Man, I had the interview from hell the other day! I had initially sent my resume in response to an ad for an Office Manager in a small office. The description sounded relatively low-stress; basic admin work with occasional H&R touches (interviewing and advertising jobs), as well as the obvious “working knowledge of Microsoft Office.”
Once I got into the interview, the absurd bait-and-switch revealed itself. They’re basically looking to hire one person to be a full-time administrative assistant, full-time HR manager, fulltime general office manager, and oh yeah, fulltime IT guy. It was all I could do to not fall out of my chair laughing - especially when they told me that they’re prepared to offer “in the mid-twenties” for this position.
What the hell is wrong with employers when they try to do stuff like this? Do they honestly think that they can find one person to cover what should easily be three or four dedicated, individual jobs, especially for DICK pay? I’ve had a few friends run into comically ridiculous interviews like this in the past year, and each of them had to muster all of their self-control to not laugh the interviewer out of the office. What the hell is wrong with companies that think that they can get away with this? Are they just trying to save as much money as possible? Do they really think that one person can reasonably fulfill all of these positions at once without everything going down in flames? Are they just that inexperienced at staffing an office that they don’t understand how absurd they’re being?
I’m off to send a resume to this “Fulltime Chef/Architect/Plumber Wanted: $9/hr” classified ad… :wally
Paradoxically, you wouldn’t know what the actual job is really like unless you got and accepted the job. I have never had a job that just like it was in the interviews. The people doing the job and interviewing often play up the skills and job demands. For example, requirements listed for software packages and government rules and regulations are often way overblown. It can often sound like they want someone that can program custom software when all they really need is a data entry person.
It is possible that they are asking too much of one person in which case they will find out soon enough. Conflicting job responsibilities during time of business emergencies often highlight this problem to the managers. Companies, especially small ones, don’t have infinite budgets to hire people dedicated to one task. That is the realm of large corporations and if you think that way, you probably wouldn’t be happy there. It is common for smaller companies (and even some large ones) to hire jack-of-all-trades people for hard to peg jobs with a variety of responsibilities. A version of that is my own job niche and I seek out those types of positions on purpose.
To support your person though, I did know someone once that placed the following ad:
Wanted, Administrative Assistant:
Support the president of the company in all administrative tasks.
Make all travel arrangements for the company.
Fluent in English, French, Spanish and proficient in at least one of the following (German, Italian).
Expertise with FDA rules and procedures. Able to interpret and advise on federal regulations.
Expert in Microsoft Office, Windows, Windows Servers, and Linux
College degree preferred.
Salary: To 20K based on experience.
The cause of that was hopeless cluelessness about skill demands and inflation. It is like an old person gives you a dollar believing they are being generous.
Of course. It’s done in retail all the time. Trust me.
Bingo. In their eyes, why should they have to pay 3 FT salaries for 3 separate positions when they can (hopefully) find one person who not only has the background but thrives on multitasking? They’re a small company. Even if they wanted to hire more than one person, they probably can’t afford to.
It really depends on the business. It is certainly possible for one person to fulfill all the defined tasks if the office and industry itself itself isn’t a malestom of get-it-done-yesterday mentality. Mind-wrenching at times, yes, but it certainly beats sitting at a desk with nothing to do all day.
Well, the interview lasted almost two hours, so I think I got a basic enough overview to understand that the emp. was asking way too much. A few of the “first projects” that they’d want me to “get to work on right away” included:
Building and programming a new website for the company.
Essentially writing a new employee handbook
Choosing and implementing an entire new timecard/intranet system for the office.
Planning and holding a few training seminars on the aforementioned.
I once worked for an evil production company that had landed some large contracts from other subsequent production companies. They signed me on as a part time employee to them and all their customers. That way they could work me 80 hour weeks without paying overtime or benefits. It was a first job out of college and during a recession, so I didn’t have much choice. I actually could deal with the starvation wages and insane hours, what I couldn’t stand was the arrogance of the management and contemptuous manner in which they treated all employees - especially me. The owner of the company was a guy who stood about 5’4’’, and he had issues with me and treated me like crap whenever he could, giving me only the shit work. I’m 6’7’’, and I don’t have a degree in psychology, but I think I could figure out the source of his ire pretty easily.
Needless to say, it was only a few months before I had all I could stand and decided it was better to be unemployed than work there. The owner was quite surprised when one of his largest accounts cancelled their contract as soon as they found out I was gone, and he was even more surprised when they called me up and offered me the contract for myself.
And what inevitably happens is, they finally find an applicant who says, “Yes, I can do all that, thank you sir, may I have another?”. Then this new hire turns out to be a complete flake who never comes in on time, calls in sick regularly, steals office supplies and drinks on the job. Employer then posts a thread in the Pit about how hard it is to find good help these days.
I had a great bait and switch job years ago. I took a job as a network admin for a company with 12 users on a Novell Network- all just had dumb terminals and did basic data entry into a propriatary software program housed on the server.
3 weeks after I was hired, they purchased 45 new PCs, which were to be installed all over the factory- offices, factory floor, etc. All needed to be configured, have network cards installed and so on, had to be added to the network, blah blah blibity blah. And I was the only person there to do it. I had help from our computer vendor, but otherwise, it was all mine. The pay was shit, but they sent me to a bunch of free training and I stuck it out long enough to gain experience and training, then moved on to bigger and better things.
The best part was, though- after 1 year I had my job review. This is after getting all of those users on the network, TRAINED (many had never even used Windows at all, much less Win 98), manuals made up, a new manufacturing specific system set up and custom reports done…after all of that. The president of the company was the biggest prick you would ever want to meet and hated everyone, especially women. We butted heads regularly because he was such an asshole. Anyway, my supervisor (the Finance director) calls me in and says…“Even though you and ASSHOLE president don’t get along, we decided to GO AHEAD and GIVE you your whole 6% raise”. This was after calling it to their attention about 100 times that I was grossly underpaid for the position and that they were wrong to bait and switch my job.
I told him to cram it with walnuts (basically) and gave notice a week later. But because of that shit job, I ended up with several opportunities that landed me where I am now- well paid for my work, happy, and glad.
Fuck those employers. If mine hadn’t been generous about my training and providing me with good tools to work with, I would have quit after a week.
Over the years in hearing these stories I’ve gotten the impression that it’s usually not really some crafty plan by management to get some amazingly well qualified person for peanuts, but that the HR person or admin asst. writing the job spec has absolutely no clue what the real world skills and pay appropriate to the position are, and just piles on skill set after skill set.
I recall a discussion re one job ad for a local government position a few years ago (it may actually have been in a SDMB thread) that advertised to fill a position with a required laundry list of computer language skills and project management skill requirements that would have usually commanded well into 6 figures (assuming they could find this person) and was offering around 25,000 a year.
The interviewee (realizing it was a waste of time) tried to be helpful and suggested the pay was at odds with the skills demanded, and they then* asked him * what they should be offering. when he told them they needed to be near or above $ 100,000. annually the response was basically “Gosh!”.
The flip side: Hiring a competent, talented person wishing to gain experience who ultimately crashes and burns because of the work load/stress/whatever.
Like a few other posters have already said, these types of jobs aren’t necessarily the worst thing you can do. They can be a great place to “cut your teeth” or as interim jobs in between real jobs and just to add to your experience and resume.
Yeah, it is silly and sucks what they expect for the kind of money they’re willing to pay, but sometimes, especially when choices are slim they can be useful in ways you don’t know til you try it.
Industry standards for the time I suspect you are talking about (needing to install network cards, Netware, Windows 98 - probably around 1999) was one adminstrator per 200 PCs per Gartner. They may have baited and switched you, but they weren’t being unreasonable. And by Win98 it was easy - you weren’t genning the network drivers and Win 98 was imagable.
Small companies often have one person who fills a variety of roles. In a small company that person is often underpaid and the expectations are high, its part of being part of an enterpenurial company. Its risky as hell, but long term it can be great. There was (she long retired) a VP at Carlson Companies in the Twin Cities who started out in such a position - retired a multimillionare. Not that I’d take a job like that, I perfer lower work, lower risk type jobs - but I’m not likely to end up a VP at a company like Carlson either.
That is just the needs of a typical small company. It isn’t ridiculous. I have learned that I can only take jobs like that in my field because I bore easily and need lots of activity to perform my best.
Do you suggest that they hire one person for each of those roles? Then what? They would be falling all over each other on day one. It sounds like you just aren’t a good fit for that type of role. Others are. No biggie. There are plenty of jobs out there where you are only allowed to focus on one or two things.
I do the engineering, AutoCAD, QC, IT, webmaster, purchasing, and part time shipping clerk (since I know how to use the UPS software). I could use some help, but it makes the day go by faster. I’ll eventually have to ask for some help, but nobody says much to me right now. I like that part of it. The company went thru a restructuring a couple of years ago, there used to be a person in each capacity (engineering has normally done the IT/webmaster).
Huh, been reading my job description again, Duke of Rat? Only diference theris another person who does that with me. There used to be 12 of us, now just the two of us.
It would depend on the time given to accomplish those tasks, but depending on the size of the company, those could indeed be pretty large undertakings to do them correctly. It’s not asking for anything insanely ludicrous, but the person who does those things successfully sure shouldn’t be paid chump change for doing so.
VC…They forgot to tell you that your now in charge of the Telephone System.
This has been a trend in business. Most thankless and underappreciated job in the office. No one wants to do it so it's, "lets assign it to the new guy"
Only diference theris another person who does that with me. There used to be 12 of us, now just the two of us.