Position descriptions lie

In college, I remember looking at the course catalog and reading course descriptions that told me all the things I'd learn int he class.

A lot of it looked tough and I wasn't sure I was qualified!

Then, when I actually took the course, the professor only ended up teaching us a fraction of the material or just gave us cursory knowledge of the hard stuff. It wasn't difficult at all!

I found this to be true with position descriptions for government contractings gigs and "statements of work" which describe what you're supposed to be doing on the contract.

What's described on paper ends up being unrelated to what the client actually wants.

For example, the PD might say the canddiate will be part of a team that improves software development processes using modern systems engineering principles.

In reality, the contractor is just making powerpoints telling other parts of the organization how to use JIRA.

So don't be put off or intimidated by paper descriptions of the work. Find out directly from the client, program manager, and other folks on the contract what the real work entails.

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