How does one convince a company that they work like a person with 3-5 years of experience despite not having 3-5 years of experience? As I am determined to not go longer than a week without a job. Or else I shall lose my mind...
Posted by airmanfour (Member # 6111) on :
Do you come across well in person? I hear an air of competance goes a long way.
The losing of the mind thing doesn't sound good.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
My clothes are not respectable enough. That's one problem. Another problem is that I am rather shy. But I want a 14-20 dollar an hour job. So I will try to get one.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:My clothes are not respectable enough. That's one problem. Another problem is that I am rather shy. But I want a 14-20 dollar an hour job. So I will try to get one.
Do you deserve a 14-20 dollar an hour job?
It's an honest question. That's a good living, ranging from 2.7 to 3.8 times the minimum wage. What are your qualifications and experience that merits you that kind of salary?
I am often curious at people who assume they "should be" or "deserve to be" making a certain amount. To make a good salary you have to make an employer money - what do you have to offer a potential employer that is good enough that they should offer you that type of salary?
The clothes are no excuse. Scour consignment shops or thrift stores if you can't afford to buy good clothes off the rack but if you want a professional salary, you need to dress and act the part of a professional.
When an employer hires someone it's a gamble. They are going to invest a lot of money and time in you and they want to know that investment is going to pay off. Showing up in unprofessional dress and not carrying yourself like a skilled, confident professional does not inspire someone to take risks on you.
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
Belle made good points.
Honestly, there's no good way for you to convince someone that you're good enough without experience before the interview, so try as hard as humanly possible to get the interview. If you simply do not have on paper what the company is looking for, I'd go for a very unique, interesting cover letter instead of trying to resume-pad. Make sure your references are really, really good and encourage your prospective employer to call them in your cover letter; I've found that sometimes does the trick.
Make sure it's very clear in your resume & cover letter why you do not need the requisite experience. If you have 3-5 years of experience in an unrelated field, discuss why those skills translate. If the skills are self-acquired, explain the acquisition process and why you think that qualifies you (for example, if they want 3-5 years of web dev experience and you are already workingly fluent with .NET framework, PHP, SQL, XHTML etc. then you can probably make a strong case).
It is, however, a very good suggestion to sit down and ask yourself why you feel you qualify for a 14-20 dollar an hour job. Do you at least have a four year degree, and is it in a related field? If you don't have that and don't have the work experience, then I'm going to suggest that it's going to be borderline impossible for you to get a job that pays that kind of money. To pretend otherwise is just setting yourself up for much larger disappointment later.
If you really do feel you are qualified enough to be earning that kind of salary then approach it confidently, keeping that in mind. Because you do not have the paper qualifications, it is up to you to demonstrate your desirability.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
I say you fake it until you make it. Generally, unless you have a degree, 14-20 dollar starting salary non-sales jobs are reserved for people with connections. (See, my first instinct was to say white people, but it's summer and I'm going to spend a month being nice to white people)
Not having the clothes is not an excuse. You'll just have to fake it through two interviews, and I know I'm using my real name and that this is a public forum, but if you can do it convincingly, lie, lie, lie until you get through the process. Just say yes to anything they ask that you can do, and then run home and figure out how to do it. Get in over your head because either you are going to sink or you are going to swim, and if you sink, you are broke anyway.
Just remember that cat who chased the bear up a tree and fake it.
[ June 16, 2006, 10:30 AM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: Generally, unless you have a degree, 14-20 dollar starting salary an hour non-sales jobs are reserved for people with connections. (See, my first instinct was to say white people, but it's summer and I'm going to spend a month being nice to white people)
And you're having such success with it . . .
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I got a 4 year degree. I'm willing to work hard. Damn right I deserve 14-20 an hour. I'm sick of getting to Thursday and being down to the holy relics and struggling to pay rent. I had a job that made me 13.96 plus overtime back last summer. Wrote about 300 letters a week for them when I got good with hardly any mistakes. But they had to let me go because they were letting go all the temp workers because of their budget. I'm simply tired of minimum wage or making less than 12 an hour with travel expenses and other expenses. Shyness aside, I'm going to push for it. I hate being without a good job longer than a week and I know it's possible to get a good job that pays me more than enough money so I can actually SAVE money instead of just having 2 dollars left from my paycheck that I actually like and enjoy because that's how it was over the summer and the fall. I know I can do it again if I push for it so I simply will. Even if I have to take more temp jobs before I can get to that point. But any job I've been on I've worked hard on.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:but if you can do in convincingly, lie, lie, lie until you get through the process
This is why Irami is in sales, pushing a "service" to customers who could, if I understand his business model correctly, do the same thing with a wireless router and 200 lines of code. Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: (See, my first instinct was to say white people, but it's summer and I'm going to spend a month being nice to white people)
While you're probably right (unfortunately) and this is just anecdotal, but three of the four managers in my department are black women. Sure, it's middle management, but they make more money than me.
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
quote: You'll just have to fake it through two interviews, and I know I'm using my real name and that this is a public forum, but if you can do in convincingly, lie, lie, lie until you get through the process. Just say yes to anything they ask that you can do, and then run home and figure out how to do it. Get in over your head because either you are going to sink or you are going to swim, and if you sink, you are broke anyway.
So when the company finds out they've been lied to, they'll have two options. Either fire you outright and start looking for someone else from scratch or spend more time and money training you than they had bargained for. I can see how that would make someone worth $14-$20/hr.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
What is your degree in, Syn?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
We have a help-desk employee in my department who claimed in her resume to have more relevant certifications than anyone else in the entire department -- A+, CCNA, MCSE, and about five more. She's a Dominican nun from Nigeria, meaning that according to our hiring polices we had to hire her (because any Dominican applying for a position who's qualified on paper gets the job, basically).
But once we hired her, I and the other staff were dismayed to discover that she knows basically nothing. I had to teach her the IPCONFIG command. And immediately thereafter had to explain what an IP address was.
*shudder* I don't like thinking that a nun was lying on her resume, but I don't know what else to conclude. So instead I tell myself that she's not a nun, either, and was placed with the Dominican Order by the Nigerian equivalent of the Witness Protection Program.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Zgator, non-degree and starting salary are the operative words.
Syne, why don't you substitute teach?
________________
I'm lucky enough where I can play it straight. I have demonstrable skills, solid references, and a degree, but I don't think highly of HR managers and I have friends with criminal records, and getting a job with a record or getting it expunged is an exercise in sociology.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
If I remember right, you're in the NYC area, aren't you Syn?
If so, then understandably 14-20 dollar an hour would translate much differently that it would for jobs in say, Belle's area of the country, or my area of the country. NYC pays higher because it costs so much more to live there.
I think we all need to keep regional differences in mind. While $14 is consider high in Kansas, it certainly isn't in, say, California.
FG
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
quote: We have a help-desk employee in my department who claimed in her resume to have more relevant certifications than anyone else in the entire department -- A+, CCNA, MCSE, and about five more
Why didn't they just ask to see copies of her certs? If she didn't have legitmate certifications, they could fire her based on lying on her resume'.
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
Hey, I'm white, but I don't have any connections. Is there some place I can go to get my stack? I'm feeling left out of my entitlement. Thanks! Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:Originally posted by Farmgirl: If I remember right, you're in the NYC area, aren't you Syn?
If so, then understandably 14-20 dollar an hour would translate much differently that it would for jobs in say, Belle's area of the country, or my area of the country. NYC pays higher because it costs so much more to live there.
I think we all need to keep regional differences in mind. While $14 is consider high in Kansas, it certainly isn't in, say, California.
FG
Excellent point, FG.
On the certs issue, that isn't necessarily true. I picked up an MCP in Workstation 2000 a few years back, because the company I was working for at that time needed one more person with a current Microsoft certification in order to qualify as a Microsoft Business Partner (or something like that). Microsoft never sent me the paperwork they were supposed to about it, and when I tried to get proof of it some time ago they didn't have me in their system. I emailed their certification help team, and received a response saying that they'd be glad to help me, but that I'd need to provide them with my MCP Id # (or something like that). Since that's precisely the information I was wanting them to give to me it wasn't much of a help. I wrote back explaining this, and never heard from them again. I didn't pursue it because it wasn't really important; I don't do Windows admin work, and I expect that that cert is old enough now not to be particularly useful even if I did.
I could show an employer a print out of my "congratulations! You passed the test" thing from the place I took the test, but that's about it.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I got my job with less than desired experience and I made it my business to catch up.
They needed an experienced blogger so I assumed since I was blogging daily I was experienced enough.
I sat down on my first day of work and just did nothing but research everything there was to know about my company and what people were saying about it. I immersed myself in the corporate literature so that I knew what I was talking about when I wrote about them.
Then came the challenge of the person who was supposed to write all the html for my blog being swamped with multiple projects. I kept begging to do any odd job that might be needed and got them done as fast as humanly possible.
Eventually I realized the html was not getting done fast so I decided to learn html. (Not that that is a huge feat, but it was not in my job description). I am doing quite well I think, and I was suprised to find out that the html for the blog will be done very soon and they are expecting my first blog post midway through next week. Interestingly enough a basic knowledge of html will actually help me blog more efficiently.
Once I reach that point I will be able to post a blog entry every 3 days or so and really get used to being a corporate blogger. I think I am going to demand a raise at Christmas if I do a good job.
Not that I am trying to brag, but I came into this job largely not being told what was expected of me and I just dug in and didnt let go until things worked out.
I work whatever hours I feel like working, I dont have to clock out for lunch, I can come and go as I please and I have almost no oversight. Dont work weekends and I get $10 an hour. I am betting I can get $15 come Christmas once I really make this blog work well for this company. I am also applying to get health insurance, and other benefits from the company and I have every confidence of achieving that too.
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
quote:I work whatever hours I feel like working, I dont have to clock out for lunch, I can come and go as I please and I have almost no oversight. Dont work weekends and I get $10 an hour. I am betting I can get $15 come Christmas once I really make this blog work well for this company.
While what you've accomplished is awesome, I think it might be irrelevant because (if I'm reading correctly) Syn wants a job with a start salary of $14-20/hour. It's way, WAY easier to ask for raises from within the company if you are an exceptional worker, because you can demonstrate your capabilities.
Also, ask yourself: why did your employer hire you? Assuming they got other resumes, why did they hire you over someone more closely matching the qualifications they were looking for?
Sharing that information would probably be pretty helpful to Syn. Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Why didn't they just ask to see copies of her certs?
You assume my employer's competence.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I'm in Boston. It seems I have this job for less than a month, but, I still have to find a new job. Which oddly makes me feel like I am cheating on this job. I know it's not the same as having a boyfriend or something, but still... They did extend me, which makes me feel secure, but I still hate this job. But, if I have to choose between eating fried eggs and eating beets I'll just eat the beets.
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
One thing to check on is how the overall compensation structure works, even if the starting is not in the range you want. Some places I've worked you have to wait a year to get a raise, but at my current company you could go from $12/hour starting to over $14/hour in 6 months with even basic minimal competance.
--Enigmatic
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
Syn: Don't lie. Toot your own horn, but don't lie. Lieing might get you the job but honesty will help you keep it.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
It won't matter if she doesn't get to the second interview. Luckily, I've, for the most part, had the skills or the contacts commensurate with the jobs I end up at. For the last few years, the problem has been people get scared that I'm over qualified, so I've been lying down. But I've never had my heart on getting a set amount of pay, and I have a keen awareness about how ridiculous the job procedure and I'm not about to feed her line about how far the market is. If she wants the money, lie for it. If she wants to keep her dignity, take the 9.50 an hour.
And if she wants the money and honesty, well, at this stage, they very well may be mutually exclusive.
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