[PragmaticPulp]

From the hiring side of the table, I can tell you that we're not simply looking for over-eager candidates who are brimming with enthusiasm. We're looking for someone professional who can get the job done without being a pain to work with.

You don't have to show up with exaggerated, faked interested in the company or industry. In fact, it can come off as very fake if a candidate shows up and pretends they're supernaturally excited to work in our industry that they just learned about 2 days prior.

However, you can't expect to show up to a job interview and ooze disinterest and boredom and still be considered for the job.

Don't think of it as getting excited to work for a company. Think about it as getting to know your potential future coworkers. If you need to become emotionally invested in a company before applying, I'd strongly recommend that you work on breaking that habit before it makes your job search artificially difficult.

[leto_ii]

What people think they're looking for and what they're actually selecting for can be two different things.

Often the interview process is based on an expectation that, for example, you will exaggerate your previous achievements. Every past project you describe has to sound amazing, your cv has to seem like a carefully thought out career path that will culminate in the final fulfillment of some great life goal.

You can't just say that you took some job for the money or just to be in the same town as your girlfriend etc., you have to pretend it was some significant step on a path. Otherwise you sound like you're unmotivated, not serious about your career etc.

[eropple]

IME: you absolutely can say those things, and still get a job. They're often not even negatives. They just can't be all of the things you say.

My resume is, if you just look at it, not a "great" one. But it's good enough to get in the door, and then it's not really relevant anymore because we're then having a conversation about how I can bring value to the organization.

[itronitron]

The same goes for job postings. If the position description is gushing with enthusiasm over how exciting the company is to work for then that is a red flag in my book.

[PragmaticPulp]

The term "red flag" usually refers to a dealbreaker, like if the company tells you to expect working 7 days a week or that you need to answer e-mails urgently on weekends and holidays for no good reason.

I wouldn't rush to dismiss a company just because they let the HR person spruce up the job description with some boilerplate. You really need to talk to the team you'll be working with and the future manager you'll be working under.

Unfortunately, it's just not possible to tell what a job will be like by reading a job description. You have to talk to the teams.

[leto_ii]

With the risk of nitpicking, I think red-flag means a warning sign, not a deal breaker [1].

> Unfortunately, it's just not possible to tell what a job will be like by reading a job description.

While I agree completely, isn't this wrong though? Shouldn't a job description be well written? Isn't "sprucing up" just code for false advertising?

I for one have seen countless job descriptions that were a ridiculous exaggeration of the kind of work that you would actually have done. It's important to note that it always want one way: making the job sound a lot more interesting than it was and demanding a lot more skill than was actually needed. Nobody went overboard with downplaying things.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/red-flag