How Bad is the Labor Market?
This story is pretty incredible:
“I created a fake e-mail address to receive all of the applications. Before I published the ad, I hypothesized that I would receive a lot of résumés, and I didn’t want applicants usurping my personal inbox, especially for a non-existent position.
“A lot of résumés” is an egregious understatement.
I published the ad at exactly 2:41P.M. on Thursday. The first response came in at 2:45—just four minutes later. Ten minutes later, there were 10 responses. Twenty minutes later, there were 56. An hour later: 164. Six hours: 431.
At 2:41P.M. on Friday — exactly 24 hours after I posted the ad — there were 653 responses in my brand new inbox. Not wanting to face any more after that, I promptly removed the ad from Craigslist.
As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to gain a full perspective of who my generalized workforce competition was.
As if 653 responses in one day wasn’t enough already to knock me down the proverbial flight of stairs, I decided to sift through each and every application and record some basic statistical data — just to see what I was up against. I collected general information in two basic areas: Experience and Educational Background.”
Wow. There’s more though…Read the whole story here.
Cullen Roche
Mr. Roche is the Founder of Orcam Financial Group, LLC. Orcam is a financial services firm offering research, private advisory, institutional consulting and educational services.
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10 Comments
Stories like this make one weep for aggregate demand. You really just want to grab our politicians by the neck and scream in their faces. So much suffering could be eliminated with a vote and the stroke of a pen…
Ah hem.. Stories.
Good thing I’m not an English major.
I got your back. Personal editor at your service!
Haha thanks. Just as I was clicking add comment I realized the folly of my ways.
653 resumes in 24 hrs for a $10 to $12 an hour entry level job in NYC…. pretty much bursts the ridiculous rejoinder to the OWS folks of “just get a job”.
It also reminds me of the CNBC hosts who scoff at how little $250k per year is if you live in NYC… yet here are 653 people dying just to make $20k per year.
This is unbelievable.
On the other end of the spectrum, I advertised an entry level opening, looking for a recent graduate with a BS in Electrical Engineering, who had passed an electromagnetics course.
I got about 200 resumes, with maybe 5 meeting the minimum requirements. It took A YEAR AND A HALF until I found someone I was willing to hire. Tried him out from Jan till May as an intern, then gave him a fulltime job at $55k per year.
Which, adjusted for inflation is about 1% higher than I earned as an entry level engineer in a similar position 25 years earlier.
Sounds right to me. On the other hand, the company where I work is looking to hire around 15 software developers. We literally can’t find enough qualified people.
Interns at major tech companies are getting paid around 60-80k, so there is obviously a real skill disconnect.
I think this is a better reflection about the current value (or rather, lack there of) of a BA than it is about the state of the labour market. Speaking as someone who has tried Craigslist to hire someone before, job postings on the Internet is literally the last resort. The vast majority of positions are filled by others means. And for companies with their own website (i.e. just about everyone), they prefer to post it there even though it gets much less traffic. To sum up, looking for a job on Craigslist is mostly a waste of time.
P.S. Fittingly, I never did hire anyone from Craigslist, the guy I hired came in to head office.
this actually doesn’t surprise me. This is also why most job postings require a high amount of years of experience, in the hopes that it weeds out 1/2 or more of the applicants. No wonder youth unemployment is so high. (..b-b-but they’re all a bunch of self-entitled, lazy gluttons addicted to farmville and twitter!..)
I also wonder what cities with <5% unemployment get in resumés, like Bismarck/Fargo, Madison, WI, Des Moines, Midland/Odessa, etc.