June 19, 2002

11:10 AM

In you like f**ckedcompany......here's another job site with a naughty word in the title. "Job hunting daily is bad enough without having to deal with employers who want you to speak Swahili for little or no pay."
posted by sassone (23 comments total)

I'm glad I'm not the only unemployed person who has felt this level of frustration. Just about every day I come across a job that has a fatal flaw...usually pay. Why would I take a job that pays me less than unemployment, which is no great amount, and is very significantly (1/3 to 1/2) less than what I was making before?
posted by verso at 12:00 PM on June 19, 2002

Heh, quality link. This site basicly sums up my experiences trying to find a job in this economy.
posted by Darke at 12:00 PM on June 19, 2002

Oh man, I love that site. I work in the ad industry which has also been hard hit by the "mildest recession", and I love that it has those ads which ask for graphic designers who can do everything for minimum wage.
posted by Salmonberry at 12:11 PM on June 19, 2002

Now the world has a place for job announcements with impossible requirements, such as: "Eight Years of XML Experience Required," or bizarre postings likely a result of a recruiter showing off his/her familiarity with the industry, "Experience with C Perl Double Plus Required."
posted by quam at 12:14 PM on June 19, 2002

Though I am currently employed, I've been looking for another job for 6 months now.

I've actually had to dumb down my resume. Replacing 'manager' and 'director' with 'agent' and 'associate', just so HR departments won't be scared off by what my salary demands might be. ( which are nothing, just get me out of this place ).
posted by remlapm at 12:23 PM on June 19, 2002

the entire page ranted out by keith was a great homage to the advertising business as I know it. "No pay - But credit!" Oh, great, that'll pay rent....sure..
posted by dabitch at 12:44 PM on June 19, 2002

Am I the only one who thought somebody had taken the ball and finally run with i.am.a.notalentassclown.org?
posted by willnot at 12:50 PM on June 19, 2002

What the??
posted by ColdChef at 1:21 PM on June 19, 2002

Seems more like UnfocusedPersonWithUbiquitousSkillset.com to me. His resume is full of "jobs" my 14 year old nephew does in his spare time, and the same 14 year old holds most of the skills this blogger's friend ("John Smith") believes one would have to hold a "a televison engineer" degree to know.

Sorry to ruin everybody's party here, but proficiency in MS Office, Adobe's graphic apps, HTML, JavaScript and "internet protocols and applications" ("TCP/IP, Telnet, FTP"... wow!) isn't actually very hard to find. (To his credit, Russian is pretty cool, though).
posted by dagny at 1:47 PM on June 19, 2002

Dagny is absolutely right. You guys really liked this guy's little bitchfest?

Companys have every right to make whatever ridiculous demands for open positions that they want, and the competitive job market will reward or punish them accordingly. If all these unpaid web development internship positions are really asking for $100k/year skill sets, then there's no problem. All those college juniors are out there making tens of thousands of dollars now on their summer breaks and simply won't be interested in applying for unpaid positions... right?

Seems to me that this guy is basically just complaining about his inability to get a job, which points to the hiring companies being in the right. Would he have gotten that upset about a few wayward companies asking for more then they can get for what they're paying? No, I imagine he's pissed off that a lot of industries (advertising/web/IT especially, which he seems to focus on) are having a shitty time of it right now, so you really can get people with advanced skills dirt cheap.

They're job offers. Take them, or, if you're so certain that what they're asking is not worth the money, leave them and find someone with a more level head. If you have too much trouble finding that "reasonable" employer, it probably means that you were off, not them. Tough shit if knowing Photoshop and SQL doesn't net you six figures anymore.
posted by tirade at 2:19 PM on June 19, 2002

Job hunting daily is bad enough without having to deal with employers who want you to speak Swahili for little or no pay

It's funny because it's true.
posted by holloway at 2:40 PM on June 19, 2002

Also, Swahili is mentioned.
posted by holloway at 2:40 PM on June 19, 2002

Oh dear. To me any of those jobs seems relatively fine. If your as good as the advert is, you will get the job. If and when the market picks up, you have that experience and the edge to get ahead of the others in the job market. It seems like anyone who had the real ability and the initiative to get ahead in the market when it was boom can do so when it is bust.
posted by DaRiLo at 2:51 PM on June 19, 2002

I'm wavering between loving this kid and hating him. On one hand, I've been through similar circumstances lately as I casually look for full-time work. It's out there, but it pays half of what I was making at the same work three years ago before I went back to school. I've gotten the "you're overqualified" line so many times that I, too, have created dumbed-down versions of my resume and CV. The words "IT director" don't appear anywhere on that version. My response to them is always, "So if I'm overqualified, why did you call me in for an interview?" The answer they don't say is: "We were hoping to get talent for half of what it's worth." I've learned to judge to the dollar exactly what they're going to offer to underpay: I've been right every time. So I've gone the freelance route and added four new small clients recently, which bring in about 50% more than I was making three years ago doing full-time work, more than compensating for insurance and the like. They're happy to have me. And every new client I get is the result of them having, in the past, underpaid for the technical support work I do. They were cheap and they got the crappy support they deserved. Now they're paying the going rate and getting better service.

Not only that, but the number of cheap bastards who try to hire interns to do work they would otherwise have to pay an employee tens of thousands of dollars to do is amazing. Take a few minutes and scroll through the jobs at Craigslist. People are greedy and cheap and it's best to avoid them. If you're not qualified, you're not qualified, and it may not be your fault. There are a couple of ads that keep appearing on the tech sites repeatedly for the exact same position. I've called; it's a real job. But it has incredibly unreasonable expectations. They'll never fill it, except with someone desperate who will leave as soon as the next slightly better opportunity arrives.

On the other hand, I've been on the hiring end, as well. I know this type of kid. His type thinks the word "computer" equals the word "money" and doesn't get it. Judging by his resume, he's got general office skills (phone, computer, fax, pencil, paper) and not much else. He's probably like the schmuck who was fired from the chair I'm sitting in right now who spent a good deal of time setting up an Unreal Tournament server but not in closing the open relay on the SMTP server. Unfocused, undisciplined, unwilling to put in the shit time, unlearned: these are the traits I've seen in resumes that cross my desk time and time again. Sometimes you've got to take those underpaying jobs just to acquire valuable skills. I've had people claim expertise in versions of software that weren't even in beta yet and not available on the warez sites (hey, I keep up). I've had people bring in friends to vouch for them (like I would sucker for that? And bringing friends to an interview? Are you KIDDING?). This guy has all the markings of a disaster-in-waiting. I wouldn't put him in charge of bread and a toaster.

Regarding speaking Swahili: Foreign language skill is not a sure pay-raiser. Most jobs requiring foreign language skills are very low-level (doorman, secretary) or very high-level (director of a major NGO or UN agency). I know many people who speak three or more languages and make less than $50K a year.
posted by Mo Nickels at 3:01 PM on June 19, 2002

I don't know the tech market, but I lauged at the design market jobs and commentary because those ads are always around. It's just in the slow period you see a lot of qualified talent having to apply for them.

And yeah, the guy is complaining, but it's still funny. And that's why it's a good site. I don't think any of us are really using it as a barometer of the job market.

I have also hired staff, and given how many good people are around, those fly by night operations that want to hire talented people who can do it all always make me laugh. They tend to get what they pay for - a revolving door and crappy quality work.
posted by Salmonberry at 3:13 PM on June 19, 2002

"Entertainment Secretary with EXPIRIENCE female only." "Have the right attitude and look.." .. "Attractive professional expirience" ..
DaRiLo - does this job seem relativly fine to you?
posted by dabitch at 3:55 PM on June 19, 2002

The writer of the site is female, not male. Note under each post: "posted by tanya b."
posted by astruc at 3:58 PM on June 19, 2002

Whoopsie. Sorry "tanya b".

As a side note, I thought about applying for the "entertainment secretary" job, but I looked and I can't find the right attitude anywhere. Anyone know where I can get one? I've had that come up in a few interviews.

(I ran spellchecker and it lists anal, ayah and twangy as alternatives for Tanya. That is one odd spellchecker.)
posted by Salmonberry at 4:10 PM on June 19, 2002

i checked out the site right after searching online for a new position in my (u.s.) city. the job listing i looked at was for a midlevel to senior java developer, with sas and oracle.

salary was listed at $15k to $20k.

be still my heart.
posted by lescour at 4:48 PM on June 19, 2002

crap, i'm one of those interns doing all the left-over and tedious jobs for no pay... he did a mini-response, btw...
posted by lotsofno at 11:22 PM on June 19, 2002

On the other side, I used to have a job where I had to interview a whole mess of potential candidates, and wow, the pool of people out there was... kinda messed up, to be honest. And that was after we'd screened out the obvious ones.
posted by ph00dz at 6:42 AM on June 20, 2002

Sometimes you've got to take those underpaying jobs just to acquire valuable skills.

A reasonable point, Mo, but almost all of the links on this site are to ads for unpaid internships, some of which want skills that would have netted $60K two years ago. (The archive links have been munged by Blogger. If you hack the URLs there are two more weeks of further examples.)

$0.00 per hour to work 9-5 for The Man. Sounds tempting. I'm sure it'll encourage those internees to do their very best.
posted by rory at 7:30 AM on June 20, 2002

(Interns, I mean, not internees. Sorry, it's a while since I checked out the $0.00 per hour job market.)
posted by rory at 7:34 AM on June 20, 2002