# The US job market is a big fat joke **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 26, 2019, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570 "2019-03-26T17:18:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![JcWoman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jcwoman/32/2889_2.png) [@JcWoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JcWoman)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/181 "2019-04-22T13:37:45Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I’ve tried to avoid “contract” work as much as possible so I don’t get stuck in the contractor trap. I kind of feel like once you start down that road, it can be difficult to get a full time permanent job again. One thing I’m noticing is that more and more FTE jobs are being turned into contract to hire jobs. I hate that because it feels so unstable. The job market is so brutally competitive these days that it’s smart to stay out of it as much as possible. I’ve heard of people who take contract to hire jobs and never get converted to full time, realizing or discovering that the company never intended to convert them. > [@msmith537](#): > > I’m still trying to figure out how my career has seemingly turned to shit. … > Since then, it’s been mostly bouncing around a bunch of shit jobs at really well-know companies. The money was ok and they sounded interesting at the time. And they were still “manager” level jobs. But there was no longevity, let alone upward mobility (maybe a no-increase title bump if I was lucky). Not a lot of guidance or direction from my usually absent boss (typically a director or VP). And usually it was either sitting around idle with no work or total chaos with way too much work. And either way, the projects tended to be so random and esoteric that I wasn’t learning anything I could take with me to another company. I’ve noticed similar with my career, although I never made it into the management level. The best part of my career (discovered in hindsight) went poof along with the platform I was working on (DEC Vaxes, Alpha and Integrity machines running OpenVMS - all museum pieces now). I’m finding that I don’t quite have the relationship-building skills needed for the analyst role that I’m in now, so I’ve been struggling in every job. Bosses say I’m doing fine, but I just find the job uncomfortable and I don’t feel that I’m excelling. Anyway, it’s interesting to read your post because I didn’t realize that management level people had the same issues I am having at the lower level. It’s becoming rare to find a company that offers any training at all, let alone guidance or direction. My typical experience when asking about career growth within the company is the human equivalent of a dog’s head tilt. > [@kunilou](#): > > Now if any potential employer had asked me flat out, “You’re overqualified for this job. Why do you want it?” I would have been happy to tell them exactly that, and I would be their loyal servant for years to come. But, of course, you never hire an overqualified person, so why even interview them? Yep, and at the same time, there is serious job requirement inflation going on. The bachelor degree is the new high school diploma and a masters degree is the new bachelors. It’s becoming very common to see job ads for “entry level” positions requiring 3-5 years of experience. The general conclusion is that they want senior level people but only want to pay entry level salaries. Maybe you could spin your “overqualified” status to fit this paradigm. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/182 "2019-04-22T15:26:02Z")
> [@JcWoman](#): > > The best part of my career (discovered in hindsight) went poof along with the platform I was working on (DEC Vaxes, Alpha and Integrity machines running OpenVMS - all museum pieces now). I spent my formative years at DEC, but working in the Unix group. I started as an engineer, but moved into project management and have had a pretty good career, as those skills are quite transferable. I still fall back on my general engineering skills from time to time, but learning Agile methodology was far more important than any languages I used to code. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/183 "2019-04-24T00:16:07Z")
> [@JcWoman](#): > > Anyway, it’s interesting to read your post because I didn’t realize that management level people had the same issues I am having at the lower level. It’s becoming rare to find a company that offers any training at all, let alone guidance or direction. My typical experience when asking about career growth within the company is the human equivalent of a dog’s head tilt. Well, sure. Once you get into “management”, everything becomes about politics and relationships. Especially when you get into “real” management where you have a P&L and staff to management. The stakes get higher as well as the compensation is higher and there are less positions. But honestly, companies don’t give a shit about training their people. I think their attitude is “why the fuck are we paying these people at all, let alone for training, if they don’t already know how to do the job we want them to do.” Better just fire them and hire some contractors. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/184 "2019-04-24T21:22:48Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Wow, I missed this post the first time through, but I feel like I have to respond. > > You don’t hire an overqualified candidate for a lower-level job. “Everyone knows” an overqualified person is still looking for a better job (never mind that the recent graduate is also looking for a better job), that they don’t fit the company culture, they think they know more than their supervisors, etc., etc. If you’re desperate, you\* might \*hire them for short-term contract work. > > What “everyone” forgets is that there are people like me in 2008 (and I’ll bet several people in this thread,) who’d be perfectly willing to take a step or two down on the career ladder in exchange for a reasonably permanent, full-time job with benefits, that allows them to keep paying the mortgage, and, we hope, might even have a matching 401K program. > > Not to mention that over the years we’ve learned to not fight the company culture so much, and sometimes it’s good to have someone who knows as much as the supervisors, for when the supervisors quit. > > Now if any potential employer had asked me flat out, “You’re overqualified for this job. Why do you want it?” I would have been happy to tell them exactly that, and I would be their loyal servant for years to come. But, of course, you never hire an overqualified person, so why even interview them? kunilou, that is exactly my problem. I am overqualified for a lot in my field. But I seriously like what I do and don’t feel the need to move up the ladder any more. I just want to produce good work that I can be proud of and take a paycheck home. Is that difficult to understand? Apparently, for interviewers, it is. They think I will either get bored and quit, or won’t be motivated to replace them when they retire in 20 years (or, these days, they think I’ll retire in 6 months when I have about 13 years left in the work force). ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/185 "2019-04-25T00:58:56Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > But honestly, companies don’t give a shit about training their people. I think their attitude is “why the fuck are we paying these people at all, let alone for training, if they don’t already know how to do the job we want them to do.” Better just fire them and hire some contractors. I don’t understand this. Why would a company pay to train you for a job that they already hired you for? ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/186 "2019-04-25T01:01:03Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Now if any potential employer had asked me flat out, “You’re overqualified for this job. Why do you want it?” I would have been happy to tell them exactly that, and I would be their loyal servant for years to come. Is this really true though? Would you turn down a job that matched your skills and offered a significant increase in pay just because you told your current employer “I would be your loyal servant for years to come”? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/187 "2019-04-25T16:29:28Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I don’t understand this. Why would a company pay to train you for a job that they already hired you for? I don’t understand why you don’t understand this. There used to be the concept of hiring smart, motivated people and then training them for a particular job. School gives you the basics, but it doesn’t make you a nurse, engineer, accountant, fireman, or investment banker. Even if you’ve done the job before, you still need to learn the specifics about how the company works. And jobs change. People grow. There used to be this concept of taking good people and then continue to give them the training they need to be successful in their careers. Even paying tuition or sending them to business school. When I started my career 25 years ago, companies sent us to training. It could be a 4 week new hire boot camp, a week long course on how to program some new language, industry or subject matter training, new manager training, heck, even just walking people around the office introducing everyone and showing them where the coffee machine is. What I see now is that companies just hire and fire employees or contractors like they are swapping out lightbulbs or old office furniture. There seems to be this mentality that it’s not worth the expense to keep training people, because they will leave anyway. Or you can just replace obsolete people with cheaper new hire grads or outsourced resources. There is also an over-reliance IMHO on hiring “super stars” or “rock stars” who will come in and bring some profound industry-sweeping changes with them. Which, to me, creates an inverse “pyramid of competency” as you end up with relatively stupid “rent collecting” management relying on junior people to drive innovation. Either way, the onus has shifted to individuals to “be the CEO of their own career”, which is a nice way of saying “go fucking train yourself”. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/188 "2019-04-25T16:44:48Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I don’t understand why you don’t understand this. There used to be the concept of hiring smart, motivated people and then training them for a particular job. Perhaps I don’t understand it because that’s how it USED to be? I’m a government contractor, and work with government contractors in the cybersecurity field. Nobody I work with got hired and then sent to training to perform cyber security tasks. It was assumed they already knew what they were doing. That’s why what you are talking about is foreign to me. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/189 "2019-04-25T16:56:12Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I don’t understand this. Why would a company pay to train you for a job that they already hired you for? Because each company does things slightly differently. Sometimes even different locations of the same company do things slightly differently. Because jobs change over time, machines are replaced, technology advances. I used to “stage manage” week long training seminars for a company I worked for in which people hired to, say, be accounts for the company were trained on the specific procedures and regulations for the company and industry. They were already experienced accountants, but the company got better results paying for a week of instruction to make sure everyone was up to speed on all parts of the job. No one does that anymore. > [@Slash1972](#): > > Is this really true though? Would you turn down a job that matched your skills and offered a significant increase in pay just because you told your current employer “I would be your loyal servant for years to come”? Have you considered that some of us _those jobs don’t exist anymore?_ Not once but _twice_ I have lost my job/career to advancing technology. The jobs that “match my skills” either no longer exist or are done remotely by people in third world countries via the internet. So YES, absolutely, I would take a job with less pay, lower down/entry level _because I have no choice_. Fortunately, my current employer was willing to let me get a foot in the door at that entry level and I’ve worked my way up somewhat. > [@msmith537](#): > > IEither way, the onus has shifted to individuals to “be the CEO of > their own career”, which is a nice way of saying “go fucking train yourself”. Yes. And it fucking sucks. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/190 "2019-04-25T17:15:17Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Have you considered that some of us _those jobs don’t exist anymore?_ > > Not once but _twice_ I have lost my job/career to advancing technology. The jobs that “match my skills” either no longer exist or are done remotely by people in third world countries via the internet. > > So YES, absolutely, I would take a job with less pay, lower down/entry level _because I have no choice_. Fortunately, my current employer was willing to let me get a foot in the door at that entry level and I’ve worked my way up somewhat. No that’s not what I meant. I mean someone taking a lower position and being overqualified and stating “I will be your loyal servant for years to come” I just find it unlikely that IF a better job came along, commensurate with your experience and paid better, that someone would decline that job because they said “I will be your loyal servant for years to come” ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/191 "2019-04-25T17:17:00Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Because each company does things slightly differently. Sometimes even different locations of the same company do things slightly differently. Because jobs change over time, machines are replaced, technology advances. > > I used to “stage manage” week long training seminars for a company I worked for in which people hired to, say, be accounts for the company were trained on the specific procedures and regulations for the company and industry. They were already experienced accountants, but the company got better results paying for a week of instruction to make sure everyone was up to speed on all parts of the job. > > No one does that anymore. That’s called “on-boarding” where I work. Not “training” per se. ---
**Author:** ![pigtwo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pigtwo/32/18234_2.png) [@pigtwo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pigtwo)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/192 "2019-04-25T17:27:10Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I don’t understand this. Why would a company pay to train you for a job that they already hired you for? I think the idea is it could be cheaper to hire someone who is smart and has some background in the subject and train them for the specifics rather than hire someone who already experienced. Once the person is trained they would produce similar work to the already experienced person but at a lower salary. Where people now get annoyed is when companies seem to want to eat their cake and have it too. They expect you to be experienced(IE no training required) but they want to pay you as though you’re inexperienced. The last company I worked for spent 9+ months looking for a planner and absolutely refused to pay above a certain amount but demanded a certain amount of experience. These two demands seemed to me to be mutually exclusive. But instead of recognizing that maybe their expectations were off they just complained about the lack of experienced workers. When in fact they had experienced workers but all of them refused the offer when they saw the salary. To be fair job hopping seems to be more common now than it used to be so training is riskier now. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/193 "2019-04-25T17:30:39Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Perhaps I don’t understand it because that’s how it USED to be? > > I’m a government contractor, and work with government contractors in the cybersecurity field. Nobody I work with got hired and then sent to training to perform cyber security tasks. It was assumed they already knew what they were doing. > > That’s why what you are talking about is foreign to me. I think it depends on the industry. When I came out of school 13 years ago I chose a company who’s training program involved working my way up through field positions rather that sitting in classrooms. I was paid the same wage as any other engineer I was just doing a different job. When I changed companies they were more into classroom training and so I was sent to schools all over the country to improve my depth of understanding in my field. After the first 5 years of my career I’d been to most of the school so my latest company paid for me to attend business school and for me to attend annual conferences to make sure I stayed up to date. I don’t know anyone who hires engineers and expects them to magically know the latest and greatest technology or even how to correctly apply what they learned in school. I just hired an engineer out of school to come work for my small firm and I’ve developed a training program for them to spend their first year in not doing meaningful work. Hell, my wife got her phd and went into a training program for six months at the company that hired her. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/194 "2019-04-25T21:05:31Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > (snip) > > When I started my career 25 years ago, companies sent us to training. It could be a 4 week new hire boot camp, a week long course on how to program some new language, industry or subject matter training, new manager training, heck, even just walking people around the office introducing everyone and showing them where the coffee machine is. > > What I see now is that companies just hire and fire employees or contractors like they are swapping out lightbulbs or old office furniture. There seems to be this mentality that it’s not worth the expense to keep training people, because they will leave anyway. Or you can just replace obsolete people with cheaper new hire grads or outsourced resources. Bingo. And this change actually started back in the late 80s, early 90s. HR realized that they could sometimes pick up people who had already had the skills as they were laid off at rival companies that were being merged and so they began demanding the skills. The other change that has happened as that, like assembly lines, office jobs started to get broken down into tasks so that workers repeatedly did the same task and didn’t learn the other tasks. They’d get bored to tears and try another company. Some of that is beginning to change as companies realize how much knowledge keeps walking out their doors every time someone quits or there is a layoff. I recently did contract work for a company who found a way to keep my team of mostly contractors together during a down time because they knew we had the skills and were working with their regular staff to do some very necessary work. When the second project got going, we switched focus to that. It’s a bummer they had to break us up in the end, but we were just too many of us to do the everyday stuff indefinitely. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/195 "2019-04-25T21:25:56Z")
Actually, if you were born 60 years ago, like me, you would have been in the second half of the Boomer cohort, aka Generation Jones. We collected our bachelor’s degrees just in time for the launch of skyrocketing house prices and 19% car loan rates. I agree we were still better off than the Millennials, but just not as much as some may think. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/196 "2019-04-25T22:23:40Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > No that’s not what I meant. I mean someone taking a lower position and being overqualified and stating “I will be your loyal servant for years to come” I just find it unlikely that IF a better job came along, commensurate with your experience and paid better, that someone would decline that job because they said “I will be your loyal servant for years to come” Depends on if there are other factors at work. Someone might not want overtime, or maybe wants only 30 hours a week (maybe health issues, maybe child/eldercare issues) and will stay where they can get that rather than go a higher salary that also demands more hours. As an example. Another example - someone may want to live in a particular city because of their spouse’s career, and thus are more interested in stability than moving somewhere else for more pay. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/197 "2019-04-26T01:57:34Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Depends on if there are other factors at work. Someone might not want overtime, or maybe wants only 30 hours a week (maybe health issues, maybe child/eldercare issues) and will stay where they can get that rather than go a higher salary that also demands more hours. As an example. Another example - someone may want to live in a particular city because of their spouse’s career, and thus are more interested in stability than moving somewhere else for more pay. Sure, but I would think “Yes, I’m overqualified, but I want to stay in this area because of [schools, or traffic, or whatever]” would be a better answer than “I will be your loyal servant for years to come” ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/198 "2019-04-26T13:33:11Z")
> [@pigtwo](#): > > To be fair job hopping seems to be more common now than it used to be so training is riskier now. There would be less job hopping IMHO if companies actually invested in their employees. That means training. Providing career paths for people other than a couple of favorites. Or maybe even holding onto people during slow periods so you can retain their knowledge when things pick up. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/199 "2019-04-26T14:15:25Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > What kind of work do you do? > > I’ve tried to avoid “contract” work as much as possible so I don’t get stuck in the contractor trap. I kind of feel like once you start down that road, it can be difficult to get a full time permanent job again. It is. The two biggest problems I’m finding are two specific prejudices: one, there’s the misconception that if you’re a contractor you’re used to some sort of jet-set lifestyle that you would never want to leave unless you got paid even more; linked to that, the idea that the pay and benefits we get _because we’re traveling a ton_ are things we’d expect _when not traveling_. The idea that “WFH on Fridays” is compensation for not seeing your kids, spouse, pets, friends… the whole rest of the week goes flying even higher than those jets. second, people think that if you’re self-employed “you’re your own boss”. I get asked whether I think I’ll be able to accept orders, whether I’ll be able to work within a team. Aaah… ok, so well, legally I do have the ability to tell my clients “I’m closing down X week”, but in reality I’ve only used it once and it was with a client which considered “being a jerk” as a plus. Most of the time I’m where the client wants when the client wants, and I bloody well do what the client wants so long as it’s legal. And invoicing by myself doesn’t mean I run full fucking multi-location implementations by myself: I’m good (hell, I’m fucking good), but there’s only one of me. > [@msmith537](#): > > There would be less job hopping IMHO if companies actually invested in their employees. That means … holding onto people during slow periods so you can retain their knowledge when things pick up. That was the biggest reason I started doing contract: my “permanent” contracts were always “until the end of the project”. Twice I’ve had the pleasure of receiving a call from a company which had just fired me “because we don’t have anything for your part”, only to then get a project which did call for my part… “oh gosh, so sorry, I’m somewhere else already! Good luck! Buh-bye!” ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570/200 "2019-04-26T16:42:11Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > It is. The two biggest problems I’m finding are two specific prejudices: > one, there’s the misconception that if you’re a contractor you’re used to some sort of jet-set lifestyle that you would never want to leave unless you got paid even more; linked to that, the idea that the pay and benefits we get _because we’re traveling a ton_ are things we’d expect _when not traveling_. The idea that “WFH on Fridays” is compensation for not seeing your kids, spouse, pets, friends… the whole rest of the week goes flying even higher than those jets. I don’t know. When I worked for management consulting firms like Deloitte or AT Kearney there was a bit of the “jet set” perception. In the 90s and early 2000s, I think it was someone true and part of the reason I got into that business. But IMHO, companies always seemed to view “contractors” as second-class employees. Hired hands begrudgingly employed out of technical necessity. But rarely of a suitable station for full time permanent employment. What it used to be like working for those firms was that we were these highly educated experts from New York or wherever who would fly out to help transform your company. But what the industry has been shifting to is just this massive outsourcing factory. I saw this happening at my last firm. I was working for this small management consulting firm founded by a couple of ex Accenture partners. Most of us all came from big firms and they try to dress it up like a mini-Accenture. But when we pitch work, it wasn’t services based. It was “update your bio so we can have you interview at some client”, basically like a contractor. When I actually got out to clients, I was generally treated (or assumed to be) a contractor. The problem with this “staff augmentation” approach is that you don’t develop your people. You don’t even develop your business. People are basically “salesmen” or “headhunters” trying to place “resources” or “staff” to do the work. Unless they sell a project that’s so big, they can afford to toss resources at it, you can only work on projects where you have worked on something similar in the past. And if they can’t find a project similar to your prior experience, you get “counselled out” because “we can’t use your skills”. If that’s the case, then a) why did you hire those people in the first place and b) if you need certain skills, why don’t you train them? Truth be told, I generally like the “consulting” style work of going into different companies and clients. But I like doing so having the support of a big firm behind me, where I theoretically don’t have to do everything myself and can leverage the assets of the firm. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-job-market-is-a-big-fat-joke/831570.md?page=11)