What's it(s) mean?

[j4]

I asked AQA: "What's the average length of time for which UK jobs at AQA are advertised on the website? i.e. How long does it take for all/any positions to be filled? Thanks!"

AQA replied: "There's no average length of time, it just depends on the number of vacancies and the response. AQA advises applying immediately when they're advertised."

Now, call me a pedant, but I don't believe it's technically true that there's "no average length of time". I can entirely believe that they don't set a maximum or minimum length of time, and/or that they just don't want to tell me, but that's an entirely different kettle of question marks.

Comments

[arnhem.livejournal.com]

Wait, no the hell! There have been a finite number of jobs advertised, right? You must be able to average *those*.

It'd be stunningly misleading to only average those for which you know the correct value, and if you set the "value" of those still open to "how long they've been open so far", that would be similarly very misleading (since that set will tend, for some distributions, to be skewed towards those that will remain open for a very long time indeed).

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't actually think through what calculation was right, merely that you stand a fair chance of getting a finite answer. I think, I meant average amongst those, or "apply to those a process producing an average", rather than "MWAHAHAHAHAH I AM AN AVERAGING MONKEY GIVE ME ANY NUMBERS AND I'LL ADD THEM UP AND DIVIDE BY N HAHAHA".

I think *why* I forgot was probably being a mathematician, not a statistician and instinctively solving the case where there's an effectively infinite number, so the special case at the end is insignificant.