"...the job requires people who can use language not commonly used by the general public"

The job's position description (PD) is, all too often, written by members of that pretendy-profession, human resources management; people who *can't* use language properly whether it is common or not.

This is usually evidenced in the prologues to the PDs where it is clear that there is no understanding that "criteria" is the plural, and "criterion" is the singular.

Take a quick buzzword scan of any current PD selection criteria and "strategy" is popularly misused in place of "activity" or "tasks."

The malapropism de jure in PDs is "methodologies". This is an incredibly pretentious misuse of the term in place of the more correct "methods". I am convinced that there is not one public sector HR practioner who is remotely aware that "method" and "methodology" are very different animals.

The irony is that these glaring and somewhat bemusing errors appear on PDs insisting that the applicant(s) demonstrate "excellent writing skills"

George should be awarded the Sir Humphrey Appleby Award for goverment-speak!

George you are my saviour - I have been self-flagellating for 2 years in local government thinking I am the one at fault - the round peg etc... and now I read your articles and the burden of self doubt has at last been lifted. I unsuccessfully applied for govt jobs for 12 months before I bought the book on how to address selection criteria. I got the job ... but that book didn't inform me of the inner machinations that awaited me. I thought another book is required on how to unlearn the very many years of life experience, tertiary education and training in the outside world that are so wrong for the dark world of government. But in fact I am the round peg and I really don't want to fit in this peculiar microcosm of narrowness and bigotry ... so I will return to the light of the real world ... Thank you for the enlightenment.

George, not "humour" as categorised by OLO, but documented tragedy. When given the opportunity to make appointments in the QPS, I could find no suitable internal candidates. The difference was high-lighted in a meeting with departmental proponents for the Australian Magnesium project. Unable to fault analysis which showed that it was not viable, they abused my team and I as being "ivory tower" economists. I pointed out that I had worked for the UK's Central Electricity Generating Board, my economic modeller had worked for BHP steel and my financial analyst had been a project analyst for CRA copper - highly relevant experience. "What's your experience?" I asked. All were career-long "public servants". But they knew how to play the game, the project went ahead (and collapsed with loss of $450m), they got praised and promoted, I got sidelined. No minister or QPS employee was chastised for the AMC outcome.

Sadly, I see this in very large companies too.
It seems that wherever the "cult of authority" is king then the limit on BS goes sky-high. Banks, the military and IT consultancies approach the level of government waste, gobbledegook and BS.
I have encountered *rare* instances of government management adequacy...but they are the exception.

HR: dismal parasite division. "human relations" indeed! They wouldn't need a special division to deal with humans if they just hired competant ones in the first place!

Faustino: You may or may not be pleased to know that in IT this sort of thing happens all the time. I've seen several hundred million wasted in projects. Companies like Telstra just swallow the loss and do it all again!

It's like working-welfare, and as others pointed out it's not just government. Elsewhere in the world can-do nations like China and India are racing ahead - Australia plays it's nationwide game of pass the parcel. Interesting times ahead when the last wrapper is pulled and we find it's empty.