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Comp Q & A with Karla in Trying Times

Sep 08, 2010 / Job Seeker / Trackback

Ques­tion from a job seek­ing social net­worker today in my LinkedIn inbox:

What do you do when a recruiter calls and says you would be a great can­di­date for the posi­tion they are look­ing to fill, saw my resume on line.…You ask what the job pays and the answer is $11.00 to 13.00 a hour. What do you do or say?

Karla says:

I guess it depends on what you are pre­pared to do. From our con­ver­sa­tions I think I know what you are look­ing for but the truth is, that type of job is few and far between here and every­where.. and can­di­dates with com­pet­i­tive expe­ri­ence are rather abun­dant. The job mar­ket is not going to be well for a very long time.

So, if you need to get back into the job mar­ket and it is a job you would like, you could just be hon­est and say that it seems very inter­est­ing and a great match for your expe­ri­ence and either:

A) Go through the inter­view and take it if offered to you, to get back to work and stop the gap from grow­ing on your resume. When offered the posi­tion, try to nego­ti­ate a lit­tle more (but not more than 10–15% is advis­able) and pick up some free­lance work on the side to pick up the slack in salary, make your­self very valu­able in the com­pany and grow the posi­tion and your worth and hope­fully in a cou­ple of years you’ll be right back up to where you were before.

B) Say that it sounds great how­ever, your salary require­ment is X.… and see what happens.

B rarely if ever works out, espe­cially these days.. there is a line behind you that will take what they offer. People’s unem­ploy­ment checks are run­ning out and $13. is a lot more than $0. Peo­ple are man­ag­ing more than one job to make ends meet.

I’m sorry, I don’t have any­thing rosier to say. I hope it puts things in per­spec­tive and helps you reflect to form a strat­egy. Too many peo­ple went to school for com­mu­ni­ca­tions, most don’t actu­ally work in it. That includes me any­more. It’s highly com­pet­i­tive due to the gross over sat­u­ra­tion of candidates.

As always, I wish you the best.

Karla

PS. Your ques­tion is EXCELLENT. I am going to use it and my answer with­out your name or any way to iden­tify you, in a blog post.


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  • Brenda

    Karla,

    You are right, this is not sup­posed to be hap­pen­ing in the Land of Milk and Honey, and our home val­ues are not sup­posed to go back­wards either! It’s sad to see things go back­ward, no progress at all. Read­ing the com­ments about col­leges push­ing pro­grams that are not in demand reminds me of the edu­ca­tion blogs you’ve writ­ten this year. Re-structuring edu­ca­tion would be more impor­tant now than ever. It’s a big per­sonal loss for some­one to spend thou­sands $$$ on an edu­ca­tion, just to have it pulled out from under them by the econ­omy. I know young peo­ple who owe major bucks on stu­dent loans and can­not get a foot in the door any­where close to what their actual stud­ies were.

    Hor­ri­ble words, “suck it up” — but what can you do? You have to go out there and try your best to make some­thing hap­pen. Under­em­ploy­ment num­bers are hit­ting up there with unem­ploy­ment numbers.

    Donna, I feel your pain. My hus­band has been in the same boat for a long time — hav­ing to accept a posi­tion at 1/3 the level and pay of his for­mer job. The good news is that he is happy to be work­ing again.

  • Brenda

    Karla,

    Well said, as usual! What else can you say? It’s the truth!

    • http://karlaporter.com/ Karla Porter

      B– Today I met with an HR Direc­tor who took a much needed oppor­tu­nity (appar­ently) to devi­ate from the con­ver­sa­tion at hand to tell me how tough it has been and con­tin­ues to be for so many who have and are about to exhaust their unem­ploy­ment com­pen­sa­tion. I com­mis­er­ated and was happy to lis­ten and be a com­rade who cares in a pro­fes­sion where we often deliver the news that dis­rupts people’s lives.

      Some­times I don’t think peo­ple really real­ize that when some­one has invested in their future, stud­ied a career, worked hard to build it and then ends up under­em­ployed just to have some type of basic income — that they feel a “loss” that it’s a per­sonal tragedy for many and telling them to suck it up is rot­ten. This isn’t sup­posed to hap­pen in the land of milk and honey.

      • don­na­ta­larico

        I feel awful for using the words “suck it up” in my reply above. I was much more grace­ful with my actual words to Joe. : ) That was just me typ­ing away… My heart goes out to him and so many oth­ers. I agree — to build a life and work so hard and invest in an edu­ca­tion to have it taken away… In some cases, like Joe’s exam­ple, he didn’t even START his career. He feels very strongly that col­leges shouldn’t be push­ing majors that aren’t in demand. What are your thoughts? I dis­agree with him, but agree in some ways.

        • http://karlaporter.com/ Karla Porter

          Oh my good­ness Donna — never in a mil­lion years would I expect you would speak to Joe like that! When I posted my reply to Brenda it was com­pletely coin­ci­den­tal I used those words. Do not feel awful– it wasn’t on pur­pose and the truth is that this whole unem­ploy­ment and under­em­ploy­ment era sucks.. no minc­ing words about it.

          I’m upset with col­leges for not being as rel­e­vant as they could be. But it’s com­pli­cated. Who would think phi­los­o­phy would be some­thing a rea­son­able per­son would pay to study and then end up work­ing in retail? Some peo­ple have pas­sions they wish to pay to explore. It is clearly a case of “con­sumer beware” when it comes to edu­ca­tion — because higher edu­ca­tion is a big busi­ness. When I see that between Wilkes-Barre and Scran­ton we pump out about 60 sur­gi­cal tech­nol­o­gists per year and have open­ings for about 2 I think of all the thought and deci­sions that have to be made pre-education (and as we all know, life changes on a dime in a split sec­ond so often). Stu­dents need to decide where they want to go to school and where they want to live and work. It’s impor­tant to study the pos­si­bil­i­ties of where you ulti­mately want to live — unless your pas­sion of a pro­fes­sion is so strong you are will­ing to go wher­ever the job is.That’s often not pos­si­ble or peo­ple don’t think of it. I wouldn’t advise study­ing teach­ing if I planned on liv­ing here because of the chal­lenges asso­ci­ated with get­ting a teach­ing job in this area (you know what I mean).

          I dunno… I’m just ram­bling now. It’s all so very cos­mic and complicated.

          • don­na­ta­larico

            GREAT points. I fig­ured your men­tion of that phrase wasn’t geared toward my reply, but it reminded me to choose words care­fully when deal­ing with sen­si­tive issues like this. I totally agree — I am so pro-education it’s not funny. I think of col­lege as more of a life expe­ri­ence than a piece of paper to get a job, whereas oth­ers I know think that’s all col­lege is. You make a good point about sur­gi­cal tech grads vs. jobs avail­able. Some peo­ple come to NEPA to go to school from all over the coun­try and world, so it doesn’t mat­ter to them that the job mar­ket isn’t vibrant where they go school. I don’t think guid­ance coun­selors or any­one involved in the deci­sion should ever deter some­one from a path of study — not every­one can make a deci­sion at 18, so going in unde­clared is good advice. I am ram­bling here too, I guess. I just think that when some­one decides at 18 what they want to major in — so much can change in four years — the econ­omy, tech­nol­ogy (will peo­ple be replaced), and even goals — some­one may decide they want to go to grad school… I think its best for peo­ple to enter col­lege with an open mind. If we focus too much on Labor and Industry’s report on careers in demand, I don’t know — we’ll get a lot of peo­ple in jobs they don’t like and doing things not out of pas­sion but neces­sity. It’s such a blurred line. Ram­bling end­ing… sorry… I was all over the place here.

  • don­na­ta­larico

    Don’t want to dis­close the dol­lar value, but Joe just had this same sit­u­a­tion at a local Inter­me­di­ate Unit. He was appalled by his offer — but he HAD to take it. He needs a foot in the door in the spe­cial ed (or any edu­ca­tion field) for that mat­ter. It’s some­times sick­en­ing to think of the wages the edu­cated and tal­ented are mak­ing, but the bot­tom line is, some jobs aren’t as in demand any­more because so many peo­ple are sat­u­rat­ing the mar­ket­ing — edu­ca­tion and spe­cial­ized niches of com­mu­ni­ca­tions are very hard to get into. Pay­ing dues. That’s what it’s all about. Is it unfor­tu­nate? Yes. But, we need to real­ize this is the real­ity and just suck it up. Tough love when you have to drill that into someone’s head, too. Sec­ondary Eng­lish didn’t pan out for him. Here’s hop­ing spe­cial ed will.

    • http://karlaporter.com/ Karla Porter

      Donna — I do hope it works out spec­tac­u­larly for Joe and that he falls in love with work­ing with stu­dents with spe­cial needs. You know the old say­ing — when one door closes another opens. Some­times we can be hap­pier through unex­pected events. ~Karla

      P.S. Thanks for your visit.

  • Kelly

    It is an excel­lent ques­tion and excel­lent answer! You are spot on, Karla! Option B rarely works because there are 10 peo­ple stand­ing in line behind you who are qual­i­fied and will­ing to do the job for x dol­lars. I know this as a Recruiter and as a job seeker (for my hus­band). He had to take a dras­tic pay decrease even though he has years of expe­ri­ence, train­ing and edu­ca­tion. But in our mar­ket (Las Vegas) and in his indus­try (con­struc­tion) there aren’t just 10 peo­ple in line behind him, there are hun­dreds! And you are right.…x dol­lars is bet­ter than 0 dollars!

    Option A isn’t as bad as it sounds. I tell can­di­dates not to just focus on the $$ right now but what the growth poten­tial is for the future. You may be look­ing at an oppor­tu­nity that starts out low but once you get in and prove your­self you will have bet­ter foot­ing to approach your man­ager with your suc­cesses in hand and dis­cuss a salary increase. If you see long term poten­tial or other incit­ing ben­e­fits (such as great med­ical plan, com­mis­sion poten­tial, pro­mo­tions from within) …why not give it a sec­ond thought?

    And going back to reflect­ing on my per­sonal expe­ri­ence, my hus­band took that job at a (much) lower salary. He received a raise two weeks after he started and has found the com­pany to have a less stress­ful and more pro­duc­tive work envi­ron­ment. It turns out there is growth poten­tial and he loves his job. In the end, I am glad we chose Option A.

    • http://karlaporter.com/ Karla Porter

      I’m glad to read your com­ment Kelly — I was a lit­tle wor­ried I might have been a tad to frank. Some­times peo­ple don’t want to hear that, they want me to wave a magic wand and tell them a secret that will get them what they really want. Only Bat­man my cat gets magic treats.


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