It's a good time to find a Detroit-area job, ask for a raise, survey shows

[Cliffy]

The job market is still pretty bad. We had over 100 applicants for a secretary position.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

That is part of life. You're always competing against others with similar qualifications is almost every facet of life.

You need to ask yourself what you can do to set yourself apart from the rest. What can you do to give yourself even a slight edge over the others? It can be done.

This isn't your kiddie t-ball game where they don't keep score and everybody gets a trophy at the end of the season because they played in a game or two. Life is all about competition and that isn't going to change.

How will you make yourself stand out from the crowd to the job interviewer?

I'm not going to get in a pissing contest with you about this. I understand what you're saying, however, what you're saying also doesn't always translate into a job. You can have the greatest interview in the world, look and do everything right and still get rejected. Discrimination is alive and well. Capeesh?

[ddaydetroit]

The job market is still pretty bad. We had over 100 applicants for a secretary position.

At my shop we have looked at hundreds of resumes over the last few months without hiring one person.

Here are justa few of the reasons about 25% have no background what so ever in the job they are applying for. Many just can not hold onto a job I'm sorry but if you have gone thru 10 jobs in 10 years I am not going to invest a years worth of training on you and the rest come in for interviews and just are not up to par for the quality of work we want going out the door. Cliffy I would not be surprised if out of the 100 applicants your company did not hire anyone

[poobert]

At my shop we have looked at hundreds of resumes over the last few months without hiring one person.

Here are justa few of the reasons about 25% have no background what so ever in the job they are applying for. Many just can not hold onto a job I'm sorry but if you have gone thru 10 jobs in 10 years I am not going to invest a years worth of training on you and the rest come in for interviews and just are not up to par for the quality of work we want going out the door. Cliffy I would not be surprised if out of the 100 applicants your company did not hire anyone

Tell all this to Susan Tompor, the fucking genius that she clearly is. It's all sunshine and rainbows here, folks, nothing to see here - say, have you read Tuesdays with Morrie?

I'd rather wipe my ass with a fistful of broken glass than the Free Press these days. What a bunch of hacks.

[ddaydetroit]

Always make you clean up your facebook before you look for a job I received a resume and looked at his facebook page and his last post was this picture

[corktownyuppie]

The job market is still pretty bad. We had over 100 applicants for a secretary position.

Well, I think you're partially right. The job market is pretty bad if your main skill set is secretarial. Meanwhile, my firm is trying in vain to hire another hundred financial advisors in the next 12 months, a guy I know at Ford was trying to hire over 100 engineers in 2014, and there is a shortage of nurses and skilled trades workers.

The challenge we have is not that there are not enough jobs. It's that the skills our people have to offer don't fit with the jobs that are hiring.

So how do we convince those 100 secretary applicants to go back to school and learn a trade or get medical training?

http://win-semich.org/wp-content/upl...014-Report.pdf

[That Great Guy]

Well, I think you're partially right. The job market is pretty bad if your main skill set is secretarial. Meanwhile, my firm is trying in vain to hire another hundred financial advisors in the next 12 months, a guy I know at Ford was trying to hire over 100 engineers in 2014, and there is a shortage of nurses and skilled trades workers.

The challenge we have is not that there are not enough jobs. It's that the skills our people have to offer don't fit with the jobs that are hiring.

So how do we convince those 100 secretary applicants to go back to school and learn a trade or get medical training?

http://win-semich.org/wp-content/upl...014-Report.pdf

Since Mr. John Hertel got an extra $27 Million per year last August thanks to the voters, they can now become SMART Bus drivers making $60k per year plus benefits. No need to go back to school and learn a trade or get medical training. Problem solved

In 2016, we will get the chance to pay a tax on car license plates. So, remember to take care of those who drop out of Detroit Public Schools that they too need jobs. Or, maybe growing pot with all that extra land will do, if ya all don't vote YES again?

[Jimaz]

Always make you clean up your facebook before you look for a job I received a resume and looked at his facebook page and his last post was this picture

Although I have to admit that that's a whole lot cuter than

[ABetterDetroit]

The job market is still pretty bad. We had over 100 applicants for a secretary position.

Not so sure that "secretary's" are in demand at all. If you advertise a no skill job like answering phones these days in a office environment, I would think 100 applicants would be on the low side.
I know for a fact that no skill except willing to work hard labor is getting lured all over town by higher hourly wages. It's getting to be pay them or lose them.

[Cliffy]

Since Mr. John Hertel got an extra $27 Million per year last August thanks to the voters, they can now become SMART Bus drivers making $60k per year plus benefits. No need to go back to school and learn a trade or get medical training. Problem solved

In 2016, we will get the chance to pay a tax on car license plates. So, remember to take care of those who drop out of Detroit Public Schools that they too need jobs. Or, maybe growing pot with all that extra land will do, if ya all don't vote YES again?

Dude just SHUT THE FUCK UP already. Every post you make is about about Smart. Enough man. We are all sick of your shit.

[ABetterDetroit]

Dude just SHUT THE FUCK UP already. Every post you make is about about Smart. Enough man. We are all sick of your shit.

If that had happened in a bar, drinks for you and your friends would have been on me for a couple hours

[Willi]

A lot of HR people really don't know much about the positions they seek to fill.
It's the exact reason they have that HR position, and not the open position requiring "skills"

[Cincinnati_Kid]

Not so sure that "secretary's" are in demand at all. If you advertise a no skill job like answering phones these days in a office environment, I would think 100 applicants would be on the low side.
I know for a fact that no skill except willing to work hard labor is getting lured all over town by higher hourly wages. It's getting to be pay them or lose them.

And what do you consider a higher hourly wage? Most of those types of jobs start at $10.00 per hr, which is substandard at best.

[313WX]

And what do you consider a higher hourly wage? Most of those types of jobs start at $10.00 per hr, which is substandard at best.

The really funny thing is, before the auto industry collapsed, these jobs would start out paying around $14 to $17/hr in the late 90s, NOT adjusted for inflation...

[corktownyuppie]

And what do you consider a higher hourly wage? Most of those types of jobs start at $10.00 per hr, which is substandard at best.

Most skilled jobs are starting at $15/hr +. Of course, many engineers are starting at $30/hr out the gates. DPD and DFD are both hiring...DPD is low pay to start, but up to 40k/yr within 4yrs and fantastic training that will allow you to find another job in law enforcement if urban policing not your thing for the long term. Not sure about DFD.

The days of the $14-$17/hr [["I don't know much but I work really hard") job are gone. But there are other places where workers are in high demand.

[EL Jimbo]

I'm on the other end of the hiring equation. The small company I work for has 10 open engineering positions. We have both entry level and senior level positions available. We have been trying to fill these positions for at least 3 years. Unfortunately we are looking for people with a very specialized skill set in a region with a huge demand for that very specific skill set. We make a line of tools used in the engineering of new vehicles. We're competing against the Auto Manufacturers and all the other automotive suppliers for engineering talent.

We create embedded control devices. We have a huge need for C and C++ programmers. We have a huge need for Microsoft Windows programmers. We need a couple of electronic engineers with Analog and digital interface experience. We need electrical engineers who can program or programmers who can read an electronic schematics.

We offer highly competitive salaries, Great healthcare, excellent holiday and vacation benefits.

We can't find people with the skill set needed. There's a gap in what is being taught in school and the skills that are truly needed for the job.

I wish we could find people with the skills needed to fill the jobs. I don't understand how the skills I know were taught in the 80s and 90s aren't showing up in the applicants now. Are these skills no longer taught or are they not given any value by the applicants? No I'm not talking about soft people skills, I'm talking about hard science, math and engineering skills. I'm hoping the first robotics and Maker movement will instill more of these skills in our soon to be applicants.

There was ALWAYS a gap between what was taught in school and the skills needed to do a specific job for a specific company. In the old days, people got degrees in biology, engineering, or some other field. With this baseline knowledge, they were hired and it was up to their employer to train them in the advanced specialization needed to perform the specific tasks at that company.

As time went on, the private sector began cutting back on post-hire training for their employees and forced college degree programs to become more and more specialized. This created big cost savings for the private sector, but has likely been at least one contributing factor in the rise of the cost to attend college over the years.

The problem with this is that there is a tipping point. Eventually, students will balk at paying increasingly more for a college degree that only prepares them for one hyper-specialized job that would make them unqualified for other equally specific, but different positions somewhere else.

By your own description you said your company is looking for "people with a very specialized skill set". If the skill set you are looking for is THAT specific, perhaps the onus should be on your company to provide the training necessary to teach a new hire those skills...like employers used to do in the old days.

[ndavies]

There was ALWAYS a gap between what was taught in school and the skills needed to do a specific job for a specific company. In the old days, people got degrees in biology, engineering, or some other field. With this baseline knowledge, they were hired and it was up to their employer to train them in the advanced specialization needed to perform the specific tasks at that company.

As time went on, the private sector began cutting back on post-hire training for their employees and forced college degree programs to become more and more specialized. This created big cost savings for the private sector, but has likely been at least one contributing factor in the rise of the cost to attend college over the years.

The problem with this is that there is a tipping point. Eventually, students will balk at paying increasingly more for a college degree that only prepares them for one hyper-specialized job that would make them unqualified for other equally specific, but different positions somewhere else.

By your own description you said your company is looking for "people with a very specialized skill set". If the skill set you are looking for is THAT specific, perhaps the onus should be on your company to provide the training necessary to teach a new hire those skills...like employers used to do in the old days.

We'll happily train someone with basic engineering skills. We'll happily take an inexperienced engineer we believe has the abilities to keep up. We can't however train enough engineers to keep up with our growth.

Even though we are a small company, we have a good paid intern program. We get a number of our engineers from it. We move our interns out of the program as fast as they are capable of doing production related work. We start them out in our quality assurance department, testing hardware and software. We move them into design and production as their skills grow.

We can't even find enough candidates to fill all our available internships. We pay our interns extremely well. Even our short term interns get all our full time employee benefits. Their salaries quickly climb as they gain experience and are moved into design and production positions.

It's also difficult for a small company to bring on inexperienced engineers who really want to be working at one of the Big3 or a tier 1 supplier. We end up training them only to lose them to a more prestigious big companies. Even though we have better benefits, salaries and job assignments. We end up overpaying them during training with no long term relief to our staffing issues.

[ddaydetroit]

At my job today we put job ads on different websites with a $1000 sign up bonus for skilled labor we are hoping we don't have to raise it to $2000 or more.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

At my job today we put job ads on different websites with a $1000 sign up bonus for skilled labor we are hoping we don't have to raise it to $2000 or more.

And what type of jobs are being offered?

[Inkadinkado]

^judging by prior posts I will guess that they're out of your league.

Common sense and micro econ theory agree: pay is commensurate with value added. Sadly, a lot of interesting and feel-good courses of study add little value meaning that there are some choices to be made. Want financial rewards and security? Then do some research to identify what pays and then study/train for it. But if you prefer being a free spirit or to not conform to corporate ways then study English for the simple thrill of it and recognize that your one-day kids will forever have crooked teeth and you'll likely have to always pray that your old car starts when its cold or raining. Choices.

Some people are better off working as part-time fry cooks, but for people with more ambition I suggest a degree in finance or math or statistics. General business can work too. Study local and take whatever pittance they pay to get in the door for a first job. Build a resume and professional network, trade up, and in awhile you will have enough that tax reform sounds like a good idea and fast-food workers' unions do not.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

^judging by prior posts I will guess that they're out of your league.

Common sense and micro econ theory agree: pay is commensurate with value added. Sadly, a lot of interesting and feel-good courses of study add little value meaning that there are some choices to be made. Want financial rewards and security? Then do some research to identify what pays and then study/train for it. But if you prefer being a free spirit or to not conform to corporate ways then study English for the simple thrill of it and recognize that your one-day kids will forever have crooked teeth and you'll likely have to always pray that your old car starts when its cold or raining. Choices.

Some people are better off working as part-time fry cooks, but for people with more ambition I suggest a degree in finance or math or statistics. General business can work too. Study local and take whatever pittance they pay to get in the door for a first job. Build a resume and professional network, trade up, and in awhile you will have enough that tax reform sounds like a good idea and fast-food workers' unions do not.

judging by prior posts I will guess that they're out of your league.


You don't know what league I'm in. Who the hell do you think you are, besides a _ickhead with a pompous, know-it-all attitude. If you want to be disrespectful, I can go there too.

[Inkadinkado]

If the shoe fits kid. If the shoe fits. But look into the math thing or maybe business because they might help you to understand why that corporate suit is worth a ton more than the underachiever who bags the to-go orders.

[FlyOnTheWall]

If the shoe fits kid. If the shoe fits. But look into the math thing or maybe business because they might help you to understand why that corporate suit is worth a ton more than the underachiever who bags the to-go orders.

Truer words were never spoken. This has been true for many years and never past on to the "learning young".

Kids, learn what pays and study for the same! You will benefit big time in the wallet area.

[Jimaz]

... why that corporate suit is worth paid a ton more than....

Big difference. BIG difference.

worth ≠ paid.

These two terms are not synonyms but are engineered to appear so.

I would estimate that the definitions of these two terms have diverged at an unprecedented rate in recent years.

The very fact that a person is referred to as only a hollow "suit" confirms the conspicuous artificiality of that status quo.

[Cliffy]

I never recommend Business unless its from a top school unless you want to be a manager at CVS and work 90 hour weeks.