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Why oh why do we do this to ourselves! As if the 9 to 5 grind wasn’t enough, we throw in a bunch of unnecessary meetings, and then fill them with quite literally the worst phrases the English language can come up with, because apparently, we live for the pain. We cannot stop ourselves using business jargon.
Business Jargon
It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned veteran or a new graduate, there are some business sayings that will leave you wondering what the hell was actually just said and why people can’t just speak normally. For example:
Blue sky thinking: as opposed to green or pink sky thinking, which is an absolutely different thing. What this means nobody has ever actually been able to determine, however a team of researchers are still working on it. We’ll update you as soon as we have more information.
Low hanging fruit: can anyone actually ever use this phrase without making you think of fruit? And exactly what fruit does hang low, and have you ever picked it before? We’ve quite literally never seen a tree or a bush or a shrub with low hanging fruit. Apart from blackberries. Yeah maybe blackberries.
Not enough bandwidth: why can’t you just say you’re busy Steve?! There is no other time in your life anyone uses this phrase. When your mum asks if you can come around and help set up for your grandad’s party, at no point do you reply, ‘sorry mum, I just don’t have the bandwidth’. Because it sounds ridiculous that’s why.
You can’t fit a square peg in a round hole: have you ever tried to put a square peg in a round hole? No, exactly! And who has a square peg anyway.
A pedigree candidate: again, in no other situation in your life do you use pedigree in regard to people. You only ever really use it when you’re looking for a new pet.
The Worst Business Jargon
Open the kimono: if someone says this, you are in under no terms obligated to open any part of your clothing whatsoever. Keep everything snuggly tight and closed. No one needs to see an open kimono.
Think outside the box: is there anything more annoying than when someone asks you to do this, because naturally, all you can think of is a box. Big ones, little ones, colourful ones. And then you start thinking you need to come up with some crazy ideas and you spend your night brainstorming the weirdest ideas and that my friends, is a dangerous rabbit hole to fall down.
How much runaway do they have: in the world of recruitment this often means, how old is the candidate. But alas, you’re now sitting daydreaming about planes and holidays, exotic destinations and remote beaches, which incidentally is more fun than trying to guess the age of your candidate, but inevitably not what you’re supposed to be doing.
Holistic: this one is a real classic, and if you listen carefully, you can hear it being whispered in office across the land. It basically rose to fame some years ago and is stubbornly clinging on like a Big Brother contestant, refusing to go anywhere when you know it really should.
Leverage: the most polite way of trying to determine how much room you have to play around before you need to seriously start doing anything.
By close of play: no one is playing here, let’s be real. Just say the end of the day like a normal person. Using the verb play to describe your working day, won’t trick you into believing you’re having a good time. It’s a ruse.
We could carry this list on all day, because apparently, it’s never ending, but we wouldn’t do that to you.
About Access Recruitment
Access helps the UK’s top recruitment agencies to simplify the everyday running of their business to improve productivity, control costs and enable growth. Access recruitment software brings together best-of-breed products onto one single platform to make a difference to the entire recruitment process – from sourcing the right candidate, paying staff, billing clients and complying with confidence.
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