Worst Corporate Jargon of the Week: Talent
Human beings have been remarketed as 'talent'. That's terrifying.
Every one of us has been an email chain which is borderline unintelligible for the amount of corporate lingo thrown in there. At City A.M., we’re taking a stand and calling out the worst jargon which travels around the City faster than you can drink an overpriced pint. This week: talent.
What does it mean?
Whilst talent may have once been a noble and meaningful noun denoting exceptional aptitude, it can now simply refer to any living, breathing creature that happens to be available for hire.
Once upon a time,, ‘talent’ was sparingly used. “What a talented flute player you are, sir,” for example. Or: “she had an innate talent for showjumping”. Talent referred to the arts. Now it refers to Ian in the corner whose accolades involve spreadsheets, small talk and solitaire, with not a well-groomed pony in sight.
Who uses it?
This insipid remarketing of ‘humans’ is used ad nauseam by Talent Acquisition Teams, Talent Managers, Talent Sourcing Specialists, Talent Partners, Talent and Resourcing Executives, Talent Insight Officers and many other cronies in the HR and recruitment sphere. For these dastardly people, everyone is but a potential hire.
What can it be confused with?
- – Singing
- – Dancing
- – Tightrope walking
- – Showjumping
- – Ventriloquy
- – Juggling
- – Yoyo-ing
- – Synchronised swimming
- – Origami
Should we be worried?
Undoubtedly. Whilst it is reasonable to wish to hire a ‘talented person’ for the role, there is no need to dehumanise said individual by dropping the ‘person’.
Worse still than dehumanisation is the dreadful dishonesty. What the canny observer may note is that people are known as ‘talents’ before they are hired by a firm, but after taking up their positions they tend to lose their mystical status and become ‘employees’ (or, rather, just Mark from Marketing). It has immediately become clear that Mark has no special talents and is merely a mediocre addition to the workplace.
Dig a little deeper than your initial Linkedin connection request from a talent acquisition manager, and you will discover that everyone is being labelled a ‘talent’.
How do we get rid of it?
Embrace mediocrity. Reject the tyranny of perfection. Refute self-optimisation and competition. You are, in all probability, average. Consider the possibility that you did not come out of the womb with a note scrawled on you describing your special propensity for web-based app development.
If someone dares to call you a ‘talent’, unleash your party trick. See them tremble as you lick your elbow, now that’s talent.
Alternatively, show them your aptitude for rebellion and your understanding of the law. Reject hyperbole, sycophancy and inaccuracy, and instead whip out your pocket edition of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights where article six clearly reads that everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Repeat after us: I am a human being, not a ‘talent’.
Corporate ick rating: 8/10
