Coming from a position of reviewing thousands of resumes in the past few years, and acting as the hiring manager dozens of folks from junior/fresh grad to senior spots, I have a different take entirely.<p>Especially in large orgs, that crappy ad might be a way of <i>discouraging</i> external applicants, because an internal person is already wanted, but there are 'rules' and 'policies' to be followed about advertising positions. This is especially true around the Federal Govt and it's contracting retinue.<p>Most of the crappy job ads I've been on the hiring side of were simply because the technical team is too busy to give it much attention, so the HR folks get to write things or pick from other ads already written that can be 'tweaked', which results in gibberish.<p>In many big orgs, good hires are RARELY going to be random off the street folks (i.e. 'getting them to apply' is a waste of time), and will <i>almost always</i> be referrals. Taking random folks off the street is taking your team's success into your own hands in a very, very unnerving way. Even a modicum of 'yeah I know X, he isn't a total psychopath' is infinitely easier to swallow than a piece of paper and an interview.<p>So, basically, the ad that goes out in job listings is a waste of your time in the end, statistically speaking, and time is something you don't have much of to begin with, so it gets minimal attention from those who could/should know better.<p>Now, if that minimal attention leads to really low non-referral stats, or vice versa, I wouldn't begin to know...