I was sent a help wanted listing by a business associate recently. They thought I’d get a kick out of it because it was for a listing for a video producer position at a business that makes products that I love (I can’t go into any more detail than that out of fairness for all parties involved.)

No, I’m not looking– but since I have done my share of hiring in the past few decades I am always curious as to the expectations set by help wanted ads for creatives.

Let’s forget for a second the impossible expectations and laughable language used in such ads (“Must eat, breath and live advertising”; “You don’t think outside the box, you are the box”, etc.

What interests me is that in a video and web driven world, creativity is often defined not by writing, design or storytelling capability, but instead by the software and hardware employed.

This ad said (paraphrased), “Video producer wanted to produce web videos for our catalog pages and web site. Knowledge of Adobe Premiere, Photoshop, and After Effects required.”

Uh… why? Does a knowledge of these particular programs guarantee that you know the basics of design, writing, creative direction, photography, photo touch-up, shooting and editing?

This was followed by “Windows platform preferred.”

I can see the Windows platform (or Mac platform) preference as perhaps reasonable, since the company may have standardized on and invested in plenty of hardware that is single platform centric. That’s a business decision.

But eliminating perhaps 70% of your creative applicants because they use some other software than what you like or know is like a curator at the Met, MOMA, or Guggenheim who only hangs paintings that use a #12 Kolinsky Red Sable Art Brush.

The talented and driven can and will adapt to almost any software or hardware. That’s easily learned. What can’t easily be learned is what is done with the tools, whether they are using typewriters, yellow legal pad, or Final Cut Pro or Microsoft Word or Final Draft.

It’s the story, stupid. And that’s the basis on which you should hire.