[Foundation-l] Plea for candidates: WMF Movement Communications Manager

[jay walsh]

On Apr 15, 2011, at 12:33 PM, Sarah wrote:
>>> 
>> Not quite sure where you're coming from there.  Today I've interacted with
>> about 60 professional colleagues. They're all Canadians but I'd venture to
>> guess that at least a third would consider themselves native speakers of at
>> least one other language.
> 
> Not sure what you mean, Risker. The point is that the ad is
> discriminating against people who are native English speakers, i.e.
> because of their origins and culture. The question is whether that's
> allowed under whatever employment legislation governs the hiring. And
> law apart, it seems unfair.
> 
> Sarah


Glad to see lots of discussion about this, and I appreciate that the phrasing of the language qualifications may lead to a bit of confusion.  

Perhaps a more clear way to write this sentence would have simply been to state that we're looking for a candidate who can speak English as well as another language at the 'native speaker' level - that is, someone who is bilingual. 

This is of course not intended to be discriminatory - many of the volunteers I work with on a regular basis speak/write in english very well, but they are native speakers of another language.  In many cases they speak/write in more than 2 languages.

On Will's initial note about the qualifications or experience being too limiting, I appreciate those points.

It's unlikely we'll find someone who fits 100% of those qualifications to a tee.  It's safe to say that most jobs posted (including those at WMF) have a list of qualifications that are long, but we're unlikely to get all of them.

This is a big, challenging, and perhaps complicated role - and as it's laid out, I agree that it may create the sense that we expect this role to solve a problem/challenge that is likely not solvable... But we do want someone who is excited about that challenge and willing to both take on simpler tasks (like writing or corresponding) while also thinking about the bigger overall challenge: the need to improve the quality and method of the whole conversation between WMF and the community. 

It will take time and more than one person to carry that forward, but I do know that within a short period of time this person will be able to help WMF bring more information to everyone, and to help bring more of the movement/communities achievements to the whole community, and to the public at large.

If people feel they embody the spirit of that task, we really hope they'll apply :)

Thanks
jay

Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw