It is intriguing to observe how companies and human beings often behave in exactly the same way. Obviously, I am talking about communication, but the similarities also extend to behavior and character.
“We’ve lost color,” I was saying a few days ago—and we haven’t lost it only in cars or restaurants. We’ve lost it in our storytelling as well.
These days, we are looking for someone to join LLiquida. We receive résumés from young people and more experienced individuals, women and men, where the only thing that changes is the box containing personal data.
Beyond that, it’s always the same sequence of expressions: a pile of prefabricated concepts that seem to come straight out of an automatic generator of reassuring mediocrity.
The Universal Candidate
Here it is: the Universal Candidate, the manifesto of blanding applied to human beings:
“Dynamic and highly motivated profile, with a strong aptitude for problem solving and teamwork. Thanks to the experience gained over the years, I have consolidated an organizational leadership style that allows me to manage stress and act decisively in challenging contexts, without fearing positions of responsibility, with a view to continuous improvement.”
If you read these lines and think, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with that,” you’ve already fallen into the grey trap: it’s the white noise of nothingness.
These words are like white boats at a boat show full of white boats: you don’t see them. If everyone is “dynamic,” no one moves. If everyone solves problems, why are we still drowning in them?
The Dictatorship of Conformity
We flatten ourselves into the “pre-packaged” not out of laziness, but out of fear. Conformity guarantees that we won’t be “the weird one.” We are afraid to say who we really are because we fear that our truth might exclude us.
But it’s exactly the opposite: your truth is your positioning.
I am not a multinational corporation with an algorithm where the heart should be. I am a person who has to choose another human being to interact with, potentially eight hours a day. And in those résumés, I never find a human being.
I don’t find dreams. I don’t find idiosyncrasies. I don’t find what you love or what you hate. It’s absurd.
- If your dream is to be a digital nomad and work from a beach in Portugal, tell me right away! You’re exactly who I’m looking for.
- If you hate violence and the idea of working for a client who sells fishing gear makes you uncomfortable, write it down! We’ll both save time.
I help sell boats—and yes, fishermen buy them too. If you tell me that after three interviews, we’ve wasted hours of life we’ll never get back.
And vice versa: if creating images with AI excites you so much that you forget to have dinner, that’s the spark I’m looking for. But if you don’t write it, if you hide it behind a generic “good knowledge of IT systems,” your application ends up in the black hole of emails half-read between an urgent phone call and a coffee.
The Shipyard (and Client) Paradox
The exact same thing happens with boats. The customer is looking for an emotion in exchange for a hefty check, and the shipyard responds with the usual grey catalog: “Innovation rooted in tradition.”
Why don’t you tell me who you are? Why don’t you tell me that your boat is made for those who want to feel salt on their face, not for those who want to sit in a floating living room that looks like a Swiss clinic?
Value without color is a promise that doesn’t shine.
If you’re the same as everyone else, the only remaining parameter to choose you by is price. And compromising on price is the beginning of the end—whether you’re a shipyard or a candidate.
Stop telling me you’re “like everyone else.” Tell me why I should remember you when I close the email.
