Thursday, June 14, 2012

Yet More Stupid Career Tips Offered by Monster.com



If you are a regular reader of my blog you already know that I have extreme distaste for bad career advice.  One of the worst purveyors is Monster.com.  Regularly they pay to have their articles promoted by Yahoo giving what I consider to be sub par career advice.  Today we were blessed by two articles offering misleading information and bad advice. 



The first article - - $50K Jobs that Don’t Require a Degree – written by Christine Laue.  Christine lists herself as an employee of Payscale.com.  However, a quick internet search shows that she is a freelance writer – meaning that she probably isn’t any kind of expert on employment issues.  I can’t fault her for the piece – it is well written.  However, I can and do fault Monster for giving out information from an “expert” when it isn’t.  I’ve written about this before and I’ll say it again.  I hate these articles.  They are designed to give a light at the end of the tunnel to unemployed and underemployed people that are looking to get out of their miserable jobs.  The jobs listed include crane operator, millwright, retail manager and oil pumper and they are all shown as jobs that can pay in the $50K range – which as they put it is better than the entry level salary of a college graduate.  However, what is in the fine print is that with 5 – 8 years of experience in these jobs you can expect money in that arena. Well – duh – I would imagine that unless you are a doctor or a lawyer almost any job where you have 5 – 8 uninterrupted years of service you will get paid more than an entry level job. 

Additionally, just because a job doesn’t require a degree doesn’t mean that someone with a degree won’t get preference.  Finally, could they have come up with more random jobs that are unattainable for the average person? Of all of these jobs the only ones that an average person in an average location could attain is retail store manager, crane operator and millwright.  Thanks for the false hope payscale!

The second article Seven Employer Danger Signs by a Mr. Charles Purdy actually does have some great advice.  However, I took issue with tone piece of advice that is just flat out wrong – it really struck a nerve with me.  In it he suggests that you should check out a company’s reputation on the internet before you make a decision.  He specifically says to look at what other employees are saying about the company.

I want you to stop and think about this for a second.  Picture your office and think of the person in your office you know that is most likely to get on Facebook or the internet and write bad stuff about your company or your boss.  Is this person’s opinion the one you want to base your career decision on?  The truth of the matter is the most vocal people are usually the most upset people.  Happy people don’t sing praises like mad people complain. Life just doesn’t’ work that way. 

Now… could there be truth to what is on the internet?  Absolutely!  However, I would suggest that you take the information with a grain of salt and compare it to what you find out through your own experience.  Honestly this goes for almost all negative information you find on the street – keep it in mind but make your own decision.

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1 comment:

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