Into the jaws of an advertising recession comes the launch of the most hubristic media venture we've heard of: a "super-stealth new online company backed and funded by some legendary billionaires." The requirements for the top job go from laugh line to laugh line.The startup seeks a candidate who is an editor-in-chief at a top business magazine like Forbes, BusinessWeek, or Portfolio. All, mind you, based in New York. And yet he or she must live in San Francisco. Oh, and having worked at Yahoo, Google, or eBay is a "big plus." All of this to run a website targeted at "SMB" — advertiser jargon for "small and medium businesses." Most small-business publications fail to draw an audience, precisely because they think of their readers' businesses, contemptuously, as "small." Too bad. In every other way, these guys are dreaming impossibly big. This job description is curiously similar to one posted in October with the same Gmail address as a contact. The main difference? The newer listing plays up the billionaire backers, and no longer mentions that it is "bankrolled by a respected 50+ year old offline company." A 50-year-old company? Sounds way too old media. Here's the job listing:

Social media is one of the hottest buzzwords in tech circles. But can you actually get paid to play with Facebook at the office? Don't show your boss this Mashable article written by Ben Parr asking if social media jobs are here to stay. It only validates the lack of any hard evidence. Parr says social media roles — either a single person or small team who comment on blogs, send and receive Twitter messages, maintain fan pages on Facebook, and use other similar Web tools — are capable of increasing reach, users, traffic, and revenue. Examples? None. Numbers? Zero.

Designers, want to torture yourself in a contract position surrounded by smarmy, know-it-all PhDs who give you only the vaguest of instructions and expect you to master the intricacies of biotechnology overnight? Lured by the promise that you might one day get hired on full-time and get stock options at a company backed by Google and run by Google cofounder Sergey Brin's wife? Unbothered by the fact that the California Department of Public Health has just banned the company's service? Then, dear visual-thinking friends, this position for a graphic designer at 23andMe is for you! The job description:

OK fine. So maybe there isn't actually a tiny singing man in my iPod. But Google research director Peter Norvig confirms there is an army of contractors slaving away behind that page of ten blue links.

Ulitzer claims it will be the leading content source on the Internet even before it launches sometime next year. Now they're hiring the "best software architect alive!" Do you qualify for this dream job? Despite being a completely unknown startup, Ulitzer claims: "By 2010, three out of five books will be published at Ulitzer.com. Time, The New York Times, and Scientific American will be replaced by Ulitzer in the next five years." True, traditional media is struggling to sustain its fat profit margins, but if you're foolish enough to think it's about to disappear, you might be a perfect match for Ulitzer. The only problem: Ulitzer's laughable hiring criteria are likely to screen out anyone with the requisite capacity for self-delusion. After the jump, Ulitzer's job listing.

Unaware of what you want to do in life, but know that you want a director-level job with a splashy company that serves free food? Have we found the spot for you! Google is looking for a "Director of Other" on its corporate job listing page, and the description of the post is just as vague as their flacks' conversations with reporters.

Big media companies like Viacom, constrained by the limits of copyright law and Google's recalcitrance, are forced to pay companies like Los Gatos-based BayTSP, which specializes in snooping file sharers and protecting copyrights, to slog through YouTube's bloated index searching for infringements. That makes for a solid eight-hour day for BayTSP's "video analysts." Contracts prevent employees from discussing their tedium with friends and family, but they were allowed to open up to a Wall Street Journal reporter in the clip above.

Job Descriptions from the Future: Director of Metadata [A Better Mousetrap]