At last count, Yahoo had at least 300 vice presidents, and in that group, there must be a lot of generic titles. None of them can be as bad (and/or funny) as the position that Google’s trying to fill, however: “Director of Other.”
What would this Director do? Well, we wish we could say, but Google’s only allowing us to guess by a process of elimination. “At Google, in order to grow through innovation, we spend 70 percent of our time on the core business, 20 percent on related projects, and 10 percent on new and unrelated businesses which we call ‘Other,’” states a job description.
Even a list of responsibilities and requirements amounts to unhelpful corporate-speak; one blurb – “Bachelor’s degree within technical discipline required; advanced technical degree desired” – might be a clue, but that’s probably something that could get tacked onto all of Google’s job postings.
With a hat tip to Megan McCarthy, we’ll note that the job-hunt process is, in and of itself, usually difficult enough; it’s odd that Google’s personnel team would make it harder by writing up such vague advertisements. Maybe, just maybe, they’re trying not to repeat Microsoft’s mistake of mentioning unannounced projects.
But whatever the explanation behind this, Google’s Director of Other is likely to start his (or her) new job by being confused and looking silly.
