Eavesdropping on job listings boards and mailing lists can be a real hoot. You would not believe the things recruiters put in these crucial vehicles by which we gain our first impression of a prospective employer. By far, the most common gaffe is the 'temporal incongruity' - requiring more years of experience than is possible. Like asking for 15 years experience developing in Ruby.

Here are the best ones we've seen, presented for your reading pleasure. Any typographical errors are transcribed exactly as found. Formatting and emphasis mine.

As always, feel free to forward goodies that you've seen in your area - just leave a comment or send it to us via the contact page.

These are just some of the phrases culled from a recent job posting list. About eight out of ten technical job listings I see contain requirements like:

• Qualified candidates need to be flexible and willing to work in a fast-paced environment with short release cycles
• Ability to work in fast-paced environment.
• Ability to work under tight time constraints with changing requirements
• Experience working in a start-up environment will be extremely useful
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, small company environment
• Ability to work under pressure and to handle and resolve reoccurring problems (this for an entry-level QA engineer!)
• Self-motivated, with a demonstrated ability to create aggressive but realistic schedules, and meet them
• Ability to effectively multi-task in a high-activity, high-performance atmosphere
• must have the ability to work simultaneously on several projects and adapt to changes (this for a Junior Application Engineer!)
• ability to thrive in a dynamic, fast paced, startup environment
• Demonstrable problem solving skills—ability to solve complex problems in the face of time pressure & information/resource constraints (I predict a test- or puzzle-based interview...)
• Ability to thrive in a dynamic, fast paced, startup environment.

I've seen a few interesting trends when looking at job listings. The terms contained in a job listing can be an important window into the challenges inside a company.

I've noticed that a high percentage of tech job listings seem to be seeking only people who thrive on high pressure, super-fast-paced environments chock-full of challenges - but then, it may be because I have been seeing a lot of listings for small companies or start-ups lately.