Date: May 30th, 2006 1:02 AM Author: Pale nubile pistol
What the fuck? I manage to get admitted to a shitload of top law schools, was a state finalist for the Rhodes, interned for a senator and now it seems like the most insurmountable obstacle I've faced is finding a decent paying job for the summer/fall. In all seriousness, should I start knocking down my resume amd leaving shit off so I look a bit more "tailored" towards these data entry and admin asst jobs that I need to tide me over until November? I've answered an obscene amount of job postings and haven't received a single call for an interview.
Date: May 30th, 2006 1:10 AM Author: territorial jewess
not at all. If the employer feels he needs to train you when he can hire a boob several IQ points lower but who already knows what he's doing or can type faster, the boob deserves the job. I'd hire a boob.
Date: May 30th, 2006 1:17 AM Author: Pale nubile pistol
For sure. I'm not looking for a "good" job, merely a decent one. Loosely speaking, I'm stuck here (San Fran) until November and need a filler job that will allow me to contribute to the living expenses at least a little bit and, more importantly, make payments on my student loans.
Date: May 30th, 2006 2:48 AM Author: sticky frozen temple hairy legs
<< Also consider that an experienced legal secretary is worth much more than a first year associate who is much more talented, but without experience. >>
Their incomes disagree -- unless you think firms are irrational.
Date: May 30th, 2006 1:15 AM Author: Bisexual Center Mother
The truth is, middle managers feel threatened by having an educated person working for them, because they are not very educated themselves. Some have not even graduated college. If they do hire someone smart, they will make sure to be very petty towards him and generally make his life miserable. Middle managers are very insecure, which is why they'd rather hire a loser with a few years of experience in a similar dead end job.
Date: May 30th, 2006 3:44 AM Author: sticky frozen temple hairy legs
I think it's more complicated than that. For instance, if the manager is rewarded for performance and the manager thinks the hot shot will improve the metrics he's evaluated on, he'd love to have the person. And, in my experience, people who are smarter relative to their peers don't have a worse attitude than the others. In my experience, it has been just the opposite. They perform so much better, that they feel better about their job and have a better attitude as long as they are rewarded for their performance and don't feel like they're stuck on a dead-end trajectory.
Date: May 30th, 2006 1:05 AM Author: territorial jewess
They want efficiency and that comes with experience. If you're not as experienced as the next applicant, they couldn't care less about how many awards you've won or your academic record.
Date: May 30th, 2006 1:07 AM Author: Infuriating nursing home
welcome to the real world. i have test scores and credentials up the wazoo too, but couldnt find a job for even minimum wage. not even many interviews!! oh well, guess law school is good for something.
Date: May 30th, 2006 1:11 AM Author: Pale nubile pistol
It is pretty obscene. I applied for a few paralegal positions at different firms with one year of experience as an LA at Skadden (which is on my resume) and a 178 LSAT (obviously not on my resume, but it's frustrating to be dinged for low level legal jobs with an LSAT that at least shows you're capable of some sort of mental performance) but haven't heard back from a single one after several weeks. This fucking sucks. I should have stayed at Skadden or gone off to law school. The things one does for a fiancee.
Date: May 30th, 2006 1:09 AM Author: Mahogany curious dilemma people who are hurt
Don't mention all those accomplishments unless they're relevant to the position. So if you're applying for an assistant position at a firm mention law school but not much more. If you're applying for retail don't mention any of that stuff.
Date: May 30th, 2006 1:40 AM Author: Pale nubile pistol
I may end up doing retail, much as I hate the disjointed hours. i worked at A&F during the summers all through the last year of HS and first two years of college, so I'm hoping that, cumulatively, that's enough to count as experience.
Date: May 30th, 2006 3:21 AM Author: sticky frozen temple hairy legs
Wrong. The OP is being dumb. He seems to think that a resume is about slapping all the gold stars he has ever gotten on a sheet of paper. And he's wrong, too. Even a fucking landscaping job will pay more than $10/hour. If he keeps his god damned fat ego trap shut and just fills out the application, he'll almost certainly land a $12/hour job.
Date: May 30th, 2006 3:30 AM Author: Pale nubile pistol
So do you suggest I start leaving my college off my resume? Or maybe call up my old manager at A&F and ask if he'll tell any potential employers I'd worked there all of last year so I can leave Skadden off my resume? It's not as if I'm passing off resumes with my GPA or class rank on them. Nor am I including anything like "State Finalist, Rhodes Scholarship" or obscure academic honors either. I have a resume and I have a CV - the two differ greatly. I agree that sending the CV off to these jobs would immediately bar me from consideration, as I'd come across as a pompous asshole, but the resume is very consciously tailored towards these sort of jobs, highlighting my "clerical" and organizational experience at Skadden and whatnot.
Date: May 30th, 2006 3:39 AM Author: sticky frozen temple hairy legs
Yeah, you might want to leave college off. Try sending out resumes different resumes. It might be hard to explain where those 4 years went, but if you had non-college jobs during school, you should be ok. It's hard to say without knowing what types of jobs you're applying for.
Date: May 30th, 2006 1:27 AM Author: Pale nubile pistol
My fiancee is working a six month contract job in San Fran. I bailed on Skadden and law school to come out here for the six months. Though it sounds obscenely stupid, the benefit is that after the contract is up, her and I are spending the rest of the year either up at Mammoth Mountain or in Park City, so for me it was worth what is effectively a year off. She's footing the bill for the ski thing and, truth be told, would probably foot the bill for all of this time in San Fran, but I REALLY don't want our relationship going in that direction; I'm pretty sure it would make things somewhat bad somewhat quickly, so I'd like to be able to pay my own way out here and have money in my pocket for Mammoth/Park City as well.
I've basically been searching on CL, monster, and run of the mill sources. I'm thinking of calling some temp agenices tomorrow maybe.
Date: May 30th, 2006 2:08 AM Author: Pale nubile pistol
Definitely frustrating. When a job posting states that the company is looking for a dynamic individual with a proven track record of succeeding in challenging environments, I'd like to think my experiences demonstrate just that. It's quickly becoming apparent that what they really mean by that is "looking for individuals with a proven track record of undertaking mundane work without giving us ANY indication they might question the status quo around here."
Date: May 30th, 2006 2:30 AM Author: Ultramarine Titillating Kitty Lodge
People have different reasons for applying for different jobs. Any decent manager who can withstand the ego challenge would jump at the opportunity to have someone smart working for them, regardless of the money they're willing to work for or the tasks they're willing to undertake. There's no real reason to believe that a smart person will somehow do the same job any *worse* than the typical 100 IQ person.
Date: May 30th, 2006 2:42 AM Author: Cobalt Black Woman Principal's Office
the really smart person is more likely to leave the position when something better comes along, or even steal some of the manager's mojo as he gains expertise. thus it's better to fill a mindless job with a mindless cog
The Wonderlic Personnel Test (often referred to as Wunderlich) is an intelligence test primarily known for being administered to prospective players in the National Football League since the 1970s.
The Wonderlic is a twelve-minute, fifty-question exam to assess aptitude for learning a job and adapting to solve problems for employees in a wide range of occupations. The score is calculated as the number of correct answers given in the allotted time.
A score of 20 is intended to indicate average intelligence (corresponding to an intelligence quotient of 100; to convert scores IQ = 2WPT + 60). It is rumored that at least one player has scored a 1 on the test.
Date: May 30th, 2006 3:20 AM Author: sticky frozen temple hairy legs
That happened to me at one of those $12-$15/hr jobs. I was on a team of about 20 people headed by a young, friendly, but not-too-bright TTT state school "leadership" major. After a few weeks on the job, I was one one of the top two employees on in the group. When I'd see things I thought could be imporoved, I'd write memos after work to my supervisor and the supervisor above him explaining the problem and what I thought the solutions might be. They loved it, and some of the changes were implemented. Within a few months I was offered an entry-level manager position in a similar department. But I turned it down when to get more old fashioned book learnin'. And at about the same time the other guy who was at the top quit when he got his accounting degree. After we quit, the numbers for the department slipped a lot, which caused the manager to crack down on the remaining people to do better so he wouldn't get his ass chewed, and that caused a few more people to quit. After that the manager suddenly decided that the other guy and I had really been trouble-makers and talked some (subtle) shit about us after we had left. I think the lesson I learned was that shitty jobs and the people who run them just aren't very good at dealing with unusually high performers.
Date: May 30th, 2006 2:26 AM Author: Ultramarine Titillating Kitty Lodge
I'm in the process of moving and looking for jobs in a new city. Just something that would pay $30k and give me health insurance so I can support myself for a year before starting med school. At this level, there's a very miniscule chance that anyone applying for the same positions would actually end up doing the job better than me. I'm a good worker, and pick up things quickly. Yet because I don't have a bachelor's degree in marketing, "exercise science," or some other ridiculous vocational field for the double-digit IQ set, I fail to meet even the baseline requirements for many of the jobs I'd enjoy having. What's more, if that wasn't enough of an obstacle, my lacking the all-important 1-2 years of experience in a related field also slams shut many of the remaining doors.
Smart, hard-workers can learn in about a month what it takes other people a year to become good at, and then do the same job that much better. This has been the case with every job I've managed to finagle my way into up till now, though I'm not sure how to convince employers of it.
Date: May 30th, 2006 2:56 AM Author: Cobalt Black Woman Principal's Office
you're right. one of my friends graduated magna from UCLA, and started applying for paralegal jobs with big name LA firms. he finally got an interview after a maddening spate of dings. after several interviews, the interviewers informed him that they were going to fill the position with an attorney. the "attorney" graduated from whittier law (a 4th tier school outside of LA), and had been "practicing" (read: temping) for several years. there's no way in hell that attorney was brighter or could learn things faster than my friend, yet the attorney got the gig, presumably because of "experience," whatever that means. one way to look at it is that the attorney brought immediately useful, practical skills to the position, while my friend brought a whole lot of "potential." but the way i see it, all low level, dead end jobs (like paralegal) are best filled with experienced idiots. the best jobs are reserved for people who are actually bright. there are a bunch of reasons for this, most of them obvious. so be patient, i'm sure you're going to be fine.
Date: May 30th, 2006 3:37 AM Author: sticky frozen temple hairy legs
<< Smart, hard-workers can learn in about a month what it takes other people a year to become good at, and then do the same job that much better. >>
I think that's generally right for the class of jobs we're talking about.
Examples of smart people doing well in dumb people jobs:
- Collections. Me and the accounting guy (previously mentioned in this thread) were by far the top employees in a collections department after a few weeks. We were beating people who had 6 months to a few years of experience in just under a month. The next closest people were about 15% to 20% less productive than us.
- Telemarketing. Two of my friends from high school had after school jobs in a telemarketing firm. Both won top performer awards their second month on the job.
- Road construction. After high school, one of my friends worked at a road construction contractor as a flagger/traffic controller to save some money for college. He learned the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices and how to set up the safety plans on sites so fast that he was promoted to a supervisory position doing after two months. It paid almost $50,000/year with overtime, so he stayed on for two more years and then went to college.
- Hotels. I had an ex-girlfriend who was promoted from night clerk to hotel manager within 4 months. As far as I know, she never went to college (I lost touch with her).
My guess is that a lot of people here are just bullshitting about how they think the world of shitty jobs works. They have no experience with them and don't even have friends who have experience with them.
All else being equal, smart people absolutely stomp their peers in low-level jobs to which intelligence can be applied. That's virtually every job. There might be some small exceptions that require only brute strength or things like that, but for everything else, smart people race past their peers.
Date: May 30th, 2006 4:06 AM Author: Confused doctorate library
"All else being equal, smart people absolutely stomp their peers in low-level jobs to which intelligence can be applied. That's virtually every job. There might be some small exceptions that require only brute strength or things like that, but for everything else, smart people race past their peers."
But low-level jobs are boring for smarty pants (leading to all sorts of problems). this is why things like this happen:
Date: May 30th, 2006 4:15 AM Author: sticky frozen temple hairy legs
So, uhm, where do those chuckleheads get their detectives from? It seems like the entire pool is limited to people with an IQ of no more than about 114.
Date: May 30th, 2006 4:16 AM Author: Confused doctorate library
yes,
The governmental taking of property from one private owner to give to another in furtherance of economic development constitutes a permissible "public use" under the Fifth Amendment. Supreme Court of Connecticut affirmed.
Date: May 30th, 2006 4:12 PM Author: Histrionic Tanning Salon Clown
It is possible the claim that they rejected him because he was too smart was really a cover for illegal age discrimination. This was a 48-year-old guy applying to be a police officer.
Date: May 30th, 2006 5:08 PM Author: scarlet passionate toaster
My favoriate line from the article:
[Millie McLaughlin, 82, the lunch lady at Harbor Elementary School, worries that pupils will think that "if they study too hard, they won't get a job."]
Date: May 30th, 2006 2:47 AM Author: Pearl really tough guy
try to get a job busing tables or working in a supermarket or something like that. it's not $15/hr, but it's better than nothing. start looking for a higher paying job after you've already got a stream of income.
also, you might be able to get a tutoring job if you can convince your would-be employer you're working on a credential.
Date: May 30th, 2006 3:07 AM Author: galvanic fear-inspiring electric furnace
the only thing you're qualified to do is either moving stuff or tutoring. Tutoring probably pays more so do that. Can't be that hard can it? Call up Testmasters or even Kaplan/PR.
Date: May 30th, 2006 3:12 AM Author: Pale nubile pistol
That'll probably be what I end up doing, though it's the idea of not having health insurance that comes with it that scares me. I suppose I'll look into private, individual insurance and hope it's not overly expensive. I've also looked into private tutoring outfits that do basic high school tutoring.
Date: May 30th, 2006 4:48 PM Author: hairraiser theater
A lot of low-level jobs nowadays actually use recruiters to do a pre-screen of a candidate. This way they are not wasting time in their HR department looking through a shit load of resumes. Often these "headhunters" will call you based on a resume you put out in monster or something of equivalent nature. Call one of these headhunters.
I got a job interview, which was literally the next day. I was so qualified for the position that I was hired on the spot. I am not making crazy money, but I am paying the bills and keeping some cash in my pockets for the weekends. Something like this will definitely hold you over for the summer. Sometimes the headhunter agencies take a portion of your first paycheck, and other times the specific company commissions them so you don’t lose anything. I’d suggest looking for the latter.
Date: May 30th, 2006 6:27 PM Author: Cobalt Black Woman Principal's Office
you have a point. all non white, non asian, and non jewish residents of san francisco are homeless beggars. apparently, the only marketable skill in san francisco is being white, jewish or asian. and don't forget about the rampant leprosy and faggotry.
Date: May 30th, 2006 5:57 PM Author: lavender den fanboi
I was in the same shitty situation last year. Job hunting for shitty low-level office jobs (and/or retail jobs) is the most frustrating experience in the world.