2 - 3 years of experience required.
5 years experience required.
Only 1 year experience required, but in five different things.
Apparently, all people looking for jobs have sprung out of the AEther with all experience already gained. There’s no such thing as an entry level job anymore.
Arrrrgh. No wonder there are so many retail jobs out there. If it weren’t for McDonalds, 3/4 of America would be unemployed. 
Actually, I hear McDonald’s is requiring 1 year fast food experience now. Sorry!
Well, no one wants to admit that any schmuck could fill their crappy position. They also want college degrees now for things nobody went to college for just 30 years ago.
My favorite was the place that clearly wanted experience in their own proprietary software - “Must have extensive experience with LynchWorks™ accounting software” (from a Merrill-Lynch ad) [example; I can’t remember what company it was]
You’d have to already be working there to know that software! (head explodes)
Nope. They busted their ass doing shit work until they got some experience. I know you don’t want to work fast food, but that’s how most of us started out. Suck it up.
All the fast food experience in the world won’t get you a job that needs, say, two years’ experience in the IT industry.
I confess I’ve done something like this before: I wanted to re-hire a specific individual, but had to advertise the position publically. It’s very mean, but once you know why it’s happening, you stop applying for such positions.
This is the stupidest business practice ever, and I wish it was eliminated completely.
[ul]
[li]If an employer knows who they want, they should be able to hire them directly.[/li][li]If they want someone from inside the company, advertise internally.[/li][li]If they don’t know who they want yet, then advertise externally.[/li][/ul]
Why give lip service to follow some stupid rule? Especially as they’re messing around people who have applied in good faith!
Argh!
Don’t they have internships?
It’s also a requirement if you’re trying to get an employment visa for someone. Usually you have to show that you’ve been unable to fill the requirement for a particular skill from local candidates.
Because, if employers could hire whoever they wanted, the only people with jobs would be their friends and attractive, bisexual blonde women with large breasts.
As an addendum to my previous post:
Having said that, I do agree that businesses should be up front with anyone applying for a job that’s already spoken for. I went for a job with a Government Department once, and things were looking very good- they even called my employer at the time as a reference check- and then told me that whilst I was qualified for the position etc I’d be been unsuccessful because there was someone who’d been “filling in” for the person who’d left, and they were the successful applicant.
I’ve since learnt the trick is to ask “Is there a someone currently acting as a caretaker in this position?”- if the answer is “Yes”, then the job is spoken for, so don’t waste your time any further.
As long as the job is done to their requirements, so what. It’s one thing to get hired because your friends with the boss, quite another to actually keep that position.
But clearly this is what they’re doing anyway - they’re advertising jobs that, effectively, they’ve already filled, and wasting people’s time.
In my experience. (get it). Experience is gained in those jobs you get for very little money and requiring only ‘able to use a computer and learn’.
You spend a few years moving up the ladder and somehow you’ve ended up with…
“Two year’s experience in SQL Server Administration. Two Years ASP programming. Four years in an IT related role”
They don’t want general experience, they want exact experience in the exact kind of job and in the exact field. This is partly lack of imagination, partly due to the usage of computer filters, partly because often the hiring manager doesn’t know what is it the position really entails.
I’ve seen ads requiring “five years experience with Windows 98” (the year was 2000); “superior engineer (this degree takes seven years) with an MBA, preferably in Marketing, trilingual English /German/French, with at least 2 years working in industrial environments, under 25yo” (I should have framed that one); “for a position as production manager in a company making (a product made by two companies in the whole world), an industrial engineer with at least five years’ experience as a production manager in a company making (the exact same product)” - according to the grapevine, the “other” company making this product had just stolen these ones’ production manager :smack:
In the United States, some companies must show that they’ve made a reasonable attempt to fill any given position from the local area. So they advertise positions to solicit resumes that sit in a file somewhere because they run the ad to meet the requirement. Our local Clear Channel classic-rock station is guilty of this. When their license comes up for renewal, they run on-air ads inviting local residents to apply for an on-air DJ job that basically doesn’t exist. They do this because the Federal Communications Commission makes equal opportunity and diversity a requirement. Not for the people holding the jobs, mind, but for the applicant pool.
Robin
Sometimes you can get that job anyway - if the application process isn’t terribly arduous and you WANT the job, go ahead and apply. Just be prepared to address it in the interview process, i.e:
Uncle Owen: “You, I suppose you’re programmed for etiquette and protocol.”
C-3PO: “Protocol? Why, it’s my primary function, sir. I am well-versed in all the customs–”
Uncle Owen: “I have no need for a protocol droid.”
C-3PO: “Of course you haven’t, sir. Not in an environment such as this. That is why I have been programmed in–”
Uncle Owen: “What I really need is a droid who understands the binary language of moisture vaporators.”
C-3PO: “Vaporators? Sir, my first job was programing binary load lifters very similar to your vaporators in most respects.”
Uncle Owen: “Can you speak Bocce?”
C-3PO: “Of course I can, sir. It’s like a second language to me. I’m a–”
Uncle Owen: “yeah, alright. Shut up. I’ll take this one.”
For myself, I wish I had made my first jobs more meaningful (I was REALLY good at getting myself hired, but they were pretty much all crappy jobs). I hope to help my kids find part-time jobs in industries that interest them. Animals? Zoo job, or veterinarian. Science? Lab grunt. Business? Courier for the boss. Something like that – those jobs ARE out there, but you have to hustle for them by contacting people who are doing the things YOU really want to be doing.
I could’ve been working as an artist’s assistant or at a gallery or something, had I had more moxie. It would’ve helped (more than flinging fried chicken helped, although that was fun).
Truly, answering ads is one of the LEAST productive ways of getting yourself hired. Only a small percentage of jobs are filled that way (as per Richard Bolles, author of What Color is Your Parachute).
I’m on the other end of the spectrum. We need a lab tech or two near D.C. No working experience required, just at least some college chemistry courses, maybe an A.S. But after two months, not a single resume. Took six months in Chicago to fill the same type of job. Sheesh, you really wonder about people complaining about the job market.
So I need to speak six million languages, all in a British accent?