America’s Job Listings Have Gone Off the Deep End

Are you a code sensei? A customer-service rock star? Do you have a passion for sales? Will you devote your life to conference calls, leaving your family and friends behind while you camp out under your desk, ready to dial in at any time?

If the answer to all those questions is “no”—or even a nervous, hesitant smile—then hopefully you don’t need to look for a new job anytime soon. If you do, get ready to convince prospective employers that you are a success-obsessed results ninja, whatever that means.

A generation ago, American job seekers might have opened a newspaper to find want ads with perfunctory explanations of desired skills, such as carpentry or customer service. Classifieds, after all, contain little room for florid prose. But in the past two decades, a changing labor