It can be legitimate and crappy. Definitely ask about when raises come and what you can expect. You’ll probably know right away if it is acceptable the moment you get more details.
However you don’t have to stay there long. It still seems to be true that getting a job is easier if you have one, so that’s a reason right there to take it. If you stay for two years and then start looking you might devalue yourself, but saying to a new employer you took it because you like to work (and make up something you learned there) might help in getting a better job. Jobs are clearly not impossible to find anymore, depending on where you are, of course.
There are a bunch of skeevy outfits around here prowling the new job-hunters’ entries on sites like Career Builder that promise all sorts of happiness that doesn’t involve being chained to a desk and talk up their large well-known clients. In reality, they’re looking for cannon fodder - the “job” is to be dropped off in some neighborhood then go door to door trying to sell cable TV, baseball season tickets, etc.
I’d at least go in and check it out. The hiring company is legit, and they might be more straightforward than the recruiters. Them I don’t trust as far as I can throw them. A few months ago, 3 different recruiters called me about the same job, saying it was “urgent” and I had to call them immediately. Once I got on site, the managers were up front about what they wanted and moved much more slowly and reasonably. They explained that their parent company paid big commission to whichever placement company or recruiter brought the talent in, so the recruiters were way too aggressive.
Today I got an email that said “Hi. My name is (Joe)”- yes, it was in a different font AND in parentheses, like he didn’t even understand how to stick his name into a template - “and I have an urgent opening available only if you respond today.” Also it was 2+ hours away. Instant delete!
Seems (to me) like an inordinate amount of urgency on their part for an 11.00 per hour job. I would suspect it's some kind of commission sales scam or some other meat grinder position that will chew you up and spit you out. The meager pay rate does not correspond with the rushed timing. If the job was *really *that mission critical they would be paying a lot more than 11.00 per hour. Keep your eyes open.
So I’m going in for the interview, at least to see what’s going on. I should make clear, since it apparently wasn’t in my OP, that this is a contract job — 6-12 months, according to the listing.
I asked a friend who works at the company in question (at a much different and better job); he’s heard of the staffing company, so my memory is confirmed. From what little he knows, he says that there’s no real advancement path in such a role, and that full time employment from it is technically possible, but unlikely.
Oh, and my health insurance, which I am definitely using right now, is keyed to my current low income, so I’d probably have to give it up and pay for insurance possibly with a different company, and obviously the contracting gig comes with no benefits.
I’ll see what happens tomorrow/today.
I’m… not sure what I’m making excuses for? I don’t recall saying that I did or did not do anything differently because of the time pressures?
If I had to guess, you do some kind of IT, and some barely intelligible Indian dude called you up out of the clear blue to offer you this job, all the while talking about how his company has 3-4 really big-name legit companies as clients.
They’re a dime-a-dozen, and probably indicates some kind of sweatshop environment, really high pressure project, and they can’t get good candidates through real recruiting, so they’re getting warm bodies through the headhunter equivalent of “Enlarge your p3n15 today!” emails.
I’m honestly baffled by the very low pay attached to a high urgency, term limited contract position. These are fast food / Walmart worker level wages. You’ll be making less than $ 400 per week after taxes and on top of that add 1.5 to 2 hours of commuting a day, and it’s a dead end after the contract expires? The gas and wear and tear on your car alone will eat up a good chunk of your income. I don’t see how this opportunity makes any sense unless you’re doing it just for giggles. Use your savings to find a real job this sounds like a gigantic waste of time and not much of a resume builder.
Okay, well, it didn’t happen (mostly my fault; I got there early, then spent more time than I had trying to find the right building, with the recruiter contact not answering repeated phone calls; no need to tell me anything about this, I already know it all, I’m really embarrassed, this has never happened to me before), but I did discover a few new things:
It might be more like $15 an hour, maybe a bit more, I’m told.
The commute was worse than I rermembered; not quite the hiring of rush hour took an hour.
They really are desperate; for the four remaining slots, they have one or two people, including me. It really does sound to melike they just want halfway qualified warm bodies; the recruiter contact actually said he’d arrange a phone interview for Monday, and didn’t express the slightest bit of annoyance with me for my fuck up.
Not sure if my screw up is a factor - whether I should bow out now if I’m not 100% sure on this job - which would annoy the hiring manager more. And I’m still considering the insurance factor. But there we go. What a day.
Oh, and it turns out that I should’ve checked my email before I left. There was one there moving my interview to Monday because the hiring manager was ill. Odd thing is, I thought the recruiter contact told me the hiring manager was there and left.
I’m going to do the phone interview on Monday, but I have to say, between their desperation and apparent lack of ability to get good candidates, the two cancellations (even if they’re not at fault), my own lack of immediate desperation, and factors mentioned above, I’m just as leery of this job as I was before.
But now you have us involved in your story and you must take it to the end wherever it leads. This is like a Republic serial and we anxiously await the next episode of “Leaper’s Grand Adventure”.
It is. When you see the box that says “did you decline any job offers this week”, check “no”.
Yeah, I fucking hate this. I get spammed like ten times a day with some Indian guy asking me if I’d be interested in a 3-9 month contract halfway across the country. Sometimes from five different Indian guys asking me about the same job.
IT is a weird business. It seems like it’s either engineers at Google making $200k a year working in a sleep pod and eating for free at the company restaurant (but working 100 hours a week), or it’s the most horrible job in the world, working crappy short term contracts stuffed in some open-plan workspace.
In regard to the job, it smells even if it is legit. I did some labouring work a few years back when I was between jobs and got $18 per hour for that, and I only did that a couple of days a week to get me out of the house and get some exercise.
No chance in hell I’d be driving an hour each way to earn $15 an hour.
