I’ve been posting ads for the jobs that we have available in our company and it really is ridiculous how many people want to be an administrative assistant. I have 8 postings up right now for different jobs that we have available and I’m getting about 50 resumes a day right now that I have to sort through. You ever hear that people usually take about 30 seconds to 1 minute to look over your resume? I would say that might even be an exaggeration. When I first heard that I thought it had to be too short, but now that I have to screen them and try and find the best applicants I try and go through them as quickly as I possibly can because I have so much other crap to do now. I HATE when people have long-winded resumes.
But I digress…it’s about 2:1 to the amount of people that apply for admin asst. positions. This has always been the case in my experience. And it’s not just limited to women, but to men. EVERYONE wants these jobs. I think it has to do with the idea that people think it’s something where all you have to do is file a few things, write a few emails, put in your time and then you can go home. I guess you just don’t realize how competitive it really is for these kinds of jobs.
Unless you are an engineering, computer science, or some sort of business major, if you’re making more than 35k a year out of school you are the exception. I thought that was crazy at first, but seeing the amount of applicants that I do with the background that they have, a lot of these people who you think should be getting more money are applying for our $12-15 an hour jobs. Isn’t that crazy? I guess for social science and liberal arts people it comes down to the fact that we’re not really actually trained with any marketable skills. Sure…critical analysis and writing are important, but not exclusive to our fields, or at least not in short supply. So if you’re thinking of graduating in sociology or anthropology just to graduate…you might want to reconsider what actual skills and experience you are bringing to the marketplace because the real world might not want to pay you what you think you deserve.
5 comments:
You could take those skills and go to law school... but then you would slowly die inside as your real dreams fall from your tree of hope like the golden autumn leaves that are scattered helplessly by the bitter harvest breeze.
who's an english major again? what were your real dreams mr. henry wadsworth longfellow?
Thanks for the advice, 3 YEAR TOO LATE!!! I graduated in Sociology and yeah, I have no real skills. But I figured that out since I've become a stay-at-home mom, I didn't have too many choices in life. Just kidding, I love my life. But I completly agree, and I did graduate to just graduate and knew what I was doing. I also figured that graduate school was definetly a possibility in the future if I wanted to make a decent income.
hmm...while your post was interesting, I don't agree entirely. ALthough I am one who did graduate with a very specific degree, I know a LOT of people who graduated in really random things, but are extremely successful because they just have a certain skill set or maybe "street smarts" I would say. It is hard to pinpoint that X factor. Do you know what I am saying? I think on the other hadn someone can get a ton of education and never really make it because they don't have that X factor.
I'm mostly referring to just out of college. I'm not saying you have to have a highly recognizable degree to be successful. I just think you need to keep your expectations realistic if you just graduated with a degree in anthropology, with little work experience, and you're upset that you're not making more than 50k a year. Of course your degree doesn't determine your destiny, but it does heavily influence what opportunities are available if you just graduated.
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