What’s wrong with Iowa??  Yesterday, Gawker posted a job listing for an associate editor at Best Events magazine — no Iowa- or Seattle-based job seekers need apply.  In fact, if you’re from either of these areas and planning to send your resume, the magazine is “begging you to stop. BEGGING.” 

Apparently they’re serious: It’s in there twice.  (Don’t they know Ashton and Demi live in Iowa?  Nice Best Events. Nice. You just blew that chance.)

Other desperate pleas specifications include asking those with 10-15 years of experience in the field to please not apply, telling those who live live two hours away “don’t do it,” and warning that “resumes without a salary number will be deleted. Not. Kidding.”

Mee-yow.  Clearly, this company has some baggage.   

Do they really expect to get good candidates with that attitude?  Aside from my skepticism that there are very many entry-level “ROCK STARS” (really, BL?) out there who could actually handle a job that entails doing “12 things at once;” to me, the saucy – if not downright rude – tone of the listing speaks to the culture of the company.  After all, if they’re speaking this way to job seekers before they’ve even applied , how do they talk to/treat their own employees?

And yet…at the same time, I can’t help but wonder if the listing speaks the frustration that many hiring managers feel when they get bombarded with irrelevant applications.  To me, this posting reeks of a company burned too many times by new hires who quickly decided either the pay or the job itself was “below” them – and left. (And. They’re. Not. Going. To. Take. It. Anymore.) 

(Still, though…seems a little like overkill to simply dismiss all of Iowa and Seattle. Twice.  Especially when 37 percent of job seekers are willing to relocate for jobs, according to Manpower Inc.)  

What’s your take?  Is Best Events simply being bold enough to ask (if ever so non-PC) for what it wants – or doesn’t want?   Do you secretly envy/admire whoever posted this for saying to unqualified applicants what you wish you could?  Or is this a classic amber alert for job seekers to know they’re applying to work with a bunch of jerks?