One thing I've noticed in trying to look for work as someone with functionally no experience (one internship amounting to four months does little for anyone), i've familiarized myself with the problems of job boards, and one thing i note among the stupidity of stupid employers is that they abuse the definition of "entry-level." In the real world, entry level means entry level, meaning some place where individuals enter the work-force. In crazy moron employer world, entry-level means "let's post jobs requiring up to 10 years of experience, usually 2-3." They waste my time and reveal their idiocy, and if i weren't looking for work i'd use my LinkedIn to send hate-mail to every one of these asshats abusing the system

More proof that hiring companies are stupid, and that national unemployment rests largely on their shoulders.

...Ask yourself why they are requiring such stringent standards.

Once you do that, get back to us before calling them "Asshats". Better yet, ask a few companies why they don't have lower standards for employment, since (according to you), its obviously their problem for causing unemployment to be so high.

Because they have no idea what people are actually qualified to do. There's a job in Pittsburgh asking for a Mandarin-fluent secretary for something like 35k a year. ludicrous.

employers just come up with whatever, slap it up on a job board, then engage in the biggest circle-jerk in human history.

And if there's no one willing to work for that kind of pay, what do you think happens to that position?

What happens if no one is qualified for a job, period, and they get no applicants?

Because unemployment is so high employers can be extremely picky about who they hire. It is stupid though.

The position is lumped on one of the overworked underlings at the firm? That seems to be what happens with downsizing, so i imagine that would be what happens to failed upsizing.

Perhaps my rage has gotten the better of me in making this thread, but I do still feel, looking at the job market, that we're in the middle of some great reset. New graduates are forced out by experienced people who had been unemployed in the recent downturn, companies are headhunting for experienced people that they can force into lower-paying entry level positions as the field of people who simply can't enter the industry grows. Something has to give.

Something has to give, I agree.

But the education market has been propped up for ~20 years now by artificially cheap and available loans. its caused a systemic glut in people with degrees, which has significantly degredated many businesses' ability to hire people in a depressed market.

New graduates are forced out, because there are too many graduates in many fields. Go look at degree data over the past ~40 years. Employers can take only so many certified, but not qualified applicants. When the number of certified applicants grows to an artifical high, many new graduates get screwed severely.

Businesses are in a very difficult position. If they simply hire based on credentialing, they will likely get too many applicants and can't sort through those with legitimately beneficial credentialing/relevant experience. Additionally, with the glut of unemployed, they can, at least initially, be choosy with who they hire. If you were HR, who would you rather hire for the same cost - a person with 10 years' relevant experience and a slightly higher demand on salary, or a college graduate who may of smoked more pot in college and simply cruised through his courses?

Think of it from an employer's standpoint. Get as much experience as possible before employment. Eventually, you can get good, relevant, work experience for your field. I know I have, and its been pretty worthwhile.

It's a function partially of where i live. I can't get relevant experience around here, and can't afford to move to where i could (namely the DC metro area) without a job in hand to take me there. The degree double-screws me, as no low-end jobs will hire me (and not for want of trying), so i have neither money nor experience nor any means to attain either. That and student loans kick in next month, so i'm essentially at the end of my tether whichever way i look at it. Fortunately it's 9 months of delinquency before default, but since employers even invade your privacy and look into your credit history, delinquency means i might as well just give up too...

Its an employers market. Shitty but thats how it is.

Is that much or little? I think it sounds fairly much (the same as a secretary is paid in Sweden, but our living costs are higher). A secretary is like an office lady, correct?