Adventures in hiring gardening help

I recently had a help wanted ad for a gardener at Craigslist, my local paper and Workopolis.

The person who wrote this corporate boilerplate didn't have a hope of getting an interview:

Being hard-working, conscientious, flexible, honest and above all else, results driven. I am able to discern and respond to changing requirements while maintaining team communication and interaction. As a detail oriented self starter and organized professional, I have developed sound multi‑tasking and problem solving strategies and can respond quickly in dynamic setting to establish consistent productivity. I also understand the importance of unconditional customer trust and satisfaction in the cultivation of a loyal client base. I am very interested in ongoing skills development; confident that I would be a positive addition to your organization, and a great team player, the opportunity to further discuss my qualifications and your needs would be very welcome.

Available at your earliest convenience, I look forward to hearing from you.

The gal who wrote this got the job:

This job sounds perfect for me! I have been working on my own property building my garden for the past 8 years and it has become my passion. I would love to work with more extensive gardens as I am out of room. I have worked for the past 14 years in an indoor corporate administrative environment and yearn to be outdoors. I have already got slivers and calluses from raking and transplanting this season. I can deal with weather.

I am in the midst of a career change and have decided to follow my dream and pursue garden design. I think I am perfect for this position as I am driven to perfection and would love to make your garden the best in show.... I have no formal education or experience other then my own garden successes and failures that I have learned from.

© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener

Hiring help: the importance of being a blogger...

Last week I realized that I needed more gardening help, as my regular gal is taking some time off this spring and summer. But I never know if I can find anybody because I can't offer a full-time summer job.

Since I'm an internet addict, I bypassed the usual newspaper classified route and tried my local Craigslist. Early in the week, I hired a young fellow, who lasted just long enough to do some overdue weed-whacking and edging before he found a summer job more to his liking.

But then I struck gold: a mature university student who wanted exactly what I had to offer, gardening and flexible part-time. And best of all, she has a full summer of landscape maintenance experience under her belt (working for the city last year), and she has a friend who also wants a few hours of gardening work each week over the spring and early summer.

I'm thrilled because at this time of the year, it takes everything just to clean up and keep up with the mowing and weeding. There's actually precious little energy left for a life (my desk is a mess and the laundry keeps piling up), not to mention doing any real gardening: making changes and refining plantings, or doing up really nice containers. (Did I mention that we have bitten off more than we can chew?)

Now with more help, we can actually redo parts of a border that's gone too wild and get those extra large clumps of daffodils dug up and divided - all those jobs that I think, "It would be nice if we could..." So welcome Laura and Sarah: I think we're going to have fun.

PS: Laura said that she felt good about the job when she discovered that I was a blogger too...