I’m actually tired of winning. Like, really, I am. Because this Trump economy is making it impossible to hire people. Everybody who is worth even a single damn already has a job and is completely satisfied in his or her role.
As I type this, I have multiple sales roles available with guaranteed competitive base salaries, full benefits, 401k matching, and a career path with a 160-year-old established company, and I haven’t found anybody worth hiring. And trust me, I’m not being picky.
If you can walk and chew gum, and have sold something before, send me a resume to barkm302@gmail.com. We have openings in Miami, Kansas City, Charlotte, Sacramento, and Fort Worth. If you are looking for a gig in any of those cities, I’ll put you in touch with the local hiring manager. And you’ll get to meet me! How exciting for everybody involved.
I eagerly await DeadWeight’s response. I expect it will say “MAGA” a lot.
Increase what you’re offering to pay, and you’ll find plenty of willing and qualified applicants.
I left my last engineering job at ${MAJOR_SEMICONDUCTOR_COMPANY} because they kept complaining that they couldn’t hire qualified people, and then come annual performance evaluation time they handed out 2% raises.
Not saying you’re doing this, but to any company that is complaining about not enough qualified workers, don’t forget that it’s a marketplace out there. Supply and demand, baby. Right now demand is high and supply is low, so give me more money and I just may deign to interview you so I can decide if it’s worth my time to let you pay me.
This was my biggest bone to pick with Mike Rowe’s whole “there’s a bunch of unfilled skilled trades jobs, they can’t find people to fill them!” shtick, although I on the whole really like the guy and his mission.
Uh, if you want a qualified machinist or welder or diesel mechanic, offer enough to poach him from someone else, and in time people will go to the trade schools because the compensation is appealing. Especially with large corporations: invest in trade schools and create a path for subsidized schooling->apprenticeships->employment.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I wish college loans were doled out based on probability of being able to find a job in the field they are majoring in and repay said loan.
You ever notice that many of the jobs Mike tried on were for mom and pop companies that no one even knows existed, that do things that no one knows is even a thing?
I think there are jobs there, but those mom and pops are waiting for people to come to them.
I agree with the rest. Companies bitch but won’t pay. Or come up with the reasoning of “Sure, apprenticeships and trade schools, that will give me people 2,3, 4 years from now. I need them today.”
If the economy is bad, “Why should I pay for somebody for the future 2,3, 4 years from now when there isn’t enough work now.”
Yes this. When the market is on their side, they won’t hire and lord it over their existing employees. When the job market is fat, they claim poverty, and add that they’d face demands to bring everyone up to current salary levels. In the meantime, the most mobile and talented boil off, leaving a group tied by blood, soil, or desperation rather than loyalty.
Most upward career moves are diagonal now.
Except in very high-margin industries, it’s a pretty rare employer that would directly subsidize professional education without an iron-clad and lengthy work commitment at market-average salary levels. Competitors will gladly cover buy-outs and penalty clauses to swipe top performers, and departing employees will shrug and explain that the cheap schooling was great but it doesn’t make their car payments. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Gtem,
That only goes so far. Eventually young people need to be trained in skilled trade as older workers retire out. I think many young people don’t realize that they can make good money doing many skilled jobs or are just too lazy. I’ve got a friend with no college education making a killing as an electrician apprentice. It’s really hard work, but he’s even making more than many careers requiring 4 year degrees.
I just saw that home prices are going up mainly because construction workers are leaving to hurricane areas for better pay. The hole left just isn’t getting filled by new workers. I’ve seen carpenter jobs with.zero experience for 35k a year. Around here that’s more than many other jobs requiring 4 year degrees. Us 40k going to bring in new workers? 45k?
I think society has done an excellent job of convincing the young workers.that somehow skilled trade is bad.
Daniel I’m inclined to agree with you, and it’s hard to paint with such a broad brush about ALL skilled trades. I guess I was always taken aback at how low pay can be for machinists even with some experience. It is highly qualified work, more so than most white collar office jobs that I’ve seen, frankly. Same with auto mechanics. Unless you take the leap and start your own shop, or work at a cushy European brand, the compensation in no-way correlates to the difficulty of (good) wrenching and diagnostics.
This .
And, don’t forget Mechanics and Machinists have to buy their own tools, many of which are $pecialized .
I tried dealer works, if you’re good or really bad (oddly, not if you’re in between) you can flag $85,000 ~ $100,000 a year *but* wrenching is really tough on the body ~ how many old geezers do you see still spinning wrenches ? .
Why I opened up an indie shop .
Flat rating isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it helps speed up some jobs, others it will result in a bad job, the solution is very simple : don’t automatically flat rate every job, duh .
As it turned out I’m cursed with having to do a good job, even on the junkers and for the assholes so I never made 1/2 what some Mechanics do but at least I was happy, not all that many are .
In my long life I’ve only ever met _one_ Machinist who was also a decent mechanic .
I’ve met many lazy and incompetent by choice Machinists and Mechanics
, I have no pity for them, most were making more $ than I ever did and had a long trail of unhappy customers who moved on .
-Nate
Nate I thought you’d appreciate this: check out my brother’s friend Eric with South Main Auto on youtube, he’s the owner of a small shop in rural Avoca NY. I’ve spent many an hour watching with satisfaction as he turns a wrench or two on inevitably rusty cars. Just a great family guy who puts his heart into the work, and charges his customers very reasonably/fairly. Nothing like sitting down on a Saturday morning with a coffee and watching some “SMA” wrenching.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtAGzm9e_liY7ko1PBhzTHA
I only worked briefly as a car mechanic (about 6 months) but yeah the guys who got paid the most either were buddies with the service manager or did a lot of short cuts. If your buddies with the guy giving out assignments you can always get the most profitable work. If your a quick and dirty guy it doesn’t really matter what they give you as you can hack it together in less time. Most of the really good mechanics I worked with and have known either go out on their own, go to a non flat rate shop or just become OK with only beating the flat rate a certain percentage of the time.
Gtem,
Eric is a great mechanic, and I really enjoy his videos. One of his videos helped me last week, with a warranty claim on my Audi S3. The level he goes to, to diagnose is amazing.
Patrick if diagnostics videos are your thing, check out my bro’s channel (Pine Hollow Auto Diagnostics) and their mutual buddy Keith out in Staten Island (New Level Auto), production quality is nowhere close to Eric’s but they both do some pretty cool “out in the field” work.
Thanx GTEM ;
He looks like he likes doing this, I too enjoy the detective aspect of trouble shooting problems .
Oddly, I find the older stuff much easier, I’m not trained in the new computer stuff .
-Nate
Too soon old, too late wise
Pay-for-peformance at the staff level is generally useless, excepting circumstances in which the performance metric is black and white.
Recruiting, hiring, orienting is a massive leadership time-suck. As is any kind of evaluation worth its salt, because grades that result in real money going out the door will require further justification. Bosses usually just try to solve for X and pass out whatever marks they feel are most likely to retain their people while not making any executive brows furrow.
Also: uniform raises are a huge help in the union wars, because the hardline agitators tend to be average-ish performers with lots of tenure. So in industries with labor relations risks, a certain amount of eating your young / reversion to mean is chalked up as anti-unionization expense.
Regrettably it often means that the only way to reward top performers is to promote them, and there’s less overlap between technical proficiency and managerial skills than most probably expect.
Tyler,
The reason why pay for performance at the staff level is useless has little to do with the staff and more to do with managers who are put Ina position they aren’t qualified for. Those managers got there because of the reasons you just said: can’t give them more money so just promote them. Many companies, big and small, have no idea what they are doing.
Locally the companies that are doing well are the ones that are flat and less vertical. Managers who deserve the job and can do the job while having fewer of them, and having workers properly compensates for their pay based on their performance. These companies are efficient and are extremely productive.
A company isn’t worth its salt if it can’t figure out how to do performance based raises for it’s workers. Great companies have figured it out at all levels of positions.
I have seen all kinds of different hiring methods. They all worked and didn’t work to some extent. Seems to more about the application then the process. When I worked in insurance one mega company was known for hiring college grads doing incredibly quick but effective training and paying the 20-30% less then their competitors. most only stay around 2-4 years then left. In this case the cost savings and effective training allowed it to work, it was also a growing company and it allowed them to scale easily. The old line company I worked with did some of that but in general preferred hiring more experienced people. But their methods to recruit and get people to work were not nearly as effective so on boarding people with experience worked better for them.
One of the other methods I have seen was kind of hybrid and seems common in some newer large companies. Hire people for entry level jobs expecting 70% to leave within a year doesn’t really matter their back ground just warm bodies. If they stay move em up with a big increase after a year then normal increases after that. Fill in the top levels mostly with highly experienced and paid outsiders with industry experience. The company I know that did this also had a sliding benefits scale which means lowest level workers really got shafted. Not sure I really like this concept but it worked for that company for a while until the entry level workers unionized.
Pay and compensation in general is a weird thing in many industries. It’s amazing how slow business is to respond to changing work environments when it means increasing salary. The ploy in the trades seems to be lets highlight the few people who make alot and not tell them how much they will really get paid or that they included huge amounts of overtime into the figure they gave. A while back I contacted people about a few jobs and was contacted by some head hunters. No one really wanted to offer a compelling enough package to change. Either the pay or the benefits or the work conditions was worse then what i have.
I have been involved with a number of non-profits in my industry (OK kind of ex industry after my last job move). Talk of how to pull in people to work in the trade always revolved around training and advertising never about improving compensation. It’s amazing how much a company will put up with not to pay people more. I would bring up the paying people more and the company principals would just talk of how they couldn’t afford it.
Actually, Bark, m’man…this is the calm before the storm.
A major reset is coming. This is not political in the Drumpf-versus-Hitlery way; this is a logical, thoughtful prediction based on ten years of “Financialized” interest rates and unlimited money-printing. The hiring picture is momentarily good because the business community thinks it’s 1982 or 2002 all over again…but it’s not.
Not for our current political leaders. For what HAS BEEN DONE – the Everything Bubble, overvalued stocks, pumped up by ZIRP and the repeal of Glass-Steagall. The money-changers are getting richer, still – dependent on their crony-connections to government – but as they grow richer their numbers shrink.
That does not bespoke of a mass-market economy. Or even one where the wealth disburses, as happens with a meritocracy. That’s a neo-Feudalism where a small number of nobility or elites, gather their huge piles of wealth…and the rest of the nation, empire, duchy or tribe, barely exist.
What this means for your candidate search, is this: PROVEN people with reasonably-good jobs are STAYING PUT. Now is not the time to make a job change. I speak of experience here – a little over ten years ago, I told my employer to pack sand, and walked. I had a job offer at the ready…
…and then the bottom dropped out. Last on, first off. It wasn’t sales, so that’s a bit different, but when the chaos hits, operations contract to a few proven and dedicated principal employees.
Best of luck with the search. I’d focus on the university graduating class – of course paying special attention actual potential sales-skills, something that’s not prevalent in today’s crop of newly-minted “leaders.”
“PROVEN people with reasonably-good jobs are STAYING PUT. ”
I call bullshit. At least in my industry (tech). I have dozens of former colleagues with, literally, decades of seniority at my former employer (a Fortune 50 company, extremely stable). They are leaving in unprecedented droves. The job market right now is more fluid than it has been in decades.
Tech is kind of it’s own world when it comes to employee movement.
I’ve hired two recent college grads in the past six months, and they both flamed out, which is unfortunate because now the local leadership team is totally opposed to doing it again.
Never had luck with that and I’ve hired quite a few in my time. Idiots. They expect they’ve earned a top job without ever doing any kind of real work at all.
Simply put, we brainwashed the new generation that if they get their degree, they’ll get that cushy office job. It’s like watching pro sports. Rookies making bank without playing a single minute in the pros.
I’d say to anyone hiring new grads to look past the GPA. I’d take a graduate with real work and life experience with a 3.0 vs a bookworm who had a 4.0.
Dude!!! H1-Bs!!!!!
they will do the needful.
My name is “Kevin” and I am with Windows. We have determined your PC is infected.
Spoken with the accent of someone from born and raised in India.
But, I think you could describe it as sales.
Please do the needful. I will await your further direction.
Now that is a field where you’ll never see an Indian. To quote the Alabama Three: The meek won’t inherit shhhhh….
Or, maybe, people aren’t applying for your positions because they think they aren’t suited for them. I wouldn’t bother even trying, because I am not a salesman. I’m a mostly introverted engineer who is the last person on earth you’d want trying to sell stuff for you.
like back in 2008/2009 when I was facing layoffs, some asshole in NYC said “what do you mean, there are no jobs? Here are 12 open positions for Java programmers in New Jersey!” as if that was supposed to mean something to a mechanical engineer in Detroit.
some of us know our limitations and don’t think we’re one of the two smartest people in any room (your exact words.)
I get it. You’re a voluntarily celibate lonely engineer who hates people and also me. I GET IT. Jesus, man.
WELL. THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY.
I’ve noticed that Bark’s go-to insults are 1. Incel (or in this case voluntarily celibate) & 2. Fat, which hey, I could stand to lose some weight. But I think these betray quite a bit about him personally, because people who obsess about weight and insult others for weighing “too much” are often just deathly afraid of being fat (or formerly were fat). Because fat people are often dismissed, denigrated, and ignored. There was a great article on obesity which I’m sure Bark will screech ‘fake news’ at when it’s pointed out that once your body reaches a higher weight it constantly tries to return to that weight, and if anything it’s going to be a lifelong struggle to stay at a lower (healthier) weight. https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/everything-you-know-about-obesity-is-wrong/
Now as far as his obsession with how much sex other people are, or are not getting, it’s probably just a reflection on his own experiences/woefully inadequate sex life. (Don’t speculate on mine and I won’t speculate on yours, brah)
Just for the record, Bark was a state champion in the 4×400 relay, his team won the Ohio state HS football championship, and he also won a Gus Macker tournament. He was never fat, he was never anything other than a first rate athlete. And he was in a major label touring band for half a decade. I’ve personally seen him take maybe sixty or seventy groupies home from a gig.
You can grind on him for being unpleasant but part of the reason he beats on incels and fats is because he has no experience with being either.
Not entirely accurate. I’ve found myself a little hefty at a few times in my adult life. Although the easier thing to do would have been to post HuffPo links absolving me from guilt for being obese, I chose to knock out 13 weeks of P90X or X3 instead. In fact, I’m about to do another cycle, starting on Monday.
I’d welcome the chance to coach Mr. Potatoes through a 13 week cycle of daily exercise and diet, since he says he could stand to lose some weight. What do you say, SexC? We could track your progress and weight loss here on this blog.
Thank you both for the offer, but going to work on it myself as I get more free time when work finally slows down for winter. I have a treadmill, an exercise bike (the kind with arms) & 25 & 35lb dumbbells, which I had to move up to for curls years ago, probably time to get 45s.
There are also some exercises (like the p90x program which I think Bark is a big fan of/used and is suggesting, 13-weeks = 91 days) I don’t think would be any sort of a good fit for me as I had foot surgery years ago to shorten a tendon that was letting my foot twist out migrating away from my ankle and it would try to move itself back at night. That, plus all day on painted concrete floors at work rules out just about anything even moderate impact.
My weight has been stable, so it’s not like I’m gaining more through a shitty diet or anything. There is a really great episode of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit (Season 5: Episode 1) about Obesity. BMI is an absolute Bullshit metric for gauging the health of a person, the diet and weight loss industry blames the victim when they don’t get the promised results. And a lot of charlatans and scumbags (like Alex Jones) hawk dangerous and useless supplements. A ton of the before and after photos that are used, are actually in reverse order, in some cases the infomercial people film the show, then pay people to gain a ton of weight to get the “before” photos. Then it’s on those people who used to be ripped to lose the weight they got paid to gain.
All I know is that if I do lose weight, it will increase my carbon footprint, as when you exercise and burn fat, you actually breathe it out as CO2, which is why aerobic exercise is the only way to reliably lose weight. Sure you can build more muscle (and should), which burns more calories even at a resting heart rate. But aerobic exercise is the best/only way to lose weight, aside from maybe liposuction or that stomach stapling type surgery. Definitely the cheapest, as all you have to do is move your body around until you’re breathing heavy and keep doing it. A lot of the research shows that even 10 minute vigorous exercise cycles 2-3x a day can get you almost as much benefit as 30 minutes straight that’s recommended. Main thing is just being more active (besides making sure you don’t consume too many calories, of course).
Interesting topic drift .
Since I retired I’ve been more active than I had been do twenty years and many have commented I look better/healthier .
I’m just more active that I was before , not killing myself , just doing the things I’d put off so long .
-Nate
Temporarily. Fat people burn more calories sitting around doing nothing so being fat is going to increase your carbon footprint in the long run.
This is nonsense. Most weight loss advice puts more importance on anaerobic exercise these days. And as someone who has done the cardio 5x per week vs the lifting 3x per week with light cardio 2 days, the latter works better for weight loss and the extra muscle looks nice.
Fat people aren’t victims. If you follow a good exercise and diet program, you will lose fat and gain muscle. You won’t end up looking like the cover model of Men’s health, but you’ll look better. Dieting is hard. It’s like quitting smoking, you will miss junk food.
@everybodyhatesscott I didn’t mean to imply that anyone should ignore strength training part of fitness, it’s really important to add muscle mass when you can, and do a regular amount of maintaining it for as you age. It helps increase bone density, and you lose muscle mass as you age, so older people especially should definitely be lifting what they can a few days a week to stay healthy and active.
Yes, muscles burn more calories to maintain themselves than fat, like I mentioned, but LOSING weight is an aerobic event from what I’ve read before. You push it on lifting weights and your muscle will eat/cannibalize itself when it’s unable to pull enough energy from your body and the lactic acid builds up. Put it this way, you can do 250k FULL situps to lose 1 lb of fat (iirc). Good luck with that, you’re better off with a whole body workout that uses many muscle groups in concert to reach your target heart rate for a good amount of time. Effort + duration burns the calories and uses your body’s energy stores (fat).
And we all have ‘six-pack’ abs, everybody does. Most are just buried under a healthy, or unhealthy amount of belly fat. I’ve read that having six-pack abs for most people is dangerously unhealthy because it generally indicates a 2-3% (don’t recall exact number) body fat percentage, and that’s not enough to survive a serious bout with the flu or other major illness/injuries. At least those were my understandings from what I’ve read in the past.
https://www.myfooddiary.com/resources/ask_the_expert/aerobic_vs_anaerobic.asp <-okay, apparently burst training can help boost some fat burning, but for people who might have high blood pressure or have injury risks, hitting that target heart rate and just keeping it going is safer than potentially overdoing it.
Man… If you think you can’t do the job… You’re right. Don’t apply. Move on.
I’m 63 years old. I don’t live in one of the cities Bark mentions. But if I did, I’d be applying. I’m a Tom Hopkins Sales Champion. I don’t know what he wants sold but I’ll kick everyone’s ass selling it. Sales is a science. It’s not for the week kneed second guesser or self doubter. It’s understanding the science of sales and not being scared to go out and DO IT.
That and never forget the greatest truth of the business: People buy things from people they actually like.
If you’re not a people person and not prepared to become friends with you potential sales clients then you will fail long term. Hell, you’ll fail in the short term.
Were I in your shoes Mr. Baruth, I’d be looking at the honor rolls for Tom Hopkins graduates. That type of training. Dale Carnagie graduates. They’ll be old guys but BY GAWD they’ll get the job done.
Who is the greatest pool of virtually untapped talent in the world?
Military retirees.
They have discipline. They take their marching orders and get the job done. They have time on their hands and they have experience training others. If you can find a military retiree that has sales training and Dale Carnagie training… You’ve found gold.
Like Babe Ruth pointing at the 400′ wall… BAM!
Now get out there and get what you need sir! Get after it!
I partially agree. I’m sure I could learn to sell things. Heck, I learned game because while I’m an introvert who likes to be alone 90+% of the time, I still like the benefits of having a woman around. But having to do it as a job? Yuck.
Is it really that hard to teach people how to sell things?
“Is it really that hard to teach people how to sell things?”
no, but “requirements inflation” is everywhere. “I need seasoned, experienced professionals who can hit the ground running, and will work for bottom dollar.”
It’s like the old joke in the software field; a job posting in late 2003: “Requirements: 5 years experience with Windows Server 2003.”
Damn. I’m in sales and would love to move to a place with mountains and curves, but (unfortunately?) I really like my job. Good luck on the hunt – I’ll pass this along to anyone who seems qualified.
Does flipping old cars on craigslist for side income count as “sales experience?”
Maybe? 🙂
If you guys had stuff in Indy or Pittsburgh I’d be genuinely interested in an interview. As it stands momma’s still working on her last year of residency so we’re staying put through next fall.
I’ve sold used cars, auto parts and so on, I don’t really want to go back to work at this point though .
Good luck on the search, the money offered as to be decent .
-Nate
I would have trouble selling ice cream in a desert. Guess that eliminates me from consideration.
Mark, May I suggest you find a way to recruit people coming out of the military, particularly with infantry background? These are typically motivated people who are self-disciplined, know how to work independently, and have a variety of useful skills. They aren’t necessarily skilled in sales, but if you can provide some training/guidance . . . I think you will have better success than with the recent college grads.
I figure that 5% of people are unemployable anyway, so if you’re reporting an unemployment rate of less than five something is awry. Either you’re not reporting everyone, or you are employing people who are a hazard to themselves and others.
On the skilled trades front, my employer (mining and minerals processing machinery) gave up on taking in apprentices. They’d put a lot of training and flexibility into them, suffer their learning curve and as soon as they got their ticket they were gone. Better to hire the old guys, but as you mention they are getting scarce.
“Either you’re not reporting everyone, or you are employing people who are a hazard to themselves and others.”
The really sad story is that in a lot of the de-industrialized Midwest and the Appalachian mining towns, the ravages of opioids are being felt sharply even when some of the jobs start to come back. A friend of a friend was looking to hire guys for some mechanical/fab work up near Kokomo, and he literally couldn’t find enough drug-free clean people, he ended up hiring down in Indy for them to commute up. It’s gonna take a hell of a lot to bring back some areas that have had a decade or more of joblessness, which lead to hopelessness, which has lead to drugs and societal decay.
Well, that’s discouraging to hear. I spent my formative years in Kokomo.
Yeah, I had a conversation the other day with a guy who does hiring for construction in the mid-Atlantic. He said for every 200 people he looks at, about 80 of them will be qualified and only 20 will pass the drug test.
My father ran a successful Harley dealership for about 15 years on the east coast and could use a better income in his semi-retirement…but he lives in Virginia.
I’ve asked a few friends with extensive ties to KC if they know anyone searching. Are you doling out any finder’s fees? Daddy needs new rear struts and sway bar bushings…
Is it automotive related? I’d be curious to know more.
Selling digital advertising to auto dealers.
Pfft, don’t you know that the internet is just a fad and no one uses it to car shop?
I still cannot believe how challenged some dealerships are by internet shoppers. I was helping a friend look for a plain-jane low mileage/new sedan, reached out to a bunch of Hyundai and Kia and Ford dealers for OTD quotes. Some were reasonable and got back to me with a figure with minimal hassle. Others just sent me a litany of automated messages and kept wanting to “have a quick chat” on the phone. I’d like to think that I’m not the only guy that’s trying to just efficiently find a good deal (without pulling teeth or hammering away at the dealer) and the place the gave me a competitive quote with minimal hassle would most likely get my business. I’ve heard of a few young guys that became top salesmen in the NE for Acura and Cadillac by simply telling customers “I need to make $300 on this car, pick a color and I’ll get you squared away in an hour” and they did very well for themselves owing to the volume that they sold. Would be curious to hear what you think of all that Bark.
This isn’t one of those jobs where I need to be “likable” is it?
Based on your profile picture alone (not to give short shrift to your writing), how could that be any sort of a problem?
That photo was taken on the teacup ride at Tokyo Disneyland and fails to capture my inner essence.
I call bullshit Thomas .
One missed point in all this is : the incompetent are fearful and will often torpedo good employees endlessly .
The solution to incompetents and assholes in the C.O.L.A. was to promote them to get them out of your hair .
After a few years of this they got into the hiring interviews as no one ever wants to tie up a week or three interviewing, naturally they always chose people who’d never, _ever_ be any threat to them .
By the time I retired I was working alone in a room no one else liked, I cleaned it up and made it mine, I was the go to guy for all manner of problems for the last ten years I worked and only the Customers I took the time to help and a select few of the Mechanics ever said ‘thanx’ .
Being scared of others is the hell of a way to go through life .
The trolls here are good examples of this ~ they are never positive, always post negative aspects of anything .
-Nate
When I see the sign that says:
“Now hiring smiling faces!”
I say:
“F that!”
The employment rate in my field (information security) is virtually 0%, and companies lament that there are no qualified candidates available. However, virtually none of these companies screen for skilled IT workers with the intent to train them into viable infosec professionals. My point is, there are candidates out there who are good employees, but the majority of companies are not willing to spend a portion of their record-setting profits to develop in-house or external candidates with potential.
Look at the frustration on Mark’s face. Trying to figure out a way to pay enough to get good people. Isn’t it great that the tables are turned and we are finally in one of those rare periods where people are thinking about how to satisfy the great demand out there rather than just satisfy 75 % of the old demand with 50% of the resources Makes you proud and patriotic!.
Isn’t your brother unemployed?
Sadly, my dream of funemployment just ended. I successfully dodged my recruiting firm for six weeks. Monday I went on two first interviews, yesterday I went on two second interviews, today I got a pair of offers.
Will you be celebrating with the purchase of a shiny new Ohio-made midsize sedan?
It’s stretching it a bit to call Honda paint “shiny.”
Well that was supposed to be a Silver Is The Only Option joke…
So much for living vicariously through you. What a square.
Maybe the ex-neighbor dude-bro with the pickup camper will start a blog.
Poaching other company’s employees: that is the advice I gave the Hiring Supervisor at the last job I was hired at (after she lamented that there was “no one” she could find for positions). Also, I told her: “The going wage for these jobs is $12 an hour, so unless you ask MORE than that, you won’t get any bites.” Sure enough, she offered $2 an hour more than anyone else, and all three positions were filled. Reminds me of the non-profit I worked for briefly: minimum wage, no benefits, terrible hours, no overtime paid for working over, and bosses who constantly berated workers. Needless to say, everyone working in my department quit within six months, and the turnover at that store was 80% over a year’s time. Evidently, being a religious non-profit does NOT mean you will treat your employees in an ethical manner, as prescribed by the church.
Bark, you are slumming in automotive advertising. I am not trying to be obnoxious, but if you want to hit the big bucks then “move left” and get into medical sales. You & your brother love and breathe cars but the seriously profitable part of the US economy is extracting wealth from the last of the greatest generation, the boomers, & older genXrs. Walk through the operating rooms of any large regional medical center in the US and you will see reps from Stryker, Boston Scientific, Covidien (he-he they got bought out), or hijacking sales of laboratory supplies & equipment then meet the really big fish like Quest or even bigger like McKesson. Don’t face-palm in the auto industry when you can really hit it big by moving to medical sales.
> then “move left” and get into medical sales.
I used to consult for that industry; I can not think of a group of more high-strung egotistical stressed-out meglomaniacs who would otherwise be perfectly normal people in another life. In between number crunching I used to pop on to the CafePharma boards for fun to see obviously intelligent and well spoken people hurl the vilest insults at one another. Man I miss those days… but not really.
I don’t love doing sales directly myself, to be honest. I’m more of a coach/trainer/director type nowadays. Medical sales is high dollar, to be sure, but it requires a level of insanity that I don’t possess.
Any plans to bring back the Listening Room, Mark? I miss the inside baseball on jazz.
It’s a lot of work, but I can maybe do something next week. But I’m not gonna limit it to Jazz 🙂
It’s funny how you say “competitive pay and benefits” yet how often that means something like “Minimum wage, and maybe commission.” Does the job you’re offering pay enough to afford full time childcare?
Didn’t think so.
There’s supposedly all these jobs available, but no one is paying living wages. Hell, the government defines 1 hour a week of work, “employed.” Healthcare is an even bigger shitshow now that Trump tried to mess with it. They’re moving to allow useless insurance policies that don’t cover anything, and Republicans are moving to take away preexisting coverage protections as well as promising to eliminate Medicaid, Medicare, and loot Social Security. While the Liar-in-Chief claims Congress is going to ‘consider middle class tax cuts on or about Nov 1’ when they’re not even in session and aren’t going to be in session until after the Election.
Remember those Tax Cuts the Republicans passed that are resulting in massive deficits, the tiny ones that were temporary for workers, but huge and permanent for Corporations? The ones that Republicans SWORE up and down that would result in $4k average raises for all American workers?
Well, it seems the greedy bastards are keeping all the money for themselves, and using a lot for stock buybacks. Via this article in The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/07/are-stock-buybacks-starving-the-economy/566387/ :
“Lowe’s, CVS, and Home Depot could have provided each of their workers a raise of $18,000 a year, the report found. Starbucks could have given each of its employees $7,000 a year, and McDonald’s could have given $4,000 to each of its nearly 2 million employees.”
I think an $18k/yr raise in perpetuity for many of those workers would have done a lot to grow the economy, but I’m sure you’ll tell me I’m wrong.
Again, super easy to tell that you’ve never employed a single person in your life. I’m not hiring people to sell jeans at the mall, I’m hiring people to sell six-figure ad campaigns. I guarantee that we are paying more than twice what you make. Not only could you afford “full-time child care” on our base pay alone(which you’ll never need because you’ll never have any children), you could also afford a full-time maid to clean up all of your Cheeto dust, or perhaps a home healthcare aide to hoist you in and out of your bathtub.
And we are such a bad, evil, Trump ball-licking corporation that we literally forbid our media companies to endorse him in the 2016 election.
Just because nobody is paying YOU a “living wage,” that doesn’t mean that good jobs with base pay of over $50k and total comp of $90k+ aren’t swinging from low-hanging branches everywhere. `Cuz let me tell you—they are.
And you didn’t even read your own link. From the article: “The report examines the period just before President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax cut came into effect.” Your numbers are all from the Obama administration, idiot.
“Just because nobody is paying YOU a “living wage,” that doesn’t mean that good jobs with base pay of over $50k and total comp of $90k+ aren’t hanging off of low-hanging branches. `Cuz let me tell you—they are.”
Well yes but ;
One has to have some sort of skill set to expect to get a decent wage .
It turns out that my skills are no longer needed in 2018 so no surprise that Mechanics still don’t make a whole lotta $ , only the Flat Rate Kings at your local high end Auto Dealer do and only while they’re young, supple and still able to bang out lots of work .
I bet the job Mark is offering requires a lot of hard work and critical thinking skills .
-Nate
From the OEM side of things, flat rate compensation drives me insane because it drives dealer techs away from performing diagnostics. It seems like most of my warranty narratives describe part replacement quests, swapping stuff until the problem goes away. It’s very annoying, especially when it requires the customer to make multiple trips to the dealer for the same problem. It’s also very expensive. I’ve had dealers swap entire driveline systems, only to find later that a simple re-learn procedure on a control module would have alleviated the issue. And had the dealer followed the prescribed diagnostic procedures / checklist, they would have known that.
But since we’re paying techs for jobs, not diagnosis, they are completely happy to give away ten thousand dollars worth of parts and labor instead of putting on their thinking caps and solving the problem. I’m sure there’s good money to be made there, but it’s at the expense of customer satisfaction and the bottom line of the company that builds the products they are trying to sell.
TL,DR: Flat rate compensates technicians well, but not necessarily for a job well done.
Yep ;
warranty work tends to only pay the flat rate so it’s the least appealing and most shoddily done .
-Nate
So since the actual amount of raises these companies can STILL afford to give to their hardworking employees are probably triple those raises ($54k a year on top of their current wages would sure go a long way to helping people afford a middle class lifestyle). Since that $1.5T tax cut that’s permanent for corporations.
You said previously in this thread that “2 recent post-college hires ‘flamed out,’ ” so, that kind of indicates these are extremely high stress, high pressure sales positions. Plus, we’ve seen you piss and moan about how “dealers just don’t want to spend the money for effective ad campaigns.” <-There's your sign, you're hiring for high-stress, probably extremely high travel positions, trying to sell (internet?) advertising campaigns to inveterate skinflint dealership owners and managers who have found out over many decades, if not generations, that MOST advertising dollars are inevitably wasted.
https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/06/the-8-2-billion-adtech-fraud-problem-that-everyone-is-ignoring/
I think FB and Google got in trouble for inflating their clicks and/or stealing customers' ad campaign money just recently too. So now if the dealer's kids are involved in the business, you've got them questioning you about what kind of scam you're trying to pull if they know anything about the internet, or advertising. Or does your company step out there and offer an iron clad guarantee of results?
In an industry set for a HUGE financial downturn due to declining sales, not only caused by Ignoramus' Tariffs https://driving.ca/toyota/auto-news/news/heres-how-much-car-prices-will-rise-with-proposed-u-s-tariffs-hint-its-in-the-thousands
What goes on the chopping block first? The advertising budget. So you're asking people to jump ship into a job that they're going to be blamed for not doing well when everybody stops buying advertising soon. Unemployment is probably less stressful than those positions you're trying to fill. At least then you only have to worry about your survival, not be shit all over by your boss for making sales. How much abuse was heaped upon those recent college grads, how much training or support did your company give them? My dad sold Lincoln/Mercury for 33 years, 3 months, and 3 days. The one time he got let go, he took so many customers with him that they had to hire him back. Because he built relationships and trust with his customers steering them to the best car for their personal situation, unlike today where basically all the big superlots just screw people over because there's obviously an endless supply of "marks." I think we still have some Mercury Tracer selling points flash cards and things in storage here, designed to help you be able to rattle off figures about the car and reasons to buy it over the competing imports, etc. You admit you couldn't do the sales job yourself (especially not for peanuts like that) but you expect an endless supply of desperate people to jump at the chance.
Just about everyone these days knows either through experience, or family advice that almost every sales job is terrible and stressful, and doesn't pay enough. Look at all the 'be your own boss' sales/pyramid schemes that prey on people on FB.
Plus, are those 50k-90k (if you meet some astronomical sales target) even going to cover the cost of living in Miami, or Sacramento?
Neither here nor there, we've seen that men often lie on their resumes and inflate their experience and qualifications/certifications to apply for jobs they are patently unqualified to hold, yet women hesitate to apply unless they met every criteria asked at 100%. I'm not sure many women would want to put themselves in that situation to have to constantly fend off the constant attempted sexual assaults by dealership owners and GMs your employment position might put them in.
But keep working on those personal insults, they're truly pathetic.
I find your consistent attempts to blame the system, the white man, and Trump for your failures in life to be genuinely amusing. Why don’t you just admit that you want to be paid handsomely for doing nothing because you think you “deserve it?”
One of the young ladies we hired decided to go to law school after 45 days on the job, and the other we terminated for poor attendance. There was no pressure on either. In fact, both were still under a 100 percent commission target guarantee.
You continue to demonstrate ignorance of everything that happens outside of your mom’s basement. Sales jobs in the automotive advertising sector are some of the best sales jobs anywhere, and it’s well known by sales professionals. The average total comp in that type of role is about $114k, which is nearly three times the national average income. I can personally name over fifty people in markets ranging from in size from Indianapolis to LA to Bowling Green, Kentucky who’ve earned over $200k a year in 2018 and have earned at that level every year since 2010. I should also mention that over half of them are women——this isn’t the 80s anymore. Sorry to blow up your identity politics.
You’ve also confused “don’t want to” with “can’t” when it comes to my desire to be an individual contributor. I realize that you probably think that I was gifted a director-level position because I’m a privileged white man, but in reality, the sales ladder doesn’t work that way. I worked individual contributor and frontline management sales jobs for over a decade. I earned my way here into a role where I oversee thirty media markets and $20M of net revenue. Do you genuinely not know how that works?
I’m really excited about how you all shifted from vitriolic insulting of one another to a constructive dialogue on weight loss methods.