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Re: Jobs



Here is my experience on this subject.

Salaries.  Many times prospective employers have no clue what a job is
worth.  Instead of doing their own research, they want to find what the
"market" is, then decide what they want to pay.  If you see many listings
that list salary as DOE, that is a tipoff that they don't know, and don't
want to pay more than they have to.  This is also consistent with the
requirement that all resumes must contain salary history to even be read.
And, of course, they want to filter out those that are obviously not
qualified at an early stage.  I do like the idea of including a salary
range, that leaves wiggle room for both sides, and it lets me know which
ones I'm not interested in.  It is truly a waste to read a glowing job
description only to find out later that they only want to pay $8 per hour
with no benefits.

This, at least in my experience couples with HR not asking about
qualifications.  If you told them, they wouldn't know.  Instead, they
concentrate on somewhat frivolous things, or they wade through a lengthy
benefits explanation and you don't even know what the job is yet.  If the
idea of the HR portion of the interview is for screening, they should
concentrate on screening applicants based on qualifications, not on what
they currently make.  Of course, on balance, the HR person doesn't want to
ask the same questions the hiring supervisor is going to ask.

FWIW

Thanks,

Gerry

Gerald L. Hegel
Records Manager
D'Ancona & Pflaum

Voice  312-602-2197
Direct Fax  312-602-3197
E-mail  GHegel@dancona.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Jackson, Bill [mailto:Bill.Jackson@HARLEY-DAVIDSON.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 8:37 AM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: Re: Jobs


Norma is correct.

I have dealt with more than one HR person who instead of talking to me about
qualifications, kept asking "How much would you take to work here?"  Also,
there seems to be a rising tide of HR folks who insist on knowing the
candidate's current salary.  Why do they even care? Do they not already have
a budget in place to pay the person?  In my opinion, it is an inappropriate
question to ask, and to those just entering the profession, I say, be wary
of prospective employers who are not interested in your background, and
ESPECIALLY wary of ones who insist on knowing your current pay rate.

Bill Jackson
Senior Archivist
Harley-Davidson Motor Company
Milwaukee, WI



-----Original Message-----
From: Norma Myers [mailto:myersn@ACCESS.ETSU.EDU]
Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 11:11 AM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: Jobs


I want to address this question from two perspectives.  First, from
the perspective of an archivist searching for a new position, it is
incredibly frustrating to read job ad after job ad that has no salary
information included.  I think that the reason is not embarrassment
over low salaries.  Those of us who are in the profession are
incredibly embarrassed and angry over the low salaries.