. Based on occurrence per thousand ads, the Top Five are Team Player (77), Dynamic (69), Self Starter (38), Empower (37), and Proactive (30).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A fourth bar chart shows the most common terms in job ads for the UK. Based on occurrence per thousand ads, the Top Five are Team Player (147), Dynamic (134), Proactive (104), Proven Track Record (70), and Person Specification (56). There are large differences between the US and the UK.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A fifth bar chart shows the Top Ten industries using jargon terms in the US. The top five are Information technology (604), Marketing (575), Finance and business (406), Human resources (299), and Media (240).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A sixth bar chart shows the Top Ten industries using jargon terms in the UK. The top five are Politics (908), Human resources (736), Real estate (626), Finance and business (562), and Information technology (359). There again are large differences between the US and the UK.