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So, you’re a newbie in the job market? Looking for your first job, knocking doors and getting slammed with refusals? You’re not the only one. Forget the glass ceiling, no one will even let you step on that floor. Or, if you do, they will ensure you stay on that floor, lowest of the low for as long as possible while they entice you with an enchanting view of what lies above in the sky just out of your reach.
Just work a tiny bit more, a tiny bit harder, tiny bit longer and you’ll be there, you’ll land the position of your dreams. Sounds familiar? If yes, you have my deepest sympathies. If not, then oh boy! I can only offer you my best wishes. Unless, of course, you’re someone with a ton of contacts and backing and things like that. The world has become increasingly materialistic, and those old-school virtues like value and worth of people are nothing more than a myth.
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I’m addressing a specific audience here, the high school graduates.
You’ve done your A-Levels and you want some real-life experience. Good news: there are plenty of people willing to hire you. Bad news: Everything after that will be atrocious. Honestly, it’s exploitation at its finest. Let me be specific now. In our society, the most logical option seems to be education. And after A-Levels, you are well equipped to teach even senior classes. You go and search for a job. They ask you to drop in your cv. In case you’re lucky you get a callback. In case you’re even luckier, you have a reference.
But let me tell you this: Never mind your extraordinary achievements. Never mind your high flying grades (In fact, research proves there is actually a very little link between educational success and career success in life). Never mind even your strong reference, you are going to get exploited. And in case you think a few years experience makes a big difference, let me correct you on that matter, too. It doesn’t.
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None of these things ever guarantee you will get a good job that pays what you deserve. If you go and fairly demand what you think is right, they try to pull your leg by telling you you’re not qualified enough. They’ll talk about budget and unfairness to other teachers. How it’s just not possible for them to pay you that much (these schools earn lacs from just one student.)
If nothing else, they’ll pull out their favourite card to intimidate you -The newbie card. You are a newbie. You have no experience. This is all we pay to inexperienced people blahblahblah. Then they try to seduce you with promises of future benefits which are honestly just so empty you can listen to them echoing with the hollowness.
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I’m not saying there’s no sense in what they say. Of course, the experience is a big teacher. But should you measure experience in terms of years?
How can you just generalize that just because so-and-so is young and fresh out of school they must not know anything? How can you put together two people of the same age and similar situations in life and claim they are both of the same value? I feel really pissed at the fact that you can work so hard your entire life, you may have 6 A’s in A levels, you may speak five languages, you may even be a published writer, heck you maybe the conqueror of a faraway land but none of it matters when it comes to the financial aspect. You might dazzle and shoot them dead with all your accomplishments and confidence and brilliant personality but it will all hold no weight if you can’t either pay them or you can’t agree to their terms and conditions and payments to you.
You may do wonderfully in the interviews and demos etc but if you can’t agree to their salary package they will just let you go and hire the next candidate who accepts the position on their offered package. And what’s more, sometimes they don’t even have the decency to man up and tell you clearly they’re not interested. They will play around with you. For instance, inviting you for a meeting for “negotiating” the salary but will start so low and stay adamant on that amount that there is actually no negotiating involved.
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Only useless jabbering about their institute and rules and the same old excuses and a pounding headache as a cherry on top. Or they will invite you for a demo, despite knowing that you’re a freshie and have no prior experience, and when you’re demo actually goes really well they find faults in your “class management and control”, and tell you that they will have to discuss it with the committee and they will give you a call – and for all intents and purposes it is a “Goodbye, we are not interested.” Might as well say it out loud, right?
There’s something I want to ask these geniuses:
What worth do you hope to add to your institute when you let go people of value and hire someone cheaper who saves you a few bucks? How is this long term planning in any way? And if you wanna drag budgeting HERE, then dude you’re doing it wrong. People, your employees are what make up your institute, your organization. It’s not you alone. If you do not invest in them, keep them happy, then all the best marketing in the world can’t save you from failing sooner or later. It’s even worse when the organization is a new one and is seeking to establish itself. And have no sense of “teamwork and team accomplishments”, are stingy, and try to get off the hook the cheapest way. Congratulations. You’ve sunk your boat faster than Titanic did on its first and last voyage. *slow clapping sounds in the distance*
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Learn something from Google (literally). See how it treats its employees and see its fast and swift ever-growth that might put bacteria in some serious competition.
Jokes aside, it all comes down to this: People want value but they are not willing to pay it’s worth.
Quality has lost the importance it’s due. Money triumphs over it. Farsightedness and vision sorely lack. I do NOT even want to start on the “vision” crap. Coming up with new slogans, motivational shit while all you do is follow the same old bland policies and methods, those same old people? It’s not much different from politics actually. New parties form under new banners and mission statements, while all they do is recruit those same corrupt people who ARE the real enemy – Guess some people just totally misunderstand the latter part of the phrase, “keep your friends close, and your enemies closer”). However, I digress.
You know what farsightedness actually is? Let me tell you a story.
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Once there was a farmer who had a very prosperous farm where he grew watermelons. Those watermelons, they were so delicious that that area became famous for them, people would come from far away to buy the farmer’s produce. That farmer had a strange rule though. After the harvest, he would select his very best watermelons and give them to the village kids. However, they had to spit out the seeds and save them instead of chewing or swallowing them. Sometime later, the old man died and his son took over. He was irritated by this and decided to sell the best ones for even more profit. Guess what happened next?
Yep, he was ruined. His crops lost their quality taste and nobody cared for his produce anymore and he lost all that prosperity that his father had enjoyed. As you must have figured by now, that smart old man not only spread happiness among those kids, but he also got the best seeds for the next crop. And his cycle of good products continued year after year.
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That’s what farsightedness is. That’s a vision.
What people are doing in the name of education is business. Business can get dirty. Ugly. Selfish. These are the core qualities if you do not want to lose to your competitors. So please do not try to glorify and mobilise your “trade” by throwing in a few pompous, self-righteous, so-fake-they-ring-like-hollow-tin slogans. It’s disrespectful to real, honest work that some people actually do. Instead of throwing away that money on stupid marketing that nobody believes in (and secretly mocks and ridicules in their heart), spend that money wisely, in things that will actually pay in the long term. Like your employees.
And so my humble request to you guys, dear Mr.Employers and Hiring Managers: please do not waste a good candidate’s time by stringing them along while trying to get them to agree to the lowest pay possible. Be honest. If you can’t pay, at least don’t play games with them. Remember that phrase, “Everything’s fair in love and war”? Well, it never included the word “business”.
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