No Experience and need Job

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Clyde, sorry, you're being ridiculous here. I understand that you don't eat meat, or want to handle it because you're vegan; that's cool, so don't be a meat-taster, but don't turn your nose up at other jobs if people aren't exactly jumping over themselves to give you job offers.

Not everyone who works in fast food or lower paid jobs are from poor, uneducated backgrounds (not that that should be a problem anyway); many are kids who have decent educations and are working to help repay/offset the costs of their college courses and degrees, as well as gaining experience. It's a lot more respectable to be working at anything, than sitting at home feeling entitled to a specific job.

Your parents have given you the best education they could and tried to help you get the best start in life, but that doesn't mean that the rest of the world will automatically respect that. I would be embarrassed, quite frankly, if I paid for my child's education and he or she turned out to think this made him better and more entitled than others who weren't so lucky.

Good luck with the job hunt anyway. If you try enough places, even with your narrow view of what a worthy job is, I'm sure you'll eventually find somewhere.

About smell, isn't that sensory issues?

They are also popular. It has nothing to do with education. It has to do with the fact that I don't fit with the happy time friendly burger people. I know they are popular people there, or people with the popular mentality because quite frankly all the kids I know are kids from school. Who have that very smiley, 80s montage moment work place moments.



It isn't that I think I'm entitled more than others. Its the fact that I can't fit there. And I'm not going to put myself in harms way either.

I even told my dad I wouldn't want to work at a fast food.

He responds, "Good for you. I'm glad that you are wanting to set for a higher rung on the ladder."

Obviously, he isn't embarrassed by it.

You're not going to get a job with your "preferences". No place that's classier than fast food is going to hire you if you don't have experience. I can guarantee it. Since the economy sucks, they can require 2+ years of experience or whatever, and they'll find at least 50 unemployed people who have it. They'll just toss your resumé in the shredder. They don't care.

If you want to avoid fast food, your best bet would be this:
- Volunteer for Habitats for Humanity, and help build houses for poor people. Then after you've done that for a while and built up some muscle...
- Apply as a stockboy at a grocery store or wherever. You won't have to smell things, and you won't have to interact with customers. The volunteer experience will help, because it'll tell the hiring manager 3 things:
1. You can lift things.
2. You can work independently
3. You can actually show up to work on time, and work a decently long shift.

If you don't do that, then you're probably screwed.

I need something that is going to stimulate my brain. I get bored and unmotivated. I need a brain job. Not a physical job.

Personally, I don't consider any job beneath me, BUT my education (I have a master's) disqualifies from minimum wage jobs.

It seems to me that the issue of working at a fast food place is irrelevant. If you are in a position where you can afford to not take a job due to certain conditions (sensory issues or ethical concerns etc) and you are able to start at a higher level, then good for you. Do that. But then don't complain that you can't get a job.

There are a lot of "starter" jobs that do not involve food. My first job was sorting books at a used bookstore. I have never worked in food service or retail. But I did work as a grounds keeper while in college. It wasn't mentally stimulating, but it allowed me to pay my way through college without extra help from my parents.

But I can understand where you are coming from. There were many job opportunities that I rejected because I thought that they were below me or they didn't stimulate my mind. My concern was that I would get stuck in some low level job and never be able to advance beyond that. In getting film production work, I didn't like the fact that I had to start at doing fairly mindless set building or production assistant kind of work. I didn't stick with it and the result was nobody would hire me to do more advanced work.

I have managed to get a kind of work that I can tollerate, but I did burn some bridges and lose some chances because I wasn't willing to start at the bottom. Who knows where I would be if I had not tried to cut in front of the others who were willing to start at the bottom.

Mostly what you are doing when you start at the bottom is you are building a reputation for good, honorable work. Few people are going to hire a person whose only reputation is their own inflated sense of self.

The answer to your problem is very simple; if the quality of what you can do and your reputation for doing it is so high, use that to get the job you want. Otherwise, you have to prove yourself, just like anyone else.

Very nicely put. Someone who puts so many obsticles infront of themselves has no right to complain.

Retail is a starter job.

Movie booth clerk is a starter job.

Host at at a restaurant is a starter job.

I never said I wanted that kind of higher job. But I want a different level of a starter job.

To be very blunt, it sounds like you have an answer to counter any advice that anyone suggests. What this looks like to me is that you don't like what you are hearing and would like someone to give you advice that fits with some fantasy of how you want the world to work.

With that in mind, here is the advice that I think you want:

Don't change your expecations or modify your standards. If you just keep doing what you are doing, potential employers will quickly realize what a wonderful person you are and will hire you for an especially interesting job at a nice wage. It's not you who is the root of the problem, it's the world that, for some insane reason, isn't re-shaping itself to fit your particular idea of how it should opperate. There is no reason to make any effort. Sit back, relax, and wait for those jobs to come your way.

Good luck with that.

(Oh, wait... did that come out sounding a bit sarcastic. I'm sorry.)

I'm not trying to counter anyone's advice. I feel more that no one is listening and is instead insulting me. I'm not going to be nice if you're not nice. As simple as that.
You earn respect you aren't given it. It doesn't even matter if you gave me advice, if you're going to be disrespectful about it then why should I take your word for it?

I'm not very good at communicating. I'm trying hard for you guys to see what I am trying to say and I can't seem to put into words. But all the spoil talk, and the snobbery talk, makes me a bit mad to be honest. And I lose focus on where I'm trying to go.

That's exactly what people have been trying to say. And having an education won't earn you respect or a job by itself.

The higher you aim, or the more desirable a job is, the more likely it is that everyone else applying is just as qualified on paper as you are.

And they will all have experience under their belts too, because as jagatai wrote, they probably started out on lower rungs of the ladder.

What gives you the edge above those guys?



These may be 'starter' jobs in that you don't need a degree for them, but they are also highly sought after in this climate by others who do have experience. if you can get a job here, great (though I can't see how they'd be any less brain-numbing than shelving a grovery store) but don't count on your education to give you an edge over other applicants.

Last edited by Lene on 12 Dec 2010, 4:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I believe that you are genuinely trying to solve a real problem and are not necessarily being as unrealistic as mine and others' responses might suggest.

But where I'm coming from is that in my teens and through my twenties, I often got frustrated at advice people would give me because, to follow it would require a lot of effort that I did not want to make. I hoped that things would be easier and rather than accepting that things might be difficult, I simply dug in my heels and rejected the advice that would require I do stuff I didn't want to do.

Your responses sound very much like mine at that age. I felt like people simply were not understanding what I was trying to communicate. Only with quite a few more years behind me have I really come to realize that I might have saved myself some time and frustration if I just accepted that advice earlier. The advice came from people who had already learned the lesson I was trying to avoid. I just didn't believe it could be true because I didn't have the experience to know better at the time and to recognize that I had a lot more work ahead of me than I had planned for.

Obviously I might be completely wrong in my assessment of the situation, but what I am hoping to do here (and I think this is what most people responding are hoping to do) is to help you avoid making the same mistakes I have made. Getting good work and developing a solid career is never as easy as one would like and it is especially difficult in the current economy. What matters more than getting the right kind of job is having the right kind of attitude toward work.

You seem reasonably well educated and intelligent, but I think you need more experience to gain the wisdom needed to achieve your goals.

Good luck.

The thing is I'm trying to say something and can't seem to put it right because I keep getting distracted by spoiled and snobbery, etc...that's what is making me mad...the insults. I haven't lived the life of luxury all my life. I don't have a Mercedes Bienz and didn't go to some fancy rich school. I grew up on Ramen packs with the family. My mom and dad worked hard so that way we could become as successful as we are.

We're now making more, enough where the government sees as "rich". But that isn't true.

I couldn't get a Grant because my income was higher than the income for the kids who do qualify income wise for it. They don't look at the past history of the family. They only look at the now. Just because I have a higher income doesn't mean we can actually afford a university. Just because I have a higher income doesn't mean I will in the future, by the time I'm in a Uni I'm going to live on my own. Doesn't that more then qualify the student? They don't put any of that into context.

We have days were we do good and then we have days we were do bad.

But I feel like I'd fail my family if I worked at somewhere like McDonalds. Because Mom and Dad worked so hard into getting where we are now. Dad says he didn't want that for me.

Dad's first job was Taco Bell, but he says he doesn't want that for me. He said he worked the way he did, so I could have a better life than him as a kid.

I can't work at some place like that because then I failed them. I became what he doesn't want.


I was more then educated and ready for a summer job for my school. They have those high school summer jobs. But the reason I couldn't get it was because my income was a lot higher than the rest of the kids. This was a job, a job I could have done. It was a brain job, it was a well paying job. [Medical Volunteer Assistant for Kaiser and it paid well more then minimum wage]

And I didn't get it because the government is dumb. Family income shouldn't be a basis on how students get jobs. I needed that job just as much as those other kids.

Worse was I dressed for a first impression, wore my nice shirt, style my hair a bit. Looked all professional. And while I was turning in my app. I see students walking in with the same app, wearing a halter tank top and a mini skirt. And guys wearing ghetto clothes.

See you'd say who cares, but the job if you read the application and if you were hired it said that people should wear business attire. Girls in pencil skirts with a blouse. And guys in button shirts and pants.

So, that's why that miffed me. Because one of those students, the one who wore ghetto clothes, thinks he's cool. And the girl who dresses like a skank, got the job.

I sent in an app for Kohls. They actually called me. But they didn't call my cellphone, like I put on my application. I didn't even have a missed call by them on my cellphone. Instead they call my house to tell me about an interview which is on Wednesday the next day. Instead of leaving a voicemail, they just call and that's that. So when I do get home, it was to late to call them. So on Wednesday, the day of the interviews, I call them back to see why they call. "Oh we had interview from 8am to 10am today" Me in my head "great....I have...school and everything...and I call at like one in the afternoon."

Another opportunity missed and that wasn't even my fault.

If there was no message, how do you know they called?

I have caller ID.

There was no voicemail message. But on the caller ID of the phone it said Kohls had called.