Any of you not qualified for your present position?

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

Just got off the phone with my boss.

We are hiring for someone in my area. Usually I do the hiring but my boss is new and wants to have ‘input’. Talking with some colleagues I found out this is a quirk of hers.

No problem, but she crafted the Job Ad.

I read it and immediately dive for the phone and call her. The following is a paraphrasing of the conversation :smiley:

Boss…about that Job Ad…

Yes?

I don’t qualify for that position and I would be the boss of this hire.

Really?

You want an MBA or a PH.D…why?

Well, the position needs it don’t you think?

I don’t have an MBA or a PH.D.

You don’t?! I was sure you do! You act like you have one.

You do know that Bob, Joe and Susan ( 3 people that work for me) don’t either, right? In fact, only one of us in this whole division has a Ph.D.

I didn’t know that…

So, let’s drop that requirement, fine?

Ahhh, I think we should keep it.

Do you think Bob, Joe Susan and I don’t do a good job?

No, you guys are fabulous! Especially you! (I blush)

Then why would you require it?

I just think it is necessary.

Ok, Boss…I don’t agree but ok. You do know the position maxes out in the budget at $60K and requires at least 3 years of related experience, right?

Yess…?

Fine, never mind. Have a good weekend!

=====

I’ve seen this before. I have even heard people exclaim during the hiring process that they wouldn’t have qualified for the position they were first hired into if they were interviewing today…but this is the first where one wouldn’t even qualify for the position in which one will be the boss of that position.

Sigh…beats head against wall.

#2

I learned long ago to ignore requirements in a job ad. I pay attention to the job desctiption and duties.
If they like you and you can do the job you’re in.
When I stareted in telecom among the requirements for my position was an MBA and 5 years telco experince. I had neither and I still got the job.

#3

For about six years I had a job that required you to be an Australian citizen, I was only a resident. This happened because the requirements were tightened up some time after I’d joined.

#4

Blinding,

Please do a follow up on this. I’d quite like to hear about your boss’ take on how things develop and how he changes his mind, if he does.

#5

Me. My title – GIS Programmer/Systems Analyst (I don’t have a degree).

I’ve been in GIS (Geographic Information Systems) for 23 years. It used to be called AM/FM. Automated Mapping and Facilities Management.

“I make maps with computers” was the response I had to give when asked what I did. Mostly, I got blank stares and the subject was quickly changed. Now, at least people know what it is. Though some think GIS stands for “Google Information Search”.

When I started, there was no such degree, or even related courses in college. There weren’t even that many programmers around.

I’ve got experience I sure do, but not the degree that we/they would want if I were to get replaced. Or the two people I supervise.

#6

I once applied for a job cooking in a soon-to-open classy restaurant. I was totally honest in my interview. Never cooked in a restaurant before, not a graduate of CIA, etc.

I told the interviewer that I enjoyed cooking, was willing to work my ass off, and would be happy to start at minimum wage. He liked my attitude and hired me! It was one of the most difficult jobs I ever had, but boy did I learn a lot!

#7

I’m well qualified to be a bludger.

#8

Oh yeah. People assume I have an MBA or CPA to do my job (my third Finance Director position), but I have actually never even taken an accounting class. 20-something years ago, I got a lot of mentoring from a senior accountant who had her degree in English Literature, never took an accounting class, and spent the last 25 years of her career as CFO of a pretty big company. She taught me it ain’t rocket science, keep some reference books handy, and learn it from the bookkeeping end up so it all makes sense.

It all got easier when I started to be recruited rather than having to job hunt - nobody has questioned my credentials in years.

#9

Nothing impressive, but I had a low-level accounting job without any knowledge of accountancy. The reasoning was that since I had studied some maths, I should do OK. Maths and accountancy, that’s all figures, you know?

Neither of the two people who interviewed me knew anything about accountancy. Nor did my coworkers. Nor my boss, or my boss’ boss. My boss’s boss’s boss was the lowest in the hierarchy with an actual (and advanced) knowledge of accountancy. The lowest in the hierarchy who had a clue about what my job was, in fact. Nobody had asked her her opinion when I got the job, of course.

All in all it had its good sides. Since nobody around me knew exactly what I was doing and how I was supposed to do it, they left me pretty much alone, though from time to time someone clueless would try to tell me what I should change or improve. Basically, as long as I was providing acceptably correct figures, give or take € 1 million, at the end of each quarter, nobody cared about me showing up late, or about how much I was putting in, for instance.

My real “coworkers” where the people from the central accountancy department. And even then, contacts were sporidical, except at the end of quarters/year. They were nice and very helpful. People who worked with me were very nice too, if not helpful.

My next job was in an accountancy department. Where I was the only one (except for the three people I was supervising) who wasn’t an accountant, and didn’t do any accountancy. Oh, well…

#10

Generally, the requirements for my position include a degree in CS. I don’t have one. I have a Ph.D. in physics. Fortunately, for my first serious programming job the hiring manager didn’t care about details like that; in the interview she just wanted me to show that I could solve difficult problems. She later told me, “it’s easier for a good problem solver to learn to program, then for a good programmer to learn how to solve problems.”

#11

The job I’m in now required an undergrad degree, which I don’t have (I have two, two year diplomas though). My awesome personality and drive is what got me hired. :wink:

Actually, I was told by my boss and co-worker, who were both in the interviews, that when they asked me why I should get the job, and I said “because I have a lot of potential”, that’s what clinched it.

#12

I think I technically was not qualified for my last position, because ads I’ve seen recently hiring for that job title at my company have required that the applicant demonstrate that he/she can lift 50 lbs. This was not a requirement when I was hired on, and it certainly was not necessary in our department…the parts we handled were usually rather small and lightweight. I would say that most of the individual packages were 1 lb. or less. If you could push a cart with wheels, you were golden. They’ve never posted an ad to replace me, so so I’m not sure if they would make it a requirement or not. They’ve tried to standardize requirements to facilitate cross-training that never actually occurs.

#13

Man, if I could just have a nickle everytime I saw a manager make a decision of what’s necessary not based on a reasoned decision but instead took the attitude of a 5 year old who claims “But I need it!”

I guess I should explain. I do software engineering as my career and we get this same thing there. Some nitwit will want a useless feature. We’ll point out nobody is going to need it. (And point out the group in the company that wants the feature has a track record of asking for features and then turning around and never using them.) We’ll point out how it’ll take away time from implementing features that we recognize right now as actually being necessary and will cause the product to not work if not implemented. I’ve even gotten suggestions from the target audience what they actually needed and pointed this out to the manager. I empathize, it’s aggravating as hell to have the people who know the most about what’s actually needed get blown off by people who don’t but happen to be in charge.

#14

I’ve almost always been overqualified, until I decided to be self-employed.

#15

I’m super qualified for my job. Maybe mostly because my job description was severely revised when I went from 20 to 32 hours a week :slight_smile:

#16

I’m not. Apparently, my job calls for someone who:

  • Enjoys working while people have loud conversations behind him all day long, and is told they have to listen to all the conversations in case there’s something that concerns him
  • Can stand there and get berated for things they didn’t do because they had no way of knowing about them, have not been given any time to do them, or have actively been prevented from doing them
  • Likes having what he’s working on to further his career taken by his manager so they can work on it
  • has no problem working with a group that’s always at the bottom of the shit slope
  • wants to give up their free time whenever management decides something is an emergency at the last minute, even if said free time occurs during time off scheduled months ago
  • Doesn’t mind having his 2 sided tempered glass desk with adjustable keyboard tray and drawers taken from him so he can work on an 8’ plastic walmart folding table with 3 others
#17

I hold a middle-management type position at a fairly large bank. I maintain a chunk of software, run a shit-load of queries, conduct analyses that filter to bank executives, and run the quarterly goal setting program for all our branches and employees … and I don’t even have a college degree.

But I feel pretty damned qualified.

#18

This is pretty encouraging, since I got discouraged looking and finding jobs I thought I could do, but wasn’t ‘qualified’ for on paper.

Maybe I’ll bang out some resumes this weekend.

#19

I’m currently job hunting (I want a change, I don’t need one…) and am constantly amazed at many of the postings. They often are asking for everything and offering little.

But I have a friend who told me that they get 100s of applicants for every job they post at his place of work and so I guess the economy allows them to get away with asking for the world.

#20

I have a joke at work that I know that I have come up with a good idea when a client takes credit for it. It has happened…lemmeesee…I can come up with 12 times in the past 8 years without thinking hard.

I have complained bitterly about this to my boss and my bosses boss and even once to my bosses bosses boss but they basically say that they are not going to piss off a client by bringing this up. Sigh.

The worst one was a large fortune 500 company decided to use us as their supplier and they demanded that I sign a legal form before they shared their proprietary method with me. I did this…and they sent me the method…and it was MY FRACKIN METHOD I DID FOR THEM 3 YEARS AGO!!! They didn’t even frackin change the frackin document that frackin explained the frackin method that I FRACKIN WROTE! It was word for word identical to what I wrote 3 years ago.

I had to sign a legal document saying I wouldn’t steal a method that they claimed they invented but I actually did. Grrrrrrrrrr. This sent me into a tizzy because it was really weird that they stopped using us all of a sudden 3 years ago…and it is very likely that they stopped using us because my client wanted to claim the method as his own and so cut off contact with us. I thought THIS would actually get my company to act…but no. Why should they care, they didn’t steal from them, just me I guess.

We have one large client that always requests that I work on his projects…and has taken credit for no less than 5 new methods that his company now uses. I know this for a fact because he has taken credit for them while I was sitting in the room. Yet, if I was to contest him on this, I would probably be fired. I know he has noticed that my imagination/creativity has suffered on his projects during the past couple years…because he has asked my why I have dried up on new ideas :rolleyes:

Even people in my own company have tried this…twice. THAT I descended on like a hound from hell to make sure everyone realized it was my invention.

It is so frustrating and is the least favorite part my my work world by far, so I sympathize.