Entry level jobs

[Crashoran]

What is your opinion on employers requiring 5+ years of related experience for entry level jobs? I've just graduated and looking for work, and constantly seeing these ridiculous requirements.

[jkderby]

Try being 60 and landing a job. MBA, 40 years experience.

[andyz]

If the workforce has those experienced individuals looking, why would an employer accept less assuming it is the same rate of pay?

[jkderby]

Andy, exactly. Nick, welcome to the real world. Check out the unemployment rate. A lot of experienced people have been laid off. Any it is not because they were not doing their job or not qualified. I was with Verizon and the FCC doing deregulation our whole department plus 8,000 others lost their jobs. Verizon has been laying off people twice a year for the last 10 years. Going to be doing it again i hear. Normal for them.

[Some Idiot]

The job market SUCKS right now.......

[Fireball]

I understand Nick, it's frustrating. My son is in the same boat. He graduated with a BS degree last month and still can't find full-time employment. He's very discouraged and is taking part-time work wherever he can right now. Unfortunately, it's happening all over the country.

[jkderby]

Try the big "M".

[SCone]

You must have some type of experience? Put it all down and play to your strengths.

[Gambit]

In the business world, uncertainty is worse than bad news. At least when you get bad news you can still plan what to do about it. If you don't know what's going on, you have to plan for the worst case scenario. Which usually means keeping hiring to a minimum and conserving your resources (capital).

In our current environment, the federal government has helped some businesses financially while allowing others to fail. It's put new restrictions on some industries, for what some would call arbitrary, political, or idealistic reasons. It's told some large enterprises who they have to fire or hire or pay money to. We have and states and foreign governments teetering on bankruptcy. There's riots and bank failures around the world. This sort of chaos translates into a lot of business uncertainty!

So, ignore the ridiculous requirements. What you have to show the prospective employer, now more than ever, is how you can make a contribution to the bottom line in a short period of time with low risk. And you have to do it in such a way that catches their attention before they can toss your resume "because you don't meet the experience requirements."

(Of course, saying that is easy and doing it the hard part. I was never very good at it when I was desperately job-hunting, myself.)

[Flores]

Originally Posted by Crashoran

What is your opinion on employers requiring 5+ years of related experience for entry level jobs? I've just graduated and looking for work, and constantly seeing these ridiculous requirements.

don't go through HR for jobs. HR are the ones the come up with these ridiculous prerequisites.

If you can do the job, sell yourself to the hiring manager, not the HR department.

[Crashoran]

Well I just found and applied for the perfect position for me, I'm really excited to see what happens!

[andyz]

Good luck.

[brewercm]

Best of luck. I see these silly types of requirements all the time in my field. Many times the requirement is written with a single person in mind (friend, relative, etc.) but doesn't mean that you don't stand a chance either.

[texkam]

What is your opinion on employers requiring 5+ years of related experience for entry level jobs?

They do that to discourage all the idiots.

HR are the ones the come up with these ridiculous prerequisites.

They are idiots too IMHO. (I'm sure I just offended someone that's an HR person.) OK then, ..... they "can be" idiots too.

[brad]

Originally Posted by Flores

don't go through HR for jobs. HR are the ones the come up with these ridiculous prerequisites.

Most of the time, its because the HR person doesn't understand what the requirements should be...

Back when I was in IT, I used to see requirements such as "5 years experience in Windows Server 2000" and it was the year 2000.

Ignore things like that and apply anyway. It doesn't hurt to try.