I mean, maybe its not shit money. Maybe its sitting squarely on top of the salary median for the career and years experience. Maybe it really is a good offer. Idfk.
But employers act like you’re applying for “The One Job That Exists” rather than juggling competing offers. I’ve bid my own existing company against new hire offers multiple times. And, every time, my existing employer countered with a better offer.
If you don’t offer me a salary, why the fuck would I leave my current job? I have decades of experience. I have a very particular set of useful skills. I have friends all over the industry. I’ve got more than one “Once In A Lifetime Opportunity” to choose from.
Yeah a once in a lifetime opportunity is a mentorship for a person new to their career that will set them up for huge success in the future. When you have experience, skills, and contacts all they can offer you is money, benefits, and perks, and the money better be the headliner there
Not a bad bet, all things considered. I’ve seen jobs that offer “minimum wage starting” and then make you jump through a bunch of annoying hoops to get up to the $20-$25/hr line. It’s basically a way to fuck over summer hires and seasonal/migrant workers.
Oh, I could bitch about this for hours. Minimum wage starting, but cross-train and we’ll bump your pay by a dollar for every role you’re certified in! Will we ever schedule your certification? Hell no! Contribute to our Continuous Improvement program to get bonuses! Do we ever actually process CI tickets to completion? lol no get fucked buddy, anyway you’re staying late tonight because the VP just sold another 100 units we don’t even have the parts for yet and we’ve scheduled delivery for Sunday.
Ahem. Anyway, I think we’re coming at this from different perspectives and our experiences with the job market differ accordingly. You’ve got a network and an impressive CV, and my skills are harder (for me, at least) to express on paper and I’m more or less disposable. So whereas they try to sell stuff that may or may not be a good deal to you as “the opportunity of a lifetime” they use the same gilding to try to get me to huff paint for 12 hours a day. I’m not sure where I was going with this but thank you for listening.
edit: realizing now that this post amounts to me complaining about my lot in life but I wanna clarify that I respect most career professionals and I do recognize that you guys work hard too.
Hey buddy. If they’re hiring, you’re not disposable. Managers come in a variety of flavors. Sometimes you get Peppermint Stupid. But also know your labor is worth more than their salary and without you their bills don’t get paid.
There’s power in a union. But even on your own, you can exert a surprising amount of leverage by finding your niche, establishing your criticality, and then setting boundaries on when you’re going to work. When other workers see you getting “special treatment”, and when you encourage them to stick up for themselves in turn, you can change the culture of an office through collective stubbornness. Or, at the very least, you can get an obnoxious assistant/middle manager shit-canned for failing to meet their own numbers.
But yeah, professionalization adds a lot more (corporately perceived) value to your resume. Once the business has handcuffed itself to college degrees and years experience, the employees discover a lot more freedom.
Once in a lifetime opportunity to make shit money, more like.
I mean, maybe its not shit money. Maybe its sitting squarely on top of the salary median for the career and years experience. Maybe it really is a good offer. Idfk.
But employers act like you’re applying for “The One Job That Exists” rather than juggling competing offers. I’ve bid my own existing company against new hire offers multiple times. And, every time, my existing employer countered with a better offer.
If you don’t offer me a salary, why the fuck would I leave my current job? I have decades of experience. I have a very particular set of useful skills. I have friends all over the industry. I’ve got more than one “Once In A Lifetime Opportunity” to choose from.
Yeah a once in a lifetime opportunity is a mentorship for a person new to their career that will set them up for huge success in the future. When you have experience, skills, and contacts all they can offer you is money, benefits, and perks, and the money better be the headliner there
Maybe it’s because I’m hourly but if there’s no pay listed I treat the offer as if it’s minimum wage.
Not a bad bet, all things considered. I’ve seen jobs that offer “minimum wage starting” and then make you jump through a bunch of annoying hoops to get up to the $20-$25/hr line. It’s basically a way to fuck over summer hires and seasonal/migrant workers.
Oh, I could bitch about this for hours. Minimum wage starting, but cross-train and we’ll bump your pay by a dollar for every role you’re certified in! Will we ever schedule your certification? Hell no! Contribute to our Continuous Improvement program to get bonuses! Do we ever actually process CI tickets to completion? lol no get fucked buddy, anyway you’re staying late tonight because the VP just sold another 100 units we don’t even have the parts for yet and we’ve scheduled delivery for Sunday.
Ahem. Anyway, I think we’re coming at this from different perspectives and our experiences with the job market differ accordingly. You’ve got a network and an impressive CV, and my skills are harder (for me, at least) to express on paper and I’m more or less disposable. So whereas they try to sell stuff that may or may not be a good deal to you as “the opportunity of a lifetime” they use the same gilding to try to get me to huff paint for 12 hours a day. I’m not sure where I was going with this but thank you for listening.
edit: realizing now that this post amounts to me complaining about my lot in life but I wanna clarify that I respect most career professionals and I do recognize that you guys work hard too.
Hey buddy. If they’re hiring, you’re not disposable. Managers come in a variety of flavors. Sometimes you get Peppermint Stupid. But also know your labor is worth more than their salary and without you their bills don’t get paid.
There’s power in a union. But even on your own, you can exert a surprising amount of leverage by finding your niche, establishing your criticality, and then setting boundaries on when you’re going to work. When other workers see you getting “special treatment”, and when you encourage them to stick up for themselves in turn, you can change the culture of an office through collective stubbornness. Or, at the very least, you can get an obnoxious assistant/middle manager shit-canned for failing to meet their own numbers.
But yeah, professionalization adds a lot more (corporately perceived) value to your resume. Once the business has handcuffed itself to college degrees and years experience, the employees discover a lot more freedom.