Now here's a job posting that is unlikely to garner many applications:

[Jazz2006]

This is the text of an ad in this week’s Lawyers Weekly, which I suspect will receive very few responses:

IRAQ

A challenging opportunity has arisen for the urgent recruitment of a qualified commercial/corporate/projects lawyer, who will act as senior legal consultant with an international consultancy practice based in Iraq. The successful candidate will be engaged in very exciting work in numerous sectors.

Perfect for any lawyer looking for adventure and the chance to escape the monotony of a conventional law firm. Pay and benefits will be extremely good and the work will be demanding and very interesting. The premises are in a secure location.

Send application with CV to [email protected]


Not only is the ad very unusually written for a legal recruitment ad (e.g. "extremely good"? e.g. "numerous sectors"? the use of the word "very" as practically the only descriptor throughout and repeated several times? what the?), but come on ~ is there any such thing as a “secure location” in Iraq?

Anyway, just thought I'd share this because it tickled my funny bone.

[iverglas]

1. "numerous sectors"

Ah, you're missing the Cdn govt-legal jargon.

A "sector" is anything you want it to be. This started first in French, and oozed over into English.

Here, it refers to what are normally called *areas* of the law. "Family law", "commercial law" -- they're all "sectors" now, in the brains of people too lazy to think of an appropriate word. The federal Justice Department, for instance, which once had branches and sections like a normal govt department, now has "sectors".

I deal with this crap all the time. It always reminds me of the guy who was Canada's most wanted some years ago, one of whose distinguishing characteristics was that he called things "turkeys". If he wanted the salt shaker, he'd say "pass me that turkey"; if he was telling how he'd seen a big truck on the highway, he'd say "I passed that turkey". "Sector" is the turkey of bureaucratese.

Of course, the other one is "file". Ministers and public servants are responsible for the "health care file" or the "helicopter file". Again, oozing from the French, dossier, which simply doesn't mean "file" in that context, for which we have perfectly good English ways of saying things. Chalk on a blackboard, every time I hear that on my teevee.

I wonder which big law firm is doing the hiring.

[Jazz2006]

2. "The turkey of bureaucratese"

Now that's a good line! :rofl:

But, no, I'm not missing the government jargon in this case. It isn't a governmental ad but a private one (as you also know, I'm sure, gov't postings follow a particular template, they're written in both English and French, and they don't have non-governmental email addresses for responses and no options for mail or fax responses, for starters.)

And this isn't the language of a big law firm either. (I'm a lawyer at one of the "Seven Sisters" and I just cannot imagine that any reputable firm would have written such a poorly worded recruitment ad).

My guess is that it's some half-shady private contracting company that needs some in-house legal help on site in Iraq, but who knows?

I was half tempted to respond to them as a lark, just to find out who they are. :)


Edit to add: a search on Whois shows that the domain name is registered through Network Solutions by someone called "Two Rivers" but with no other info. Strange.

Registrant:
Two Rivers
ATTN: RECRUITMENTIRAQ.COM
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA 20172-0447

Domain Name: RECRUITMENTIRAQ.COM

Administrative Contact :
Two Rivers
[email protected]
ATTN: RECRUITMENTIRAQ.COM
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA 20172-0447
Phone: [phone]

Technical Contact :
Two Rivers
[email protected]
ATTN: RECRUITMENTIRAQ.COM
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA 20172-0447
Phone: [phone]

Record expires on 14-Jun-2007
Record created on 14-Jun-2006
Database last updated on 14-Jun-2006

[iverglas]

3. recruitmentiraq.com

Site under construction and coming soon.

I should clarify I think: when I referred to the jargon, I was just responding to your querying of "numerous sectors":

Not only is the ad very unusually written for a legal recruitment ad (e.g. "extremely good"? e.g. "numerous sectors"? ...)

I'm ex-lawyer, current long-time govt contractor, and so I look at "sectors of ____" and know it's lazy obscurantist bureaucratese for "kinds of ____". I thought you might have been seeing it as referring to geography; I google baghdad sector and #1 is:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Nov2005/20051107_3253.html
"101st Airborne Division Unit Takes Control of Baghdad Sector".

Lawyers, and regular people, not already lost to linguistic laziness masquerading as bilingualism (not to mention bijuralism, and bilingual "co-drafting" ...) would still say "numerous areas of the law"; I google "numerous areas of the law and #1 is:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/tour.html
"The Institute <LII> publishes electronic versions of core materials in numerous areas of the law ..."

-- but a recruitment agency used to dealing with governments and government contracts, for instance -- or, I would suspect, operating in the international arena, where English suffers as badly as it does in Canada -- is probably too far gone to be able to write normal English as it is spoken and understood by its actual target audience in this case: private sector, English-speaking lawyers.

I did skip over the nuance in the designation of the employer itself: an "international consultancy practice" (and not an international legal practice), so yeah, you're undoubtedly right about the nature of that beast.

The land of the two rivers = Iraq, btw.

Hey, you could try this one:

http://www.easywebcreator.com/job_opportunities/q-58566/iraq_recruitment
"iraq recruitment, Work at Home"

Hmm, what's this?
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/procurement/contracts2004may.asp
DFID | Procurement
Training - OTD UnitedKingdom The CommunicaidSpanish Tuition UnitedKingdom The CommunicaidProcurement Law For IraqIraqFramework Agreements - RecruitmentIraq
www.dfid.gov.uk

-- "international consultancy practice" is definitely Brit lingo, and the ad is currently appearing in The Scotsman. That stuff looks legit, so while the "RecruitmentIraq" syntax in the referring link may well be just coincidental, the firm could be something social policy / development related ... set up a gmail account and apply and find out!

[ClusterFreak]

4. "escape the monotony"

I think I smell a new tourism ad campaign for Iraq!