In response to the following:
Any extremely smart people who believe they can do anything, and work hard to prove it, looking for an interesting job?
I variously commented:
Sounds like a gross abstraction. I know a lot of people like that, but why would they respond to this post?
I've thought a lot about the verbal patterns of business people who are vocal about talent, since I started studying the commercial sector in 2005.
It seems that narratives like this attract folks at the intersection of (i) has high self-esteem (ii) has a strong need for external affirmation. These are of course, qualities which are only moderately correlated with actual cognitive advantages (on average, really smart people tend to think that they are dumber than they are, and really dumb people tend to think that they are smarter than they are - there is data on this).
So what the copy of the ad really achieves, is to attract the sort of person who's enthusiastic about performing in a social context, and these are of course the best people for middle management. All well and good - but it's interesting how means and ends rarely show everyone on each side of a deal what's really going on.
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