I've done data entry 8 hours a day; inputting information in such a way that I was repeating the process every 2 minutes non stop. I could listen to music and wear casual, but I couldn't let my average per-hour numbers go down or one of my four supervisors would come up wondering why I was slacking. And we had overtime alot too. ALOT.
I've worked physically strenous jobs that were infinitely more preferable to that.
"get a job at a soon to be successful startup" is a plan like "bet your paycheck on black" is a plan.
I know right? People act like 90% of startups aren't failures or something and end up with people working without even getting paid oft times.
You guys are missing the bigger picture. Whether or not the startup is successful is besides the point. The experience that you get working in a startup is where the value is. It gives you ammunition for your resume ... often in an area you wouldn't have a hope in hell of ever having gotten experience in at a corporate job. Experience that can be leveraged down the road to get you into a proper paying corporate job that demands "experience". Because start ups are typically small you end up wearing multiple hats ... which means multiple transferable skillsets that can be used on your resume. Your title and responsibilities are usually more senior than would be possible if applying corporate.
If the startup fails it can still be something that helps you get ahead. Personally I'd much rather work at a start up that comes with a paycheque and gain important skills, rather than doing an unpaid internship.
And there IS the possibility of the start up succeeding in a huge way allowing you to leverage the stock ownership they typically give out like candy in a startups early phase.
The key to startups is to do your homework. How much is the company being funded? Who is the venture capitalist/venture company doing the funding? Is the company on the wire or something that can provide a steady paycheque and experience for the next couple of years?
Edith-Bagot-Dix and I have lived the identical life - with 2 years separation (Born 1979 here). Mike Harris' government crushed my hopes of high school History Teacherdom and instead sent me off to a boring minimum wage job for long enough to realize that I wanted to do something else. Degree No.2 and now I've landed a civil service job that may or may not cease to exist in the next round of austerity! Yay the economic action plan... And I actually saw an article titled "Is Jim Flaherty the 2000's Paul Martin?"
"get a job at a soon to be successful startup" is a plan like "bet your paycheck on black" is a plan.
I know right? People act like 90% of startups aren't failures or something and end up with people working without even getting paid oft times.
You guys are missing the bigger picture. Whether or not the startup is successful is besides the point. The experience that you get working in a startup is where the value is. It gives you ammunition for your resume ... often in an area you wouldn't have a hope in hell of ever having gotten experience in at a corporate job. Experience that can be leveraged down the road to get you into a proper paying corporate job that demands "experience". Because start ups are typically small you end up wearing multiple hats ... which means multiple transferable skillsets that can be used on your resume. Your title and responsibilities are usually more senior than would be possible if applying corporate.
If the startup fails it can still be something that helps you get ahead. Personally I'd much rather work at a start up that comes with a paycheque and gain important skills, rather than doing an unpaid internship.
And there IS the possibility of the start up succeeding in a huge way allowing you to leverage the stock ownership they typically give out like candy in a startups early phase.
The key to startups is to do your homework. How much is the company being funded? Who is the venture capitalist/venture company doing the funding? Is the company on the wire or something that can provide a steady paycheque and experience for the next couple of years?
So you can do a ton of unpayed work to land a job at a start-up in order to secure a line on your resume to get you ... what job again?
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
"get a job at a soon to be successful startup" is a plan like "bet your paycheck on black" is a plan.
I know right? People act like 90% of startups aren't failures or something and end up with people working without even getting paid oft times.
You guys are missing the bigger picture. Whether or not the startup is successful is besides the point. The experience that you get working in a startup is where the value is. It gives you ammunition for your resume ... often in an area you wouldn't have a hope in hell of ever having gotten experience in at a corporate job. Experience that can be leveraged down the road to get you into a proper paying corporate job that demands "experience". Because start ups are typically small you end up wearing multiple hats ... which means multiple transferable skillsets that can be used on your resume. Your title and responsibilities are usually more senior than would be possible if applying corporate.
If the startup fails it can still be something that helps you get ahead. Personally I'd much rather work at a start up that comes with a paycheque and gain important skills, rather than doing an unpaid internship.
And there IS the possibility of the start up succeeding in a huge way allowing you to leverage the stock ownership they typically give out like candy in a startups early phase.
The key to startups is to do your homework. How much is the company being funded? Who is the venture capitalist/venture company doing the funding? Is the company on the wire or something that can provide a steady paycheque and experience for the next couple of years?
So you can do a ton of unpayed work to land a job at a start-up in order to secure a line on your resume to get you ... what job again?
Muse Among MenSuburban Bunny Princess?Its time for a new shtick Registered Userregular
Why do boots even need to have bootstraps anymore modern boots come with goddamn zippers!? Bootstraps are outdated we have the technology to progress beyond their need.
"get a job at a soon to be successful startup" is a plan like "bet your paycheck on black" is a plan.
I know right? People act like 90% of startups aren't failures or something and end up with people working without even getting paid oft times.
You guys are missing the bigger picture. Whether or not the startup is successful is besides the point. The experience that you get working in a startup is where the value is. It gives you ammunition for your resume ... often in an area you wouldn't have a hope in hell of ever having gotten experience in at a corporate job. Experience that can be leveraged down the road to get you into a proper paying corporate job that demands "experience". Because start ups are typically small you end up wearing multiple hats ... which means multiple transferable skillsets that can be used on your resume. Your title and responsibilities are usually more senior than would be possible if applying corporate.
If the startup fails it can still be something that helps you get ahead. Personally I'd much rather work at a start up that comes with a paycheque and gain important skills, rather than doing an unpaid internship.
And there IS the possibility of the start up succeeding in a huge way allowing you to leverage the stock ownership they typically give out like candy in a startups early phase.
The key to startups is to do your homework. How much is the company being funded? Who is the venture capitalist/venture company doing the funding? Is the company on the wire or something that can provide a steady paycheque and experience for the next couple of years?
When a startup fails, that's not a glorious, resume-enhancing line on your resume; that's a question you have to figure out how to clarify in your job interview. "Why did you leave your last job?" "The company failed." "What did you do for them?" "Oh, I did tons of stuff, all of which I was amazing at." "Then why did the company fail?"
"get a job at a soon to be successful startup" is a plan like "bet your paycheck on black" is a plan.
I know right? People act like 90% of startups aren't failures or something and end up with people working without even getting paid oft times.
You guys are missing the bigger picture. Whether or not the startup is successful is besides the point. The experience that you get working in a startup is where the value is. It gives you ammunition for your resume ... often in an area you wouldn't have a hope in hell of ever having gotten experience in at a corporate job. Experience that can be leveraged down the road to get you into a proper paying corporate job that demands "experience". Because start ups are typically small you end up wearing multiple hats ... which means multiple transferable skillsets that can be used on your resume. Your title and responsibilities are usually more senior than would be possible if applying corporate.
If the startup fails it can still be something that helps you get ahead. Personally I'd much rather work at a start up that comes with a paycheque and gain important skills, rather than doing an unpaid internship.
And there IS the possibility of the start up succeeding in a huge way allowing you to leverage the stock ownership they typically give out like candy in a startups early phase.
The key to startups is to do your homework. How much is the company being funded? Who is the venture capitalist/venture company doing the funding? Is the company on the wire or something that can provide a steady paycheque and experience for the next couple of years?
Having worked for a startup that fell through, and in that vein not getting paid, I can tell you with first hand experience that unless said startup accomplished something, or you luck out and get a real nice review manager, it will amount to jack and shit.
Well, wasted time with no pay. So negative shit.
Unpaid intern at least means a stable though company to use as a reference if nothing else.
So its no cure all, or even a good idea a lot of the time.
"get a job at a soon to be successful startup" is a plan like "bet your paycheck on black" is a plan.
I know right? People act like 90% of startups aren't failures or something and end up with people working without even getting paid oft times.
You guys are missing the bigger picture. Whether or not the startup is successful is besides the point. The experience that you get working in a startup is where the value is. It gives you ammunition for your resume ... often in an area you wouldn't have a hope in hell of ever having gotten experience in at a corporate job. Experience that can be leveraged down the road to get you into a proper paying corporate job that demands "experience". Because start ups are typically small you end up wearing multiple hats ... which means multiple transferable skillsets that can be used on your resume. Your title and responsibilities are usually more senior than would be possible if applying corporate.
If the startup fails it can still be something that helps you get ahead. Personally I'd much rather work at a start up that comes with a paycheque and gain important skills, rather than doing an unpaid internship.
And there IS the possibility of the start up succeeding in a huge way allowing you to leverage the stock ownership they typically give out like candy in a startups early phase.
The key to startups is to do your homework. How much is the company being funded? Who is the venture capitalist/venture company doing the funding? Is the company on the wire or something that can provide a steady paycheque and experience for the next couple of years?
When a startup fails, that's not a glorious, resume-enhancing line on your resume; that's a question you have to figure out how to clarify in your job interview. "Why did you leave your last job?" "The company failed." "What did you do for them?" "Oh, I did tons of stuff, all of which I was amazing at." "Then why did the company fail?"
Sorry but I completely disagree. In today's economy you can get laid off for any reason at all ... be it a public job suffering from government budget cutbacks, a corporate company downsizing or a startup that shuts down. Companies don't care why you left your last job provided you weren't fired. What they care about is the skills you bring to the table.
I say this as an Employment Counsellor. For the last six years I've worked as a Job Coach, Case Manager/Employment Counsellor and Group Facilitator. The "on the ground" skills you bring to the table are king in this economy, trumping even post secondary education.
Working at a startup provides valuable skills you otherwise would not have along with a reference provided you are smart enough to linkin with your manager. The reasons to work at a startup are the same as those reasons people work in unpaid internships. The ability to acquire the marketable skills that "established" corporate companies lust after.
I get all my best jobs through friends our meeting management at strip clubs and such.
National averages show that people with high education and experience aren't getting hired. Over qualified, etc.
There really isn't any magical means of success. I say this as someone who once did the hiring. While experience and such was nice, it really came down to if anyone in my circle knew them, and similar metrics. Unless we just needed a very specific skill.
I definitely agree with you regarding networking. It is the number 1 way to land a job.
With that said, experience is an important factor for companies in any hiring decision. Especially when it's you versus 100+ other people all applying for the same position. Ironically I find myself in the same boat ... due to government downsizing of subsidized Employment Services in Ontario, I find myself competing against multiple individuals with similar education and years of experience as myself. Networking through my contacts has been a key component of my job search.
It's one of the main reasons I used to compel my clients that if they weren't on Linkedin to get on Linkedin and include a link to their public profile on their resume. In the old days clients would bring in pen/paper and photo career portfolio's to their interview (and still do in certain industries). For the rest of us, LinkedIn provides more recruiter eyeball time on their career history as well as a handy connection to previous managers (references) that may not be with the company one worked with anymore.
You know, back in my day we had a word for forcing people to work for free. I forget what it was.
Anyway reading that link Thanatos posted made me angry. How could that be considered anything other than fraud, extortion or outright theft? I hope the employees band together and sue zyngas arse off.
And choco, if you have landed jobs by cruising strip joints you're a complete badass in my book. A sleazy, sleazy badass.
You know, back in my day we had a word for forcing people to work for free. I forget what it was.
Anyway reading that link Thanatos posted made me angry. How could that be considered anything other than fraud, extortion or outright theft? I hope the employees band together and sue zyngas arse off.
And choco, if you have landed jobs by cruising strip joints you're a complete badass in my book. A sleazy, sleazy badass.
I got a network technician job by bumping into a manager who was lamenting his shitty employees and how they did more harm than good with the company PCs. So I mentioned how easy it'd be to ghost a generic install over the network with deep freeze installed to stop them from fucking around.
Edith-Bagot-Dix and I have lived the identical life - with 2 years separation (Born 1979 here). Mike Harris' government crushed my hopes of high school History Teacherdom and instead sent me off to a boring minimum wage job for long enough to realize that I wanted to do something else. Degree No.2 and now I've landed a civil service job that may or may not cease to exist in the next round of austerity! Yay the economic action plan... And I actually saw an article titled "Is Jim Flaherty the 2000's Paul Martin?"
The people I really feel bad for are the ones who stuck with it. A guy I am still friends with (played D&D with him back in undergrad) stuck with the initial BA and went on to teacher's college with the intent of being a high school history teacher. After 10 years of substitute teaching and working retail jobs or temping to fill in the gaps, he will (this September) finally qualify for the same entry level full time teaching gig my mother (as a Boomer) started her teaching career with at age 23.
You know, back in my day we had a word for forcing people to work for free. I forget what it was.
Anyway reading that link Thanatos posted made me angry. How could that be considered anything other than fraud, extortion or outright theft? I hope the employees band together and sue zyngas arse off.
And choco, if you have landed jobs by cruising strip joints you're a complete badass in my book. A sleazy, sleazy badass.
I got a network technician job by bumping into a manager who was lamenting his shitty employees and how they did more harm than good with the company PCs. So I mentioned how easy it'd be to ghost a generic install over the network with deep freeze installed to stop them from fucking around.
I then bought him a lap dance and a whiskey. bff.
This just proves what I've always suspected. People with chocobos as their avatars are awesome.
"get a job at a soon to be successful startup" is a plan like "bet your paycheck on black" is a plan.
I know right? People act like 90% of startups aren't failures or something and end up with people working without even getting paid oft times.
You guys are missing the bigger picture. Whether or not the startup is successful is besides the point. The experience that you get working in a startup is where the value is. It gives you ammunition for your resume ... often in an area you wouldn't have a hope in hell of ever having gotten experience in at a corporate job. Experience that can be leveraged down the road to get you into a proper paying corporate job that demands "experience". Because start ups are typically small you end up wearing multiple hats ... which means multiple transferable skillsets that can be used on your resume. Your title and responsibilities are usually more senior than would be possible if applying corporate.
If the startup fails it can still be something that helps you get ahead. Personally I'd much rather work at a start up that comes with a paycheque and gain important skills, rather than doing an unpaid internship.
And there IS the possibility of the start up succeeding in a huge way allowing you to leverage the stock ownership they typically give out like candy in a startups early phase.
The key to startups is to do your homework. How much is the company being funded? Who is the venture capitalist/venture company doing the funding? Is the company on the wire or something that can provide a steady paycheque and experience for the next couple of years?
I'm not missing the bigger picture, I'm disagreeing with you. Working for a startup is pretty fucking retarded if you have any other options. You have a much higher chance of getting shafted for wages than becoming a "Web 2.0 millionaire".
Hell, that website you linked showing that the "gravy train was back in the station" wrt start ups shows a whole 10 jobs posted last week. toot toot...
"get a job at a soon to be successful startup" is a plan like "bet your paycheck on black" is a plan.
I know right? People act like 90% of startups aren't failures or something and end up with people working without even getting paid oft times.
You guys are missing the bigger picture. Whether or not the startup is successful is besides the point. The experience that you get working in a startup is where the value is. It gives you ammunition for your resume ... often in an area you wouldn't have a hope in hell of ever having gotten experience in at a corporate job. Experience that can be leveraged down the road to get you into a proper paying corporate job that demands "experience". Because start ups are typically small you end up wearing multiple hats ... which means multiple transferable skillsets that can be used on your resume. Your title and responsibilities are usually more senior than would be possible if applying corporate.
If the startup fails it can still be something that helps you get ahead. Personally I'd much rather work at a start up that comes with a paycheque and gain important skills, rather than doing an unpaid internship.
And there IS the possibility of the start up succeeding in a huge way allowing you to leverage the stock ownership they typically give out like candy in a startups early phase.
The key to startups is to do your homework. How much is the company being funded? Who is the venture capitalist/venture company doing the funding? Is the company on the wire or something that can provide a steady paycheque and experience for the next couple of years?
When a startup fails, that's not a glorious, resume-enhancing line on your resume; that's a question you have to figure out how to clarify in your job interview. "Why did you leave your last job?" "The company failed." "What did you do for them?" "Oh, I did tons of stuff, all of which I was amazing at." "Then why did the company fail?"
Sorry but I completely disagree. In today's economy you can get laid off for any reason at all ... be it a public job suffering from government budget cutbacks, a corporate company downsizing or a startup that shuts down. Companies don't care why you left your last job provided you weren't fired. What they care about is the skills you bring to the table.
I say this as an Employment Counsellor. For the last six years I've worked as a Job Coach, Case Manager/Employment Counsellor and Group Facilitator. The "on the ground" skills you bring to the table are king in this economy, trumping even post secondary education.
Working at a startup provides valuable skills you otherwise would not have along with a reference provided you are smart enough to linkin with your manager. The reasons to work at a startup are the same as those reasons people work in unpaid internships. The ability to acquire the marketable skills that "established" corporate companies lust after.
You know how they say, "Those who can't do, teach?" You have no idea what makes a good employee. You have a made-up job where you apparently give really bad advice to people about how they should go get jobs that you, yourself, can't get. Your advice is AWFUL.
My mom is recovering from some minor surgery and her mom and sister are visiting. They tell me I'm not looking hard enough to find a job.. when my mom also doesn't have one, but poor her, I guess?
You have a penis. And to be a man you must have both money, and a penis.
Now go do the booty dance to demonstrate your resolve.
I've done data entry 8 hours a day; inputting information in such a way that I was repeating the process every 2 minutes non stop. I could listen to music and wear casual, but I couldn't let my average per-hour numbers go down or one of my four supervisors would come up wondering why I was slacking. And we had overtime alot too. ALOT.
I've worked physically strenous jobs that were infinitely more preferable to that.
And most modern medicine will tell you that data entry in the long term is probably more degrading to your body than a day of ditch digging. Humans are designed for ditch digging and physical exercise, our bodies are MUCH better at saying 'Hey, you are digging this ditch the wrong way, dig it a different way' than they are at letting us know that you should really be typing at a 2 degree shallower angle to avoid RSI in the long term. This isn't to say ditch digger is some grand job, if you are all the way down the manual labor scale at ditch digger then you come home each night tired and probably aching all over but the same is true of data entry.
The modern economy is really facing serious problems. We are running out of places to grow, we are running out of demand and at the same time increases in efficiency means fewer and fewer workers are needed to produce more and more goods. I've said it in other threads, but one of the big reasons we have such a generational problem is that we are getting to a 'post scarcity' market for labor. I think that ahead we'll see some huge changes in the way society functions but it wont come easily and it won't necessarily take a positive path.
I've done data entry 8 hours a day; inputting information in such a way that I was repeating the process every 2 minutes non stop. I could listen to music and wear casual, but I couldn't let my average per-hour numbers go down or one of my four supervisors would come up wondering why I was slacking. And we had overtime alot too. ALOT.
I've worked physically strenous jobs that were infinitely more preferable to that.
And most modern medicine will tell you that data entry in the long term is probably more degrading to your body than a day of ditch digging. Humans are designed for ditch digging and physical exercise, our bodies are MUCH better at saying 'Hey, you are digging this ditch the wrong way, dig it a different way' than they are at letting us know that you should really be typing at a 2 degree shallower angle to avoid RSI in the long term. This isn't to say ditch digger is some grand job, if you are all the way down the manual labor scale at ditch digger then you come home each night tired and probably aching all over but the same is true of data entry.
The modern economy is really facing serious problems. We are running out of places to grow, we are running out of demand and at the same time increases in efficiency means fewer and fewer workers are needed to produce more and more goods. I've said it in other threads, but one of the big reasons we have such a generational problem is that we are getting to a 'post scarcity' market for labor. I think that ahead we'll see some huge changes in the way society functions but it wont come easily and it won't necessarily take a positive path.
I think the one of the biggest problems is the bill of goods sold to people by Universities. "Here, let us educate you for an array of jobs a billion other people can do also. Also, we're always going to follow job growth trends and adjust our curriculum accordingly, so that when you graduate the market will be flooded with people just like you." I work for a university; they really are the mother of a great deal of our cultural and societal problems at the moment - false preconceptions, obsolete cirricula, little acknowledgement of technical skills as essential in the modern work place.
Things are really shit right now in the world. However, the color of the shit is a little darker because universities promised all of us millennials that we could have everything we wanted if stayed in school and paid our tuition. When I was a freshman back in 2001, they were telling us that Cisco guys can make $100,000 right our of college. The only Cisco networking professionals who make that kind of money are those with a CICE; you to have ten years of networking experience just to take the certification exam.
Working at a startup provides valuable skills you otherwise would not have along with a reference provided you are smart enough to linkin with your manager. The reasons to work at a startup are the same as those reasons people work in unpaid internships. The ability to acquire the marketable skills that "established" corporate companies lust after.
You can also get those skills from established companies, and you won't have to worry so much about getting paid.
Working for a startup were the worst years of my life. The long hours and stress wrecked my health and caused me to get physically sick. When the startup started having problems paying its bills, the "marketable skills that 'established' corporate companies lust after" weren't enough to land me a new job and I had to just deal with it when my paychecks were issued a day late, two days late, a week late... which meant my rent was late and my bill payments were late.
What did I get out of working for that startup? Some marketable skills, sure. Along with three years of bad health, thousands of dollars of medical bills, and seven years of tarnished credit.
Fuck that.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
I think the one of the biggest problems is the bill of goods sold to people by Universities. "Here, let us educate you for an array of jobs a billion other people can do also. Also, we're always going to follow job growth trends and adjust our curriculum accordingly, so that when you graduate the market will be flooded with people just like you." I work for a university; they really are the mother of a great deal of our cultural and societal problems at the moment - false preconceptions, obsolete cirricula, little acknowledgement of technical skills as essential in the modern work place.
Things are really shit right now in the world. However, the color of the shit is a little darker because universities promised all of us millennials that we could have everything we wanted if stayed in school and paid our tuition. When I was a freshman back in 2001, they were telling us that Cisco guys can make $100,000 right our of college. The only Cisco networking professionals who make that kind of money are those with a CICE; you to have ten years of networking experience just to take the certification exam.
I totally agree.
Once of the problems is that they quote Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers - so, for instance, they might tell aspiring physics majors that physicists make an average of $100k/yr. However, that only counts people whose actual job title has the word 'physicist', so if you get a degree in physics and then you end up a postdoc or a high school science teacher, your wages aren't included in that statistic. And they don't tell you that even with a PhD in physics, you're far more likely to end up in a postdoc or teaching position making $40-50k. If recent grads are ending up unemployed, they're not counted in the BLS salary estimates at all.(We had a thread about this a few months ago.)
It's a flagrant misuse of statistics intended to entice kids to go to university (and take out a shitload of debt).
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Let's be clear though: going to school can provide you with more and better opportunities. It just isn't the glorious guarantee of easy street right-out-of-school supervisory positions in the 6-figure income range universities want you to believe.
It's like drug propaganda. Yes, being addicted to drugs is a Bad Thing. But instead of giving you facts, they distort the truth. So people tend to get disillusioned when they find out the things they were told aren't exactly true the first time they try pot.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I would like to see unpaid interships die in a fire.
They are completely unapproachable by a wide majority of people yet are one of the only ways to get work experience.
There was no way I'd have been able to hold down my job, keep my GPA high, and add an unpaid intership to that mix when I was in undergrad.
I would like to see unpaid interships die in a fire.
They are completely unapproachable by a wide majority of people yet are one of the only ways to get work experience.
There was no way I'd have been able to hold down my job, keep my GPA high, and add an unpaid intership to that mix when I was in undergrad.
Yeah, we should eliminate unpaid internships altogether. Or, at the very least, eliminate them for everyone except non-profits and government entities.
I would like to see unpaid interships die in a fire.
They are completely unapproachable by a wide majority of people yet are one of the only ways to get work experience.
There was no way I'd have been able to hold down my job, keep my GPA high, and add an unpaid intership to that mix when I was in undergrad.
Yeah, we should eliminate unpaid internships altogether. Or, at the very least, eliminate them for everyone except non-profits and government entities.
I'd go so far as to say that "If you are a company which has an income, either from donors, finance companies, or sales then you have an obligation to pay your staff. Unpaid internship work is not allowed. In the event of bankruptcy and loss, the first people to be paid from the remaining money are your customers who are owed money and then your staff"
Unpaid internships simply use the desperation of todays labor market to get free work done by skilled people. If they were illegal, you'd have to hire the same number of people (well, perhaps slightly less) and it would create real jobs.
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
Unpaid internships simply use the desperation of todays labor market to get free work done by skilled people. If they were illegal, you'd have to hire the same number of people (well, perhaps slightly less) and it would create real jobs.
Somewhat. A lot of unpaid internships are resume builders for affluent kids.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I would like to see unpaid interships die in a fire.
They are completely unapproachable by a wide majority of people yet are one of the only ways to get work experience.
There was no way I'd have been able to hold down my job, keep my GPA high, and add an unpaid intership to that mix when I was in undergrad.
Unpaid internships are quite popular in the legal field.
That's as may be, they're still getting ripped off.
It exactly the same as a certain government scheme that got shot down here in the UK recently. They tried to introduce mandatory 8 week placements for all unemployed people, if you refused to do a shitty menial job (an the placements were by and large shitty menial jobs) for no pay they would cut your benefits. The government reluctantly pulled the scheme after a few people pointed out that forcing people to work for free is slavery, and that's illegal here. Even then they government only dropped it because half the companies in the scheme pulled out in the face of overwhelming bad PR, otherwise I don't doubt for a second the Tories would have gone through with it (because poor people have no dignity to shit on right?).
At best all these schemes do is rob the economy and young people of paying jobs, because why pay an employee when you can get a slave to do it for free? At worst they're an outright form of discrimination against people who had the audacity to not be born into a wealthy family, because as has been pointed out, in certain fields like law unpaid internships are the only way to stand a chance of getting a paying job. No one would touch a fresh, inexperienced post grad for a law job with a shit covered stick. So unless you have parents who can 100% support you earning absolutely nothing for fuck knows how long, you're shit out of luck.
The elephant in the room that everyone is fervently looking away from is that the bottom rung of the employment ladder is gone now. There are no jobs that don't require experience. In my industry especially, the oil industry, the problem is laughably obvious. The first day I started my job a geophysicist told me that in the next 5-10 years something like 60-70% of all the people in his profession were due to retire. They're in a system where there's a shrinking pool of workers to draw from and the industry is scraping along by headhunting specialists away from each other at ever greater prices because no one is willing to train new ones or even hire ones with less than a few decades of experience. The industry is heading towards a very obvious skills shortage in the next few years which they refuse to address because *gasp* that would involve training and hiring people younger than 40.
As an MTV defined Gen-X'r ('77) I find I hate both sides of my generational bubble with equal ferocity interspersed with apathy towards the whole concept.
I was told that this was my generation's one right and superpower.
Really trying to figure out why I shouldn't just fucking kill myself and save some time
Morbid as it is, I do sort of wonder what the suicide rates will look like for generation Y / millennials versus those past. It's too early to say, and the statistics don't reflect a recent sharp uptick, but we're pretty well-represented by war veterans and the underemployed / deeply indebted.
Ya but training people is a waste of money Casual. Unrelated, if I see one more ad asking 10$ and hour for a designer with a degree and 5 years experience I'm going hurt someone.
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and then I've been tired from work to the point where I come home and instantly collapse from exhaustion
I've done data entry 8 hours a day; inputting information in such a way that I was repeating the process every 2 minutes non stop. I could listen to music and wear casual, but I couldn't let my average per-hour numbers go down or one of my four supervisors would come up wondering why I was slacking. And we had overtime alot too. ALOT.
I've worked physically strenous jobs that were infinitely more preferable to that.
You guys are missing the bigger picture. Whether or not the startup is successful is besides the point. The experience that you get working in a startup is where the value is. It gives you ammunition for your resume ... often in an area you wouldn't have a hope in hell of ever having gotten experience in at a corporate job. Experience that can be leveraged down the road to get you into a proper paying corporate job that demands "experience". Because start ups are typically small you end up wearing multiple hats ... which means multiple transferable skillsets that can be used on your resume. Your title and responsibilities are usually more senior than would be possible if applying corporate.
If the startup fails it can still be something that helps you get ahead. Personally I'd much rather work at a start up that comes with a paycheque and gain important skills, rather than doing an unpaid internship.
And there IS the possibility of the start up succeeding in a huge way allowing you to leverage the stock ownership they typically give out like candy in a startups early phase.
The key to startups is to do your homework. How much is the company being funded? Who is the venture capitalist/venture company doing the funding? Is the company on the wire or something that can provide a steady paycheque and experience for the next couple of years?
So you can do a ton of unpayed work to land a job at a start-up in order to secure a line on your resume to get you ... what job again?
Professional boot-strapper.
Alternative: Make bootstraps fashionable again and corner the market.
That's not good resume fodder, that's an albatross around your neck. And don't forget that even if they do become hugely successful, they can just tell you to fuck the hell off, getting rich is for people who are already rich, not for you. God forbid you have some chef or something making his bones with a startup and retiring; that would just be the fucking end of the world.
Having worked for a startup that fell through, and in that vein not getting paid, I can tell you with first hand experience that unless said startup accomplished something, or you luck out and get a real nice review manager, it will amount to jack and shit.
Well, wasted time with no pay. So negative shit.
Unpaid intern at least means a stable though company to use as a reference if nothing else.
So its no cure all, or even a good idea a lot of the time.
Sorry but I completely disagree. In today's economy you can get laid off for any reason at all ... be it a public job suffering from government budget cutbacks, a corporate company downsizing or a startup that shuts down. Companies don't care why you left your last job provided you weren't fired. What they care about is the skills you bring to the table.
I say this as an Employment Counsellor. For the last six years I've worked as a Job Coach, Case Manager/Employment Counsellor and Group Facilitator. The "on the ground" skills you bring to the table are king in this economy, trumping even post secondary education.
Working at a startup provides valuable skills you otherwise would not have along with a reference provided you are smart enough to linkin with your manager. The reasons to work at a startup are the same as those reasons people work in unpaid internships. The ability to acquire the marketable skills that "established" corporate companies lust after.
National averages show that people with high education and experience aren't getting hired. Over qualified, etc.
There really isn't any magical means of success. I say this as someone who once did the hiring. While experience and such was nice, it really came down to if anyone in my circle knew them, and similar metrics. Unless we just needed a very specific skill.
So, yes, my advice is hang out in strip clubs
With that said, experience is an important factor for companies in any hiring decision. Especially when it's you versus 100+ other people all applying for the same position. Ironically I find myself in the same boat ... due to government downsizing of subsidized Employment Services in Ontario, I find myself competing against multiple individuals with similar education and years of experience as myself. Networking through my contacts has been a key component of my job search.
It's one of the main reasons I used to compel my clients that if they weren't on Linkedin to get on Linkedin and include a link to their public profile on their resume. In the old days clients would bring in pen/paper and photo career portfolio's to their interview (and still do in certain industries). For the rest of us, LinkedIn provides more recruiter eyeball time on their career history as well as a handy connection to previous managers (references) that may not be with the company one worked with anymore.
Anyway reading that link Thanatos posted made me angry. How could that be considered anything other than fraud, extortion or outright theft? I hope the employees band together and sue zyngas arse off.
And choco, if you have landed jobs by cruising strip joints you're a complete badass in my book. A sleazy, sleazy badass.
I got a network technician job by bumping into a manager who was lamenting his shitty employees and how they did more harm than good with the company PCs. So I mentioned how easy it'd be to ghost a generic install over the network with deep freeze installed to stop them from fucking around.
I then bought him a lap dance and a whiskey. bff.
The people I really feel bad for are the ones who stuck with it. A guy I am still friends with (played D&D with him back in undergrad) stuck with the initial BA and went on to teacher's college with the intent of being a high school history teacher. After 10 years of substitute teaching and working retail jobs or temping to fill in the gaps, he will (this September) finally qualify for the same entry level full time teaching gig my mother (as a Boomer) started her teaching career with at age 23.
Also on Steam and PSN: twobadcats
This just proves what I've always suspected. People with chocobos as their avatars are awesome.
Guess which job I have experience in
Really trying to figure out why I shouldn't just fucking kill myself and save some time
I'm not missing the bigger picture, I'm disagreeing with you. Working for a startup is pretty fucking retarded if you have any other options. You have a much higher chance of getting shafted for wages than becoming a "Web 2.0 millionaire".
Hell, that website you linked showing that the "gravy train was back in the station" wrt start ups shows a whole 10 jobs posted last week. toot toot...
You know how they say, "Those who can't do, teach?" You have no idea what makes a good employee. You have a made-up job where you apparently give really bad advice to people about how they should go get jobs that you, yourself, can't get. Your advice is AWFUL.
Now go do the booty dance to demonstrate your resolve.
And most modern medicine will tell you that data entry in the long term is probably more degrading to your body than a day of ditch digging. Humans are designed for ditch digging and physical exercise, our bodies are MUCH better at saying 'Hey, you are digging this ditch the wrong way, dig it a different way' than they are at letting us know that you should really be typing at a 2 degree shallower angle to avoid RSI in the long term. This isn't to say ditch digger is some grand job, if you are all the way down the manual labor scale at ditch digger then you come home each night tired and probably aching all over but the same is true of data entry.
The modern economy is really facing serious problems. We are running out of places to grow, we are running out of demand and at the same time increases in efficiency means fewer and fewer workers are needed to produce more and more goods. I've said it in other threads, but one of the big reasons we have such a generational problem is that we are getting to a 'post scarcity' market for labor. I think that ahead we'll see some huge changes in the way society functions but it wont come easily and it won't necessarily take a positive path.
I think the one of the biggest problems is the bill of goods sold to people by Universities. "Here, let us educate you for an array of jobs a billion other people can do also. Also, we're always going to follow job growth trends and adjust our curriculum accordingly, so that when you graduate the market will be flooded with people just like you." I work for a university; they really are the mother of a great deal of our cultural and societal problems at the moment - false preconceptions, obsolete cirricula, little acknowledgement of technical skills as essential in the modern work place.
Things are really shit right now in the world. However, the color of the shit is a little darker because universities promised all of us millennials that we could have everything we wanted if stayed in school and paid our tuition. When I was a freshman back in 2001, they were telling us that Cisco guys can make $100,000 right our of college. The only Cisco networking professionals who make that kind of money are those with a CICE; you to have ten years of networking experience just to take the certification exam.
You can also get those skills from established companies, and you won't have to worry so much about getting paid.
Working for a startup were the worst years of my life. The long hours and stress wrecked my health and caused me to get physically sick. When the startup started having problems paying its bills, the "marketable skills that 'established' corporate companies lust after" weren't enough to land me a new job and I had to just deal with it when my paychecks were issued a day late, two days late, a week late... which meant my rent was late and my bill payments were late.
What did I get out of working for that startup? Some marketable skills, sure. Along with three years of bad health, thousands of dollars of medical bills, and seven years of tarnished credit.
Fuck that.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I totally agree.
Once of the problems is that they quote Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers - so, for instance, they might tell aspiring physics majors that physicists make an average of $100k/yr. However, that only counts people whose actual job title has the word 'physicist', so if you get a degree in physics and then you end up a postdoc or a high school science teacher, your wages aren't included in that statistic. And they don't tell you that even with a PhD in physics, you're far more likely to end up in a postdoc or teaching position making $40-50k. If recent grads are ending up unemployed, they're not counted in the BLS salary estimates at all. (We had a thread about this a few months ago.)
It's a flagrant misuse of statistics intended to entice kids to go to university (and take out a shitload of debt).
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
It's like drug propaganda. Yes, being addicted to drugs is a Bad Thing. But instead of giving you facts, they distort the truth. So people tend to get disillusioned when they find out the things they were told aren't exactly true the first time they try pot.
They are completely unapproachable by a wide majority of people yet are one of the only ways to get work experience.
There was no way I'd have been able to hold down my job, keep my GPA high, and add an unpaid intership to that mix when I was in undergrad.
Unpaid internships are quite popular in the legal field.
I'd go so far as to say that "If you are a company which has an income, either from donors, finance companies, or sales then you have an obligation to pay your staff. Unpaid internship work is not allowed. In the event of bankruptcy and loss, the first people to be paid from the remaining money are your customers who are owed money and then your staff"
Unpaid internships simply use the desperation of todays labor market to get free work done by skilled people. If they were illegal, you'd have to hire the same number of people (well, perhaps slightly less) and it would create real jobs.
Somewhat. A lot of unpaid internships are resume builders for affluent kids.
That's as may be, they're still getting ripped off.
It exactly the same as a certain government scheme that got shot down here in the UK recently. They tried to introduce mandatory 8 week placements for all unemployed people, if you refused to do a shitty menial job (an the placements were by and large shitty menial jobs) for no pay they would cut your benefits. The government reluctantly pulled the scheme after a few people pointed out that forcing people to work for free is slavery, and that's illegal here. Even then they government only dropped it because half the companies in the scheme pulled out in the face of overwhelming bad PR, otherwise I don't doubt for a second the Tories would have gone through with it (because poor people have no dignity to shit on right?).
At best all these schemes do is rob the economy and young people of paying jobs, because why pay an employee when you can get a slave to do it for free? At worst they're an outright form of discrimination against people who had the audacity to not be born into a wealthy family, because as has been pointed out, in certain fields like law unpaid internships are the only way to stand a chance of getting a paying job. No one would touch a fresh, inexperienced post grad for a law job with a shit covered stick. So unless you have parents who can 100% support you earning absolutely nothing for fuck knows how long, you're shit out of luck.
The elephant in the room that everyone is fervently looking away from is that the bottom rung of the employment ladder is gone now. There are no jobs that don't require experience. In my industry especially, the oil industry, the problem is laughably obvious. The first day I started my job a geophysicist told me that in the next 5-10 years something like 60-70% of all the people in his profession were due to retire. They're in a system where there's a shrinking pool of workers to draw from and the industry is scraping along by headhunting specialists away from each other at ever greater prices because no one is willing to train new ones or even hire ones with less than a few decades of experience. The industry is heading towards a very obvious skills shortage in the next few years which they refuse to address because *gasp* that would involve training and hiring people younger than 40.
I was told that this was my generation's one right and superpower.
Don't you take it away from me!
Morbid as it is, I do sort of wonder what the suicide rates will look like for generation Y / millennials versus those past. It's too early to say, and the statistics don't reflect a recent sharp uptick, but we're pretty well-represented by war veterans and the underemployed / deeply indebted.