Job descriptions are full of little phrases that sound friendly, ambitious, or harmless. Some of them are worth reading twice.
There is a line from The Princess Bride that belongs somewhere near the top of every job board:
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
That is how I feel about “fast-paced.”
Also “family.”
Also “self-starter,” “high ownership,” “wear many hats,” and every job post that says it wants someone comfortable with ambiguity, which is often just a polished way of saying, “We are still figuring out how this job works.”
To be fair, none of these phrases are automatically bad. Sometimes fast-paced really does mean exciting. Sometimes family really does mean supportive. Sometimes high ownership means you will be trusted with real scope.
But job descriptions have tells.
They have little phrases companies reach for when the work is hard to explain, hard to sell, or hard to staff. The phrases are not verdicts. They are clues. They are places to slow down.
Based on a Roleworthy research pack built from nearly half a million canonical job postings, the funny part is not just that companies still say things like “rockstar,” “ninja,” “guru,” “wizard,” and “unicorn.” They do. The more interesting part is that ordinary words show up everywhere. In the buzzword export, “fast-paced” appeared in more than 50,000 matching jobs. “Family” appeared in nearly 46,000. “Self-starter” showed up in more than 8,500. “High ownership” showed up in more than 2,300. Even “unicorn” appeared more than 2,500 times.
The funny words are not always the rare ones. Sometimes the funniest words are the ones everyone agreed to pretend were normal.
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The obvious weird words are not the whole story
It is easy to laugh at the old startup language.
Rockstar. Ninja. Guru. Wizard. Unicorn.
Those words still show up, and yes, they still sound like a hiring manager lost a bet in 2014.
But most job seekers can spot those from across the room. Nobody sees “sales ninja” and thinks, finally, a precise description of the role.
The better story is the softer language. The words that sound reasonable. The words that make a job sound energetic, warm, ambitious, flexible, or important.
Those words do more work because they do not look ridiculous.
They look normal.
The ordinary words are doing the heavy lifting
“Fast-paced” might be the king of job-description phrases.
It sounds good at first. Nobody wants to work somewhere slow, stale, and buried in committee meetings. Fast can mean momentum. Growth. Decisions. Less waiting around.
But fast can also mean reactive. Understaffed. Constantly changing priorities. A Slack channel where every request arrives wearing a fake emergency costume.
The question is not, “Is fast-paced bad?”
The question is, “What creates the pace?”
Same with “family.” It can mean people are close, supportive, and invested in one another. It can also mean blurry boundaries, after-hours favors, and guilt dressed up as culture.
“Self-starter” can mean autonomy. It can also mean no onboarding, no documentation, and no one with time to explain what success looks like.
“High ownership” can be great. I like ownership. Most good jobs have some version of it. People want to feel trusted. They want to see their work matter.
But ownership without authority is just stress with a nicer outfit.
If a role says “high ownership,” ask what comes with it. Can you make decisions? Can you push back? Can you change the process? Can you influence resourcing? Can you say no?
High ownership is a great phrase when it comes with agency. Without agency, it is just a very professional way to say, this will be your problem.
AI seasoning is everywhere now
The newer version of job-posting language is the AI sprinkle.
AI. LLM. Automation. Copilot. Agentic.
Sometimes those words point to real work. In the Roleworthy buzzword export, AI-related terms were not tiny edge cases. “AI” matched more than 93,000 jobs, “automation” nearly 39,000, and “LLM” more than 31,000.
That does not mean every one of those roles is an AI job. It means AI language has moved into the general job-description bloodstream.
So the question is not just, “Does this job mention AI?”
The question is, “What does AI actually do in this role?”
Are you building models? Using tools? Selling AI software? Supporting AI customers? Automating a workflow? Writing prompts? Cleaning up whatever someone else automated too quickly?
A keyword is not a strategy.
Words change who feels invited
This is the more serious version of the same point.
Language does not just describe a job. It changes how people read themselves into it.
TIME covered research showing that women were less likely to find management job ads appealing when the ads used words associated with male stereotypes, like assertive, independent, aggressive, and analytical. When ads used words like dedicated, responsible, conscientious, and sociable, women were more likely to see the jobs as a fit. The wording did not have the same effect on men.
That is more serious than “fast-paced” sounding annoying.
It is a reminder that job descriptions are not neutral containers. The words companies choose can shape who feels invited, who opts out, and who assumes the role was meant for someone else.
A phrase can be funny. It can also be a signal.
Read buzzwords as questions, not answers
I do not think job seekers need to become cynical about every job post.
That sounds exhausting. Also, it is not accurate. Some companies use these phrases because they are true. Some use them because every other company uses them. Some use them because they have not thought very hard about the words.
The better move is not to reject every buzzword.
The better move is to translate it.
Phrase
What it sounds like
What to ask
Fast-paced
Energy, momentum, growth
What creates the pace?
Family
Warm, supportive, close-knit
What boundaries protect people?
Self-starter
Autonomy, trust
What onboarding and support exist?
High ownership
Impact, responsibility
What authority comes with it?
Wear many hats
Variety, learning
What are the real priorities?
Urgent
Important, mission-critical
Is urgency occasional or normal?
High volume
Busy, active
Is the workload staffed correctly?
On-call
Accountability
How often, how supported, and how compensated?
AI-powered
Modern, innovative
Is AI central to the work or just seasoning?
Remote
Flexibility
Remote from anywhere, or remote with strings attached?
That table is not a list of red flags.
It is a list of follow-up questions.
The job post is allowed to sell
A job description is partly an advertisement. It is supposed to make the job sound appealing.
That is fine.
The company is allowed to sell.
You are allowed to read like a buyer.
That means noticing the little phrases. It means pausing when the language gets too polished. It means asking what a word means in practice, not just what it means in the company’s best version of itself.
Because the real job is usually not hiding in the title. It is not even always hiding in the first bullet.
It is in the verbs. The requirements. The tradeoffs. The pace. The support. The level of authority. The words that keep showing up.
That is where job search should get better.
Not more keyword matching. More translation.
The takeaway
Job descriptions have tells.
Some are funny. Some are harmless. Some are useful. Some are doing more work than they should.
“Fast-paced” is not automatically chaos. “Family” is not automatically a boundary problem. “Self-starter” is not automatically code for no support. “High ownership” is not automatically a trap.
But they are worth reading twice.
The job post is telling you a story.
Your job is to figure out which parts are plot, which parts are setting, and which parts are foreshadowing.
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