Positions vacant ad gives job seekers a bum steer

WOULD you perform “anal” two days a week to kick start a career? That is what an unfortunately truncated job title appears to be asking.

Whatever you say, boss!

WOULD you perform “anal” two days a week to kick start a career in financial planning?

That is what an unfortunately truncated job title advertised on federal government’s JobSearch website appears to be asking potential employees.

The job advert seeks an “Administration Support Financial Planning And Anal — Melbourne”. Thankfully, for what sounds like a rather uncomfortable position, it only asks the successful applicant to perform such duties two days a week to gain industry experience and kickstart their career.

Ironically for an ad that includes such a massive communications gaffe, it also demands job seekers have “a strong attention to detail and correct spelling and grammar”.

Recruiter Kate Grob from Savvy Staffing, who posted the original advert for an “Administration Support (Financial Planning)” position, says she is baffled at how the job description got so skewed.

“This has never happened to me before,” Grob told news.com.au.

“It’s my job but I don’t know where ‘anal’ came from. I didn’t even include the word ‘analysis’ in original job ad.

“It’s not even in Melbourne. The job is in Newcastle.

“And I didn’t post it on the Australia JobSearch website.

“Career Hub, the website that the TAFEs and universities use, that’s what I advertise on.

“I don’t know whether somebody’s reposted it or not?

“I don’t know how they got the ad unless it goes automatically from the University of Newcastle to JobSearch.”

How the original job ad appeared on Career Hub.

A bemused Grob said she was debating completely removing the original advert.

“When I put the ad up, once its accepted you can’t edit it,” she said.

Australian JobSearch took down the ad this afternoon, but the position description was still on Career One’s website.

“It’s clearly been misrepresented by Career One, in terms on the job title and the location,’’ she said.

Tavistock Town Council in the UK fell victim to a similar gaffe in one of its job advert earlier this year when one of their positions was described as a “general hand job vacancy”.

The position actual only required the successful applicant to set up and dismantle events for the Town Hall and local market and attend to cleaning duties and minor maintenance duties.

Job seekers interested in applying for the Administration Support position, can read the original job description, which does not include any “anal”, at careerhub.newcastle.edu.au.

A Career One spokesman said the ad appeared correctly on careerone.com.au but had been truncated when it was pulled over to JobSearch.

Originally published as Positions vacant ad gives job seekers a bum steer