“We’re Just Looking for Someone with More Experience” — Every Company Ever.
“Another day, another dollar” am i right? The mindset — I believe — as a result of the very infamous quoted phrase used in my Title. And the culprit for the cause of this? Why, the very companies looked to for a variety of career paths and opportunities from professionals, young and tenured alike.
Before I begin, I thought it worth mentioning that being a young professional myself, I can only give explanation to my opinion from this purview. My opinion on the foundation for the creation of this money-survival mindset. The mindset surrounding the idea that a job is just the way to gain income, because income is the thing needed to provide water, food, and shelter — well, at-least whatever the equivalent of that is in this modern digital era. Nevertheless, being the foundation as it is, serves as to why older professionals, and everyday people alike, tend to use the opening quote throughout life. Now, let’s begin.
I cannot even begin to tell you the amount of times a company has contacted me back at some point throughout the interview process to compliment and reject me at the same time. You know how it goes — right? The one where they reply with something like “We’ve had a great time speaking with you and love your background, but we feel like your skills and experience aren’t a good fit for us right now.” Now, my first question is where do these companies even begin to find those that have that much experience, and are casually job-searching? Well, the answer can be found in this article by TopResume, which tells us more than 70 percent of the employed respondents were in an “open relationship” with their job; they were open to new job opportunities if they were to arise. This would then beg the question of why so many employed professionals are looking to leave their job? One of the answers, I believe, stems from the whole point of this post — companies rejecting applicants due to lack of experience. Let me repeat that last part, “companies rejecting applicants due to lack of experience” but then expecting applicants who have a plethora of it. It’s a complete catch-22 — the reality of needing experience to obtain a job, but not being able to obtain a job because of the need for experience. This then results in young professionals being forced to take employment offers for roles within companies that they may not be interested in. This either results in these young professionals becoming falsely content, or with 70 percent being in an “open relationship” with their job.
Taking the aforementioned into account, my next question is — “how do companies expect most employees to provide their true value, when they are either disinterested or mentally distracted by other job opportunities?” This plays into the scenario where a professional has about 10 years of ‘experience,’ but was not actually strengthening their skills to the fullest potential; due to the continuous disinterest/distrait with work during those 10 years. It becomes like wearing a uniform everyday — pretending to be happy with the position we’re in, all for obtaining more marketable experience. With this marketable experience, the opportunity to ‘sell’ ourselves for a personally-coveted position or company becomes possible. Yet, is it possible to start providing value to that company with our ‘years’ of experience —you know — the ones spent trying to get through, day-by-day. Perhaps someone is able to provide value and continue to, or perhaps someone now needs to use this opportunity to fine-tune their skills with a newly grasped motivation. The answer isn’t quite clear.
Nevertheless, before I wrap this up — so as to not make this semi-rant longer than need be — let me address the expected counter-argument of there being Associate Rotational Programs for certain positions. Yes, that is a valid point, however these rotational programs are extremely competitive, and once you’ve gotten to the interview process, as much as it depends on how well you’ve prepared and are able to articulate yourself — accountability also lies with the interviewer and the factors that may affect their decisions (simply humans being human). Now, to wrap this up and finish it off with a bow, the last question I pose to ponder — How much do we need to sacrifice our happiness and, quite frankly our mental health, before we are able to be somewhere truly gratifying?
“Another day, another dollar”…am I right?
