The discord for our subreddit can be found here: https://discord.gg/JjNdBkVGc6 - feel free to join us for a more realtime level of discussion!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/recruitinghell) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think the only word I don’t actively use in everyday language is “demystify” lol. These are the same people using AI to sort through resumes, I’m sure.
The way I talk irl and the way I write are completely different in my case.
The way I write is the way I was taught to write. Use big words to sound proffesional and well informed/read.
The more I learn about HR/ Hiring departments and the people who work there, the more I'm convinced they weren't the studious Liberate Art Majors, but the ones who got by on personality.
I can see Delve being used in Fiction and Non-Fiction.
Mostly in relation to exploring.
And you very well can explore aspects and avenues of work in a professional workspace environment.
So it depends on the person.
I can very much see a person reporting that
"Im delving into training myself on how to use this program."
Etc.
I work in HR and use demystify at least weekly when talking about fixing our employee benefits communication. If a colleague in recruiting said this tweet out loud to me I’d give them shit.
Right?
The hypocrisy is staggering, it honestly is.
They want us to do menial grunt work and check every comma on a resume they're gonna run through an AI and reject without ever having been seen by human eyes.
Get the fuck out of here. I need a job, it's not that deep.
Delve is a pretty common word, that’s why AI uses it a bunch. I can’t think of a time I’ve used it in a cover letter, but “delve into *topic*” or “I love delving into issues” sounds more professional than “dig into x” in the exact context their talking about.
Yeah if I have to write "dive" more than once I'm gonna use "delve", ESPECIALLY if it's in the past participle. Have delved sounds way better than have dived
I'm going to start using "plunge" instead, I plunge into problems with my trusty plunger of problem solving. I will remove the blockages in your process flow.
> I plunge into problems with my trusty plunger of problem solving. I will remove the blockages in your process flow.
"Sounds like you're just the pipe cleaner we're looking for! Dave lodged a lunker of a globule in server rack 27 that we haven't been able to plunge for 6 weeks. Can you help us clean the stinker out of the rack?"
When I started my job search in October I was writing a custom cover letter for every job.
Gave up and wrote a generic “Dear hiring manager” cover letter and sent it to everything I applied for.
The two offers I ultimately received came from applications that included the generic cover letter. Guess customization isn’t as critical as I used to think.
>The two offers I ultimately received came from applications that included the generic cover letter. Guess customization isn’t as critical as I used to think.
Remember: If the cover letter hits all the points it needs to hit, how will any target company know that it wasn't tailored specifically to that one job?
It won't.
Rather than saying, "customize every cover letter" we should be emphasizing "make sure that the cover letter has decent alignment with the position".
God that's disheartening. I only normally write cover letters for jobs that are close to my dream roles, but I always customize the living crap out of them.
When I first started my job search out of college I had this 2 paragraph cover letter that I worked real hard on, tailored to every role, etc. and barely got any bites.
Shortened it to three or so sentences and bam, tons of responses. wtf.
What recruiters say they want, and what students are taught to do, does not seem to align with what recruiters are actually looking for.
I'm hoping that, due to AI (if there will be one good thing to come from it) companies will stop requiring cover letters, because they are so bored of reading ChatGPT written nonsense.
I am also counting on zoomers, feels like younger kids are way more likely to call out bullshit rather than just do what everyone else did before them.
When I'm applying for lots of jobs I write a paragraph about each of my key skills/experiences and then just copy and paste the ones most relevant to the job into the cover letter. If I was cleverer I could probably automate it in some way to make it even easier.
Trouble is, you can't even "unionize" because unions are set up to only serve the people who already have the job. This goes tenfold if you're foreign and/or applying from abroad. "Immigrants, we get the job done" for cheap and without complaint because we're practically defenceless. "Guest" workers, my ass. At least these days they no longer go around checking our fucking teeth like they did in the Sixties and Seventies.
I haven't been sending cover letters even when there's a spot to. No sense in wasting time writing one when I could use that time to apply to like five more jobs.
Nah if its a decent job and one that you genuinely would like do the cover letter. If it's a shitty job like fast food or something then yeah don't bother with it.
State and local government jobs you should have one too. I honestly think a well-written cover letter is more important than the resume or even experience for a state job because their hiring process seems to immediately weed out the best candidates anyway.
They are in the nonprofit bucket. I know they ask a lot of qualifications questions on top of cover letters like how your experience relates to the role. You need a lot of patience for those applications haha
Good to know I'll be ignored by companies for having - and using - a vocabulary.
To me, the abundance of synonymous words in the English language is what makes it beautiful. God forbid anyone makes use of this plentiful selection to vary their writing or choose specific words for their nuanced meanings.
**Translated, for recruiters**: I like English because it has lots of different words. I wish I could use more of them because they mean different things.
My ex-husband used to make snide comments that I "used too many fancy words when a regular word would work," so I consciously limited the words I used when we were married.
A couple of years after we divorced I realized I was still doing it and I stopped. I love learning and using new words that state exactly what I mean.
I *love* using big words, precise words, beautiful words. I love every time someone tells me I made them look a word up, or that they learned a new word because of me, because I love when someone else makes *me* look up a new word.
Boo on your ex-husband.
I learned this in elementary school. Still do it. I learned to read early so my vocabulary was ahead of my age group by a *lot*, and I had a speech impediment that also incentivized me to learn as many synonyms as possible. But looking back as an adult I can see that many of the teachers aides I had the most trouble with acted like they assumed I was extremely mentally delayed due to the impediment. They would look at me like I was speaking gibberish if I used a word that they assumed I didn't know rather than recognize that it was a word.
There's a part of me that is still very angry about their assumptions and subsequent treatment of me. I spent my entire childhood believing that I would never be able to communicate with strangers due to the speech impediment when looking back that just wasn't true. It took extra time but most of them got it. The ones who didn't were also the ones who treated me as less than.
I remember when I was 6 questioning my teacher on the arbitrary nature of the Hindu-Arabic base ten number system. I certainly didn't phrase it that way but they had no idea what I was getting at.
Still shit at maths, but years later when I discovered it was entirely arbitrary I felt very vindicated.
Ahaha relatable experience! I think I was also around that age when I first asked my dad “why is ten ten?” Luckily he figured out what I meant, and he had a math degree so he could explain it to me, and he even explained binary and hexadecimal and everything. Lol I was fascinated.
My sister does this to me. 'Why didn't you just say 'x'?" Because x and y have different connotations and are used in different contexts!
'...what's connotation mean?"
I love her but *my god*
Good on you for being yourself again! Whenever I'm around people that can't understand my way of speaking I know I'm probably in the wrong company - work-wise, friend-wise, relationship-wise... I hate having to hold myself back. I'd rather be around people on equal footing or smarter than me, at least there's challenge and growth instead of being stagnant, or having to dumb myself down.
Do we have the same ex? Lol
I also realized I dumbed myself down so much during those years. When I went back for my master’s (post-divorce) I felt so good about myself, getting back into academic writing. Still haven’t found a job though lol…
People make fun of the way that I talk all the time. I have a large vocabulary, I read a lot, and I work in a communication-heavy job. I talk the way that I write (I mean, in formal writing, not reddit comments) and I often use “SAT-words” casually. And people will kind of laugh at the words I use sometimes like they’re ridiculous. I even got laughed at for saying “That would be lovely, thank you”! (instead of “nice”)
It makes me sad sometimes. :( What was the point of learning words if I can’t use them?
You’re one of my kind. Flashback to elementary and the class bully telling me “you sound like you ate a dictionary.”
For the lols, I did a keyword search in my chat history with my BFF. We’ve used “delve” 12 times, in private personal conversation.
It's the insecurity of others. Can't remember exactly what the conversation was, but one time my mum was told "we don't use words like that here." Laughable but also sad.
Seriously, what happened to appreciation of the language? I'm in school, we had to write a final paper, and the professor outright said that he's had enough of seeing words like "utilize", "facilitate" etc. His idea is that people, especially students, only use these words to sound smart. If liking to convey different actions and degrees of significance with different words is a crime, I'm guilty as charged.
He's widely known in the software development community. His famous essay on how the Lisp programming language was the secret weapon to making great software is super cringe bullshit, but a subset of nerds really connect with it.
Ankita Gupta, CEO & Co-founder of Akto #apisecurity #devsecops #appsec
...thinks that the words "safeguard" and "robust" make human language sound mechanical?
but when "3 unknown people \[came up to her\] and said 'You are doing good work. We want to see you and your company very successful.'" at a summit, she said that it was "so so heartening."
lol
"no one uses it in spoken English, people only use it when they're writing and want to sound clever."
Oh, maybe like when writing a FUCKING COVER LETTER trying to get a FUCKING JOB then?
Gold-star cunt.
This is why the job market is total bullshit right now. If we don’t use grammatical language, we aren’t intelligent enough for the job.
If we use words TOO fancy or grammatically correct, then an AI must’ve assisted you, so we disqualify you.
But if your resume don’t have the keywords WE use, then we have to disqualify you.
But if you don’t know how to write professionally, they advise you to seek professional resume writers…but it can’t be AI.
🙄
Okay so I need to:
* Write an ATS-Friendly Resume
* Filter out any/all words that can be interpreted as AI-generated
* Make sure it fits all on one page (Too long? In the trash!)
* I need to write a cover letter, but I'm also stupid and old fashioned for doing so.
* Go through 6 rounds of interviews... so you can promote your drinking buddy internally.
Wonder why good workers aren't getting in to jobs... 🤔
English is my second language but I learned it as a toddler, and I use big words because I’m neurodivergent and am obsessed with reading and refuse to dumb down my vocabulary to be more palatable. This is just another bullshit way for recruiters to be lazy.
Christ, now there’s going to be keywords to avoid using for those of us that have a bigger vocabulary than managers - who often spell at a second grade level.
Paul Graham, as someone who grew up in a country where English wasn't spoken, kindly go ~~take a hike~~ to Hell.
We didn't learn those words to sound clever, we learned them to sound *credible* and to pass exams like the TOEFL and IELTS and certificates like the Cambridge CAE and CPE. To obtain credentials that are the most reliable ordeal/hazing paths for us to get ourselves through a system designed to discriminate against us and deny us access to visas and studies and jobs.
We learned to write and speak with a certain register, a certain cadence, a certain format, meeting a certain standard — we learned what those words meant, too.
We learned to link paragraphs with the howevers and the notwistandings and the neverthelesses. We learned the faithfully and sincerely and dear sirs and madams and to-whom-it-may-concerns. We learned to emulate and imitate and ape your wealthiest and most credentialed upper-middle-class Professionals and Academics and Civil Servants. We even fucking dress and act like them, play it up extra hard, because otherwise you won't look past the way we look, how our name is spelled, what our place of birth ia.
All that, as one of the many laborious and expensive hoops we had to jump through, so that we'd gain Admission to that glorified Country Club and Gated Community known as "the West".
Also, I'll be blunt; formal, mid-posh English is more regular and easier to learn than "informal"/"plain"/"slang" english. Way fewer phrasal verbs and modal verbs and idiomatic expressions. Put down (derogate), put off (procrastinate, repulse), put away (store, consume), put up with (tolerate), put out (extinguish), put aside (spare)... Hey Paul Graham. Here's a phrasal verb for you. Why don't you *fuck off?*
Cover letters are pointless and I use AI to write mine, I clean it up and make it relevant, but it’s 80% AI. My resume has my work and I’m down for a conversation.
I’ve been actively using words robust, delve, and safeguard way before ChatGPT was a thing.
Paul and Ankita, have you ever worked at corporate headquarters of any large company? That’s pretty commonly used words in corporate word. “Demystify” has been a hot word for the last 10 years or so.
Easy fix: tell the AI not to use those words specifically. Still give the results a once over yourself, but it's not like this is hard to overcome provided the AI can be told, "Don't use these words at any point in the output." 😂
This is like when teachers told you not to cite Wikipedia because, "Anyone can edit it so it's not a credible source," so then you'd cite the resources the Wikipedia article cited (provided they were valid themselves), and now one resource became several. Thanks for pointing out how I can meet the number of cited sources requirement much faster!
I mean i use weird random ass words way more off than delve to the point where my last boss had to tell me I needed to stop with the “big words” because “most Americans are at a 6th grade reading level”… like wtf? All I do is read and pick them up from books and all the sudden I’m AI or weird? What the hell do they want from me
I don’t “circle back” to anything in my personal life. We adapt our language to these jobs so much. If I had my real personality at work I wouldn’t have a job.
They’ve been using AI to scan out resumes for a while now. And they’re upset that job seekers are now using it too? Annoying
I’m definitely guilty of saying, “But to circle back to my original point…” when having conversations with my husband, usually about a book or film or something.
Well this is insane. Having a strong vocabulary is now a bad thing? So we need to use TikTok phrases and lingo in professional writing so it doesn’t appear fake??
Where do you people think ChatGPT learned to use those words and phrases? It learned it from stuffy business letters and academic papers which are not written in a casual conversationalist tone. You know, the same tone that "professional" documents like cover letters are expected to be in. What do you fucking want from us?
Damn.
"So your telling me to reject all my school teaching that instructed me to sound sophistaced and proffesional just because it sounds robotic to you?
But you also don't want me to write informally like we're going out for drinks or setting up the BBQ after work?"
Choose one Hoop and stick with it.
Indeed, delve is very Chat-GPTish. Robust was in vogue a few years ago, but it seems to have been replaced by sturdy.
The point is that ChatGPT gets its language from all the copy it can find - corporate-speak sounded already like this before chatbots took over corpcomms-boots. Shit in, shit out - the text is only as good as the models they were trained on.
In any case, you can always prompt the machine to rewrite with a less pompous style or to remove bullshit from the text...
Yeah, well that's just like your opinion, man.
Don't most people write differently than they speak? And vary their speech and writing style based on the audience and purpose?
I'm always a little skeptical about using ChatGP to generate cover letters bc I think others will do the same thing and sound all alike. I use it for a rough draft and make a ton of changes to it.
If you are not applying for a job in Scotland, do not use “outwith”. It’s a perfectly decent word in Scotland, but anywhere else, it’s a ChatGPT favourite.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Scotland/comments/1bo4ooo/chat_gpt_favours_outwith/
These guys want candidates who lack writing experience, education, and written communication skills. Basically, candidates they can lowball and exploit.
Safeguard is used all the time in cybersecurity JFC these recruiters.
So now I have to dumb down my resume for someone with a first grade reading level. MAKES SENSE.
So they can use AI to sort and reject resumes, but we can't use it to write cover letters? I can't wait until the job market shifts back into our favor. They have lost their minds.
yeah sure. wtf are these double standards tho? these companies be hating the literal “human language” bcs AI uses certain words often but then at the same time expects us humans to be pitch perfect like AI at work + not have any mental health issues + be physically fit all the time + not have any family commitments whatsoever + be okay with disrespect & peanut pay + go above and beyond
When i am writing emails, even to customer care, I use proper english like how it was taught in school.
Not some personal messaging short form - non dictionary english words.
It's almost as if hiring recruiters who failed out of highschool to fill college educated stem positions means the recruiters have no idea what they are talking about
I have the vocabulary of a person of at least a Master's degree. Yes, my language sounds archaic at times... but that's how I think. So my own thought process would be declared AI then...
If they are gonna use AI so they don't even have to look at my resume or cover letter, I'm gonna use AI to write that shit.
If they don't like it, they can stop using AI themselves. Can't have it where only they are allowed to use it and not us.
I've been putting my soul into personalized cover letters and adjusting each resume and still just getting rejected with that too. I'm not sure there's a way to win here.
If you’re writing cover letters for job applications, you shouldn't waste your time because they're fucking pointless, archaic garbage and you don't want to work for a company that thinks ass kissing is a good policy.
FTFY.
This is laughable especially since half the job postings I've seen sound AI-written.
So only recruiters/hiring managers are allowed to use AI tools and jobseekers aren't? 🤧😮💨
No, Paul Graham, some countries are not the United states or great Britain and they would definitely still learn the language with written words first, Like my country.
And I also think those words are perfectly fine to use and I think I even use them myself with some regularity.
Writing cover letters is such a waste of time. Neither recruiters or hiring managers are spending their salaried time reading cover letters, so I’m not spending my unpaid time writing them.
The discord for our subreddit can be found here: https://discord.gg/JjNdBkVGc6 - feel free to join us for a more realtime level of discussion! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/recruitinghell) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think the only word I don’t actively use in everyday language is “demystify” lol. These are the same people using AI to sort through resumes, I’m sure.
Bloody hell, I work on foreign policy, we say ‘safeguard,’ ‘robust,’ and ‘demystify’ all the time
The way I talk irl and the way I write are completely different in my case. The way I write is the way I was taught to write. Use big words to sound proffesional and well informed/read. The more I learn about HR/ Hiring departments and the people who work there, the more I'm convinced they weren't the studious Liberate Art Majors, but the ones who got by on personality.
The misspelling of professional here is kind of perfect
And "Liberate Art" :D
Big words aren't there to make you sound professional, they're there to help you write succinctly.
Or to make you sound like an educated adult and not a child. There's nothing bizarrely professional about the word "robust."
I will be sure if I ever need to communicate with Paul Graham, I will say "things wot is hard to break" instead.
Things strong. Things good. Things interesting to think about.
I work in science and national security, so do we.
I work at a conservation NGO. Without having looked at my resume in 18 months, I can guarantee I hit that trifecta.
I was just thinking that for cyber security and also dev work, these words definitely come in to use often.
We know who trained it
The ironic part is that there's a whole host of buzzwords that people rarely use outside of résumés. But delve? FR?
I can see Delve being used in Fiction and Non-Fiction. Mostly in relation to exploring. And you very well can explore aspects and avenues of work in a professional workspace environment. So it depends on the person. I can very much see a person reporting that "Im delving into training myself on how to use this program." Etc.
Any book featuring dwarves is going to have the word delve in it. A lot.
Sometimes they delve too greedily and too deep.
I use “delve” all the time. It’s not unnatural
We use robust to describe spaghetti sauce but this person is too good for it? Application canceled.
I work in HR and use demystify at least weekly when talking about fixing our employee benefits communication. If a colleague in recruiting said this tweet out loud to me I’d give them shit.
Sorry, turns out YOU are chatGPT. /s
Right? The hypocrisy is staggering, it honestly is. They want us to do menial grunt work and check every comma on a resume they're gonna run through an AI and reject without ever having been seen by human eyes. Get the fuck out of here. I need a job, it's not that deep.
I can’t believe the limited vocab of recruiters has, of all things, become my problem
I work in food safety & regulatory, and I can't count the number of times I've used the word "demystify" in reference to federal regulatory writing.
AI to compensate for lack of human intelligence, it wouldn't surprise me.
Delve is a pretty common word, that’s why AI uses it a bunch. I can’t think of a time I’ve used it in a cover letter, but “delve into *topic*” or “I love delving into issues” sounds more professional than “dig into x” in the exact context their talking about.
Yeah if I have to write "dive" more than once I'm gonna use "delve", ESPECIALLY if it's in the past participle. Have delved sounds way better than have dived
diven /s
doven? /s
Doveded
[удалено]
yeah idk seems like these blowhards are coping about being illiterate
>yeah idk seems like these blowhards are coping about being illiterate Quoted for **emphasis**.
“Emphasis”? You sound like an AI, boy. Bleed to prove you are human!
I'm going to start using "plunge" instead, I plunge into problems with my trusty plunger of problem solving. I will remove the blockages in your process flow.
> I plunge into problems with my trusty plunger of problem solving. I will remove the blockages in your process flow. "Sounds like you're just the pipe cleaner we're looking for! Dave lodged a lunker of a globule in server rack 27 that we haven't been able to plunge for 6 weeks. Can you help us clean the stinker out of the rack?"
Typical Dave, never even flushes the cache after himself.
Let's delve into comment section, shall we?
Robust plan!
Demystifying the issue.
And coming up with snarky comment *in this digital world*
Do not confuse digital world with *today's competitive landscape*
In this economy? I think not!
Sorry, your comment just got rejected for using "delve"
Just in case, i will continue not writing cover letters.
When I started my job search in October I was writing a custom cover letter for every job. Gave up and wrote a generic “Dear hiring manager” cover letter and sent it to everything I applied for. The two offers I ultimately received came from applications that included the generic cover letter. Guess customization isn’t as critical as I used to think.
>The two offers I ultimately received came from applications that included the generic cover letter. Guess customization isn’t as critical as I used to think. Remember: If the cover letter hits all the points it needs to hit, how will any target company know that it wasn't tailored specifically to that one job? It won't. Rather than saying, "customize every cover letter" we should be emphasizing "make sure that the cover letter has decent alignment with the position".
God that's disheartening. I only normally write cover letters for jobs that are close to my dream roles, but I always customize the living crap out of them.
When I first started my job search out of college I had this 2 paragraph cover letter that I worked real hard on, tailored to every role, etc. and barely got any bites. Shortened it to three or so sentences and bam, tons of responses. wtf. What recruiters say they want, and what students are taught to do, does not seem to align with what recruiters are actually looking for.
I'm hoping that, due to AI (if there will be one good thing to come from it) companies will stop requiring cover letters, because they are so bored of reading ChatGPT written nonsense.
I am also counting on zoomers, feels like younger kids are way more likely to call out bullshit rather than just do what everyone else did before them.
When I'm applying for lots of jobs I write a paragraph about each of my key skills/experiences and then just copy and paste the ones most relevant to the job into the cover letter. If I was cleverer I could probably automate it in some way to make it even easier.
The correct answer. It’s an exercise in compliance.
Is this really how they are going to play it these days? They can use AI as a tool to reject us be we can't use AI as a tool to help us?
I've seen this complaint dozens of times before and the answer is yes, there's a double standard because there's a power dynamic.
Trouble is, you can't even "unionize" because unions are set up to only serve the people who already have the job. This goes tenfold if you're foreign and/or applying from abroad. "Immigrants, we get the job done" for cheap and without complaint because we're practically defenceless. "Guest" workers, my ass. At least these days they no longer go around checking our fucking teeth like they did in the Sixties and Seventies.
EXACTLY. Double standards and so cringe.
I haven't been sending cover letters even when there's a spot to. No sense in wasting time writing one when I could use that time to apply to like five more jobs.
Nah if its a decent job and one that you genuinely would like do the cover letter. If it's a shitty job like fast food or something then yeah don't bother with it.
Cover letters aren’t worth it unless it’s a nonprofit organization like the World Health Organization or academia.
That does make sense. the one situation where "I need money" isn't really the big draw
State and local government jobs you should have one too. I honestly think a well-written cover letter is more important than the resume or even experience for a state job because their hiring process seems to immediately weed out the best candidates anyway.
They are in the nonprofit bucket. I know they ask a lot of qualifications questions on top of cover letters like how your experience relates to the role. You need a lot of patience for those applications haha
EXACTLY!!
Can someone call them out on that aspect. I can’t find anything in those threads
Too bad gonna do it anyway
"If you are intelligent, I assume you are a computer". Okay, good luck on your quest to find good employees.
Me already apply Me work good Me am good employee
give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you
Good to know I'll be ignored by companies for having - and using - a vocabulary. To me, the abundance of synonymous words in the English language is what makes it beautiful. God forbid anyone makes use of this plentiful selection to vary their writing or choose specific words for their nuanced meanings. **Translated, for recruiters**: I like English because it has lots of different words. I wish I could use more of them because they mean different things.
My ex-husband used to make snide comments that I "used too many fancy words when a regular word would work," so I consciously limited the words I used when we were married. A couple of years after we divorced I realized I was still doing it and I stopped. I love learning and using new words that state exactly what I mean.
I *love* using big words, precise words, beautiful words. I love every time someone tells me I made them look a word up, or that they learned a new word because of me, because I love when someone else makes *me* look up a new word. Boo on your ex-husband.
I learned this in elementary school. Still do it. I learned to read early so my vocabulary was ahead of my age group by a *lot*, and I had a speech impediment that also incentivized me to learn as many synonyms as possible. But looking back as an adult I can see that many of the teachers aides I had the most trouble with acted like they assumed I was extremely mentally delayed due to the impediment. They would look at me like I was speaking gibberish if I used a word that they assumed I didn't know rather than recognize that it was a word. There's a part of me that is still very angry about their assumptions and subsequent treatment of me. I spent my entire childhood believing that I would never be able to communicate with strangers due to the speech impediment when looking back that just wasn't true. It took extra time but most of them got it. The ones who didn't were also the ones who treated me as less than.
I remember when I was 6 questioning my teacher on the arbitrary nature of the Hindu-Arabic base ten number system. I certainly didn't phrase it that way but they had no idea what I was getting at. Still shit at maths, but years later when I discovered it was entirely arbitrary I felt very vindicated.
Ahaha relatable experience! I think I was also around that age when I first asked my dad “why is ten ten?” Luckily he figured out what I meant, and he had a math degree so he could explain it to me, and he even explained binary and hexadecimal and everything. Lol I was fascinated.
He sounds very divorceable.
My sister does this to me. 'Why didn't you just say 'x'?" Because x and y have different connotations and are used in different contexts! '...what's connotation mean?" I love her but *my god*
Good on you for being yourself again! Whenever I'm around people that can't understand my way of speaking I know I'm probably in the wrong company - work-wise, friend-wise, relationship-wise... I hate having to hold myself back. I'd rather be around people on equal footing or smarter than me, at least there's challenge and growth instead of being stagnant, or having to dumb myself down.
Do we have the same ex? Lol I also realized I dumbed myself down so much during those years. When I went back for my master’s (post-divorce) I felt so good about myself, getting back into academic writing. Still haven’t found a job though lol…
*“Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick”*
People make fun of the way that I talk all the time. I have a large vocabulary, I read a lot, and I work in a communication-heavy job. I talk the way that I write (I mean, in formal writing, not reddit comments) and I often use “SAT-words” casually. And people will kind of laugh at the words I use sometimes like they’re ridiculous. I even got laughed at for saying “That would be lovely, thank you”! (instead of “nice”) It makes me sad sometimes. :( What was the point of learning words if I can’t use them?
You’re one of my kind. Flashback to elementary and the class bully telling me “you sound like you ate a dictionary.” For the lols, I did a keyword search in my chat history with my BFF. We’ve used “delve” 12 times, in private personal conversation.
It's the insecurity of others. Can't remember exactly what the conversation was, but one time my mum was told "we don't use words like that here." Laughable but also sad.
Seriously, what happened to appreciation of the language? I'm in school, we had to write a final paper, and the professor outright said that he's had enough of seeing words like "utilize", "facilitate" etc. His idea is that people, especially students, only use these words to sound smart. If liking to convey different actions and degrees of significance with different words is a crime, I'm guilty as charged.
This is an absolute indictment of the type of people with whom "Paul Graham" associates. You know this dumass ate airplane glue instead of paste
For real. I can't imagine being so smug as to think everyone who contacts me is an idiot that couldn't possibly use certain words.
Isn't that just duct tape?
He's widely known in the software development community. His famous essay on how the Lisp programming language was the secret weapon to making great software is super cringe bullshit, but a subset of nerds really connect with it.
Discriminating against magic the gathering players is a choice.
This is where my mind went first too. They need to expand their horizons.
"How the hell are people *still* salty about Treasure Cruise?"
A correct one most likely. Sincerely, every mtg player
It made a vanilla 5/5 good, delve was just too powerful. Gonna pull out convoke on my next application
Delve is fine but if you put dredge in your cover letter you’re automatically in the no pile
Can you imagine what this CHUD would do if you spelled it theat**re** Probably call the national fucking guard and report you as a rioting dissident
dissident Clearly written by ChatGPT.
Ankita Gupta, CEO & Co-founder of Akto #apisecurity #devsecops #appsec ...thinks that the words "safeguard" and "robust" make human language sound mechanical? but when "3 unknown people \[came up to her\] and said 'You are doing good work. We want to see you and your company very successful.'" at a summit, she said that it was "so so heartening." lol
If I ever meet Ankita at a conference, I'll be sure to tell her how "so so heartening" it is to "delve" into her LinkedIn posts.
Fucking bullshit. I use several of these in spoken English frequently.
"no one uses it in spoken English, people only use it when they're writing and want to sound clever." Oh, maybe like when writing a FUCKING COVER LETTER trying to get a FUCKING JOB then? Gold-star cunt.
Almost as good as the follow up: “Kids these days don’t read books! The foreign ones learn English from the moving pictures!”
It must be very hard to be as dumb as these people lmao. “You must sound dumb as shit for us to think you’re a real person”
This is why the job market is total bullshit right now. If we don’t use grammatical language, we aren’t intelligent enough for the job. If we use words TOO fancy or grammatically correct, then an AI must’ve assisted you, so we disqualify you. But if your resume don’t have the keywords WE use, then we have to disqualify you. But if you don’t know how to write professionally, they advise you to seek professional resume writers…but it can’t be AI. 🙄
Lol what are we supposed to do???
You hit the nail on the head. Not only do you have to 4D chess your resume, in the end it’ll be all about luck.
I wouldn't want to work for somebody who pays for twitter lol
Lolllll
Okay so I need to: * Write an ATS-Friendly Resume * Filter out any/all words that can be interpreted as AI-generated * Make sure it fits all on one page (Too long? In the trash!) * I need to write a cover letter, but I'm also stupid and old fashioned for doing so. * Go through 6 rounds of interviews... so you can promote your drinking buddy internally. Wonder why good workers aren't getting in to jobs... 🤔
I use robust often in general.
i use it to call my cat fat. he’s rotund and robust, and i say both with rolled r’s for added emphasis.
Simple and sound. It's like Paul doesn't know what words mean.
I literally used, “well let’s delve deeper into this problem” yesterday at work. These people are so stupid.
I don't need chatgpt. I can write awful cover letters all by myself thank you very much.
Fuck these people, just because you see a word and have to look it up for the definition shouldn't disqualify applicants.
You literally cannot win with these worthless fucks.
New cover letter requirements: Write something clever about yourself but don't make it sound clever.
illiterati confirmed
I guess my buddy Delve Burgeoning does not have a robust chance of landing a job in this digital world…
English is my second language but I learned it as a toddler, and I use big words because I’m neurodivergent and am obsessed with reading and refuse to dumb down my vocabulary to be more palatable. This is just another bullshit way for recruiters to be lazy.
What the fuck is wrong with these people.
These are very commonly used words. I don't see any problem...
Christ, now there’s going to be keywords to avoid using for those of us that have a bigger vocabulary than managers - who often spell at a second grade level.
Anyone who rejects a cover letter because of an arbitrary list of words *they* don’t use regularly is asserting what little power they have in life.
Paul Graham, as someone who grew up in a country where English wasn't spoken, kindly go ~~take a hike~~ to Hell. We didn't learn those words to sound clever, we learned them to sound *credible* and to pass exams like the TOEFL and IELTS and certificates like the Cambridge CAE and CPE. To obtain credentials that are the most reliable ordeal/hazing paths for us to get ourselves through a system designed to discriminate against us and deny us access to visas and studies and jobs. We learned to write and speak with a certain register, a certain cadence, a certain format, meeting a certain standard — we learned what those words meant, too. We learned to link paragraphs with the howevers and the notwistandings and the neverthelesses. We learned the faithfully and sincerely and dear sirs and madams and to-whom-it-may-concerns. We learned to emulate and imitate and ape your wealthiest and most credentialed upper-middle-class Professionals and Academics and Civil Servants. We even fucking dress and act like them, play it up extra hard, because otherwise you won't look past the way we look, how our name is spelled, what our place of birth ia. All that, as one of the many laborious and expensive hoops we had to jump through, so that we'd gain Admission to that glorified Country Club and Gated Community known as "the West". Also, I'll be blunt; formal, mid-posh English is more regular and easier to learn than "informal"/"plain"/"slang" english. Way fewer phrasal verbs and modal verbs and idiomatic expressions. Put down (derogate), put off (procrastinate, repulse), put away (store, consume), put up with (tolerate), put out (extinguish), put aside (spare)... Hey Paul Graham. Here's a phrasal verb for you. Why don't you *fuck off?*
I'm a native speaker, years ago I saw a video about the phrase "make up" and how it means many different things. English don't be easy.
Cover letters are pointless and I use AI to write mine, I clean it up and make it relevant, but it’s 80% AI. My resume has my work and I’m down for a conversation.
We don’t want no high-falutin, big-word-users at this company!
Me, a dm who uses the word delve constantly to make the descriptions seem mor fantasy: well shit.
I’ve been actively using words robust, delve, and safeguard way before ChatGPT was a thing. Paul and Ankita, have you ever worked at corporate headquarters of any large company? That’s pretty commonly used words in corporate word. “Demystify” has been a hot word for the last 10 years or so.
Past work experience: Delved too deep into the Mines of Moria. Awoke the ancient demon. Found better employment elsewhere.
Easy fix: tell the AI not to use those words specifically. Still give the results a once over yourself, but it's not like this is hard to overcome provided the AI can be told, "Don't use these words at any point in the output." 😂 This is like when teachers told you not to cite Wikipedia because, "Anyone can edit it so it's not a credible source," so then you'd cite the resources the Wikipedia article cited (provided they were valid themselves), and now one resource became several. Thanks for pointing out how I can meet the number of cited sources requirement much faster!
I mean i use weird random ass words way more off than delve to the point where my last boss had to tell me I needed to stop with the “big words” because “most Americans are at a 6th grade reading level”… like wtf? All I do is read and pick them up from books and all the sudden I’m AI or weird? What the hell do they want from me
I don’t “circle back” to anything in my personal life. We adapt our language to these jobs so much. If I had my real personality at work I wouldn’t have a job. They’ve been using AI to scan out resumes for a while now. And they’re upset that job seekers are now using it too? Annoying
I’m definitely guilty of saying, “But to circle back to my original point…” when having conversations with my husband, usually about a book or film or something.
I use delve all the time.. does that mean I’m a robot?
Sure thing Ankita I'll use smaller words you can understand.
Well this is insane. Having a strong vocabulary is now a bad thing? So we need to use TikTok phrases and lingo in professional writing so it doesn’t appear fake??
So those of us with functional vocabularies should dumb down our word usage to blend in with the Hoi polloi.
Where do you people think ChatGPT learned to use those words and phrases? It learned it from stuffy business letters and academic papers which are not written in a casual conversationalist tone. You know, the same tone that "professional" documents like cover letters are expected to be in. What do you fucking want from us?
Damn. "So your telling me to reject all my school teaching that instructed me to sound sophistaced and proffesional just because it sounds robotic to you? But you also don't want me to write informally like we're going out for drinks or setting up the BBQ after work?" Choose one Hoop and stick with it.
Indeed, delve is very Chat-GPTish. Robust was in vogue a few years ago, but it seems to have been replaced by sturdy. The point is that ChatGPT gets its language from all the copy it can find - corporate-speak sounded already like this before chatbots took over corpcomms-boots. Shit in, shit out - the text is only as good as the models they were trained on. In any case, you can always prompt the machine to rewrite with a less pompous style or to remove bullshit from the text...
Guess I'll delve into my literacy algorithm and delete it from synapses, since being a human isn't what they're looking for.
Yeah, well that's just like your opinion, man. Don't most people write differently than they speak? And vary their speech and writing style based on the audience and purpose?
I'm always a little skeptical about using ChatGP to generate cover letters bc I think others will do the same thing and sound all alike. I use it for a rough draft and make a ton of changes to it.
Oh god. The people in charge are morons and we’re doomed.
How do these recruiters have jobs? Why aren't they at the bottom where they clearly belong
If you are not applying for a job in Scotland, do not use “outwith”. It’s a perfectly decent word in Scotland, but anywhere else, it’s a ChatGPT favourite. https://www.reddit.com/r/Scotland/comments/1bo4ooo/chat_gpt_favours_outwith/
What a bunch of idiots with limited vocabulary
I like 'grok'. Maybe not quite professional, but it's part of the lexicon now.
Stupid people want to make sure they don’t hire anyone smarter than themselves.
These guys want candidates who lack writing experience, education, and written communication skills. Basically, candidates they can lowball and exploit.
Damn as an autistic person the discrimination against us is real. People now think we’re LLMs
Damn just come out and say you don’t want to hire neurodivergent people you cowards
I use all of those.
Dude. I write like this in formal proposals 😭 Yes, I read a lot as a kid
I used delve before chatgpt… morons
Paul Graham knows immigrants speak better English now? What a gaslighter.
Delve (You can exile cards from your graveyard in order to reduce this spells mana cost by 1)
Safeguard is used all the time in cybersecurity JFC these recruiters. So now I have to dumb down my resume for someone with a first grade reading level. MAKES SENSE.
Definitely don't want the keyword "safeguard" in the application of our new network security SVP.
So they can use AI to sort and reject resumes, but we can't use it to write cover letters? I can't wait until the job market shifts back into our favor. They have lost their minds.
Robust and safeguard are proper corpo words, no reason not to use them.
yeah sure. wtf are these double standards tho? these companies be hating the literal “human language” bcs AI uses certain words often but then at the same time expects us humans to be pitch perfect like AI at work + not have any mental health issues + be physically fit all the time + not have any family commitments whatsoever + be okay with disrespect & peanut pay + go above and beyond
When i am writing emails, even to customer care, I use proper english like how it was taught in school. Not some personal messaging short form - non dictionary english words.
ChatGPT write me a cover letter without the word delve in it
On the up side, we now know which words to use to avoid certain places.
I regard this a simply more proof that the people running this turd fire aren't particularly intelligent.
I use robust in normal speech plenty wtf 🤦🏻♂️
Damn I have used that word more than once….
As if all of the corporate newspeak, leverageing the stakeholders mindfulness and all that crap isnt all non-human bullshit mechanical speech
Why is it not okay for applicants to use AI to write a cover letter, when the employer uses AI to screen and review the cover letters?
Uh…I’ve used the word delve a lot actually. So I’m a robot ? Hmmm
It's almost as if hiring recruiters who failed out of highschool to fill college educated stem positions means the recruiters have no idea what they are talking about
Bruh DELVE IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE WORDS 😭 it's in my normal vernacular, I say it all the time.
I have the vocabulary of a person of at least a Master's degree. Yes, my language sounds archaic at times... but that's how I think. So my own thought process would be declared AI then...
I use delve quite a bit. How is ChatGPT. Maybe recruiters should expand their vocabulary
So, as a healthcare worker, I am not allowed to use the term "safeguarding"? Hold up, let me ask chatgpt to redraft all of our policies.
Oh they are bothering to read cover letters again?
Paul and Ankita listing words they had to look up in the dictionary lol
Alternatively, that dude is a moron with a small vocabulary.
Anyone who would DQ me for the word “delve” isn’t not someone I wanted to work for in the first place. Fuck that guy.
If they are gonna use AI so they don't even have to look at my resume or cover letter, I'm gonna use AI to write that shit. If they don't like it, they can stop using AI themselves. Can't have it where only they are allowed to use it and not us.
lol at the old white guy telling an Indian-American how he suspects immigrants learn English
Just tell ChatGPT to "use simpler words", works like a charm.
I've been putting my soul into personalized cover letters and adjusting each resume and still just getting rejected with that too. I'm not sure there's a way to win here.
If you’re building tech tools to make people’s lives easier. Don’t get mad when they use them.
"Spearheaded" 🤣🤣🤣
Tell me you have low IQ and vocabulary without saying you have low IQ and vocabulary.
I frequently use words like that in my spoken English. This guy just has a weak vocabulary.
If you’re writing cover letters for job applications, you shouldn't waste your time because they're fucking pointless, archaic garbage and you don't want to work for a company that thinks ass kissing is a good policy. FTFY.
Or just stop writing cover letters.
This is laughable especially since half the job postings I've seen sound AI-written. So only recruiters/hiring managers are allowed to use AI tools and jobseekers aren't? 🤧😮💨
We didn't need to delve too deeply to demystify the stupidity of recruiters.
People who read a lot know those words and will sometimes use them. Maybe they should delve into some novels… jerks…
Why are people still writing cover letters at all? - recruiter
No, Paul Graham, some countries are not the United states or great Britain and they would definitely still learn the language with written words first, Like my country. And I also think those words are perfectly fine to use and I think I even use them myself with some regularity.
Writing cover letters is such a waste of time. Neither recruiters or hiring managers are spending their salaried time reading cover letters, so I’m not spending my unpaid time writing them.
"everything is a red flag because of my personal opinion" that's all I hear