Why "Entry" Level Jobs Now Need 3-5 Years Experience

Summary

This video script explores the paradox of entry-level jobs demanding extensive experience, amid a labor shortage. It critiques the convoluted hiring processes, the overuse of AI in applicant screening, and the tendency for companies to seek overqualified candidates, which can backfire. The script also delves into the legal and strategic reasons behind stringent job requirements, the benefits of internal promotions, and the importance of soft skills in job interviews. It concludes with a reminder of the value of fresh perspectives in the workplace.

Takeaways

• 😮 Entry-level jobs paradoxically require significant experience, highlighting a disconnect between job titles and actual expectations.
• 📈 The labor market's high demand for jobs has led to an increase in hiring obstacles, making job searches more difficult and stressful for applicants.
• 💼 Companies often request multiple years of experience for entry-level positions, potentially filtering out high-quality candidates in favor of desperate ones.
• 🤖 The rise of AI in recruitment processes, such as application tracking systems (ATS), has led to an arms race of applicants tailoring their resumes to AI, not humans.
• 💼 Overqualified candidates do not necessarily outperform others, and underpaying for talent can cost businesses more in the long run.
• 💰 The cost of bloated hiring processes, including job postings and multiple interview rounds, can be financially burdensome for companies.
• 🔍 Job seekers are encouraged to apply for jobs that are better than their current ones to gain experience and increase their market value.
• 📝 Companies use high job requirements to protect themselves legally and to justify hiring decisions that may not be based on merit.
• 🔄 Internal promotions are beneficial but can be more complex and costly than external hires, leading some companies to prefer the latter.
• 🛠️ Managers often value experience highly due to their own career paths, but research shows that experience does not strongly correlate with job performance.
• 🚀 Being able to address concerns about a lack of experience during an interview can demonstrate adaptability and problem-solving skills, which are valuable to employers.

Q & A

Why are entry-level jobs no longer considered 'entry-level'?

Entry-level jobs are often described as requiring several years of experience and advanced degrees because companies are trying to filter out candidates and attract those with more experience, even for positions that traditionally did not require such qualifications.

What is the impact of the current labor shortage on job seekers?

The labor shortage has led to widespread hiring, but job seekers still face challenges such as a lack of savings to sustain them during the job search and the stress of a difficult and time-consuming process.

Why do companies create difficult application processes?

Difficult application processes can deter candidates who are not highly motivated, but they may also inadvertently filter out potentially good candidates, leading to a pool of only the most desperate applicants.

How do companies use technology to manage the high volume of job applications?

Companies use application tracking systems (ATS) with AI to scrape resumes for keywords and filter candidates based on the information provided, which helps them manage the large number of applications they receive.

What is the downside of requiring multiple years of experience for entry-level positions?

Requiring multiple years of experience can backfire as it may attract candidates who are looking for entry-level jobs because they are not performing well in their current roles and need to move on.

Why might hiring overqualified candidates not be beneficial for a company?

Overqualified candidates may not outperform others and could cost businesses more in the long run, as they might have higher expectations or be more likely to leave for better opportunities.

What is the financial cost of bloated hiring processes to a company?

Bloated hiring processes can be expensive due to the costs of sponsoring job postings on various sites, conducting multiple rounds of interviews, and paying recruiters' fees based on successful placements.

How do companies use job requirements to protect themselves legally?

By listing numerous and sometimes unreasonable job requirements, companies can legally justify hiring decisions, as they can claim that other candidates did not meet all the prerequisites.

What is the benefit of internal hires over external hires according to the studies mentioned?

Internal hires tend to outperform external hires because they are already familiar with the company's operations, require less training, and are more likely to stay in their new roles longer.

Why might a company prefer external hires over internal promotions?

External hires can be easier and present less risk for companies, especially when there are no strong internal candidates. They also avoid the complexities and costs associated with promoting from within.

How can job seekers deal with the high requirements set by employers?

Job seekers can still apply for positions even if they don't meet all the requirements, focusing on their ability to adapt and apply skills from different experiences or industries.

What is the role of soft skills in the job application process?

Soft skills, such as dealing with difficult customers or co-workers, presenting strong arguments, or showing empathy, are important in every job and can help applicants stand out, even if they lack specific experience.

Why do some managers rely on experience as a key hiring criterion?

Managers often value experience because they believe it indicates competence in a role. However, studies have shown that experience does not strongly correlate with job performance, especially in rapidly changing corporate environments.

Outlines

00:00

💼 The Paradox of Entry-Level Job Requirements

This paragraph discusses the absurdity of entry-level job postings that demand extensive experience and qualifications, highlighting the disconnect between the labor market's demands and the reality of entry-level positions. It points out the stress and inefficiency of job searching in the current corporate environment, where the hiring process is often convoluted and dehumanizing. The speaker shares personal anecdotes of fruitless job applications and criticizes companies for filtering out all but the most desperate candidates with their over-complicated application procedures. The paragraph also touches on the risks companies take by hiring overqualified candidates who may not perform well, referencing a study that found no significant performance advantage in overqualified individuals.

05:02

📈 The Impact of Technology on Job Applications

The second paragraph delves into how technology has transformed the job application process, making it both easier and more difficult for applicants. With the rise of online job boards and AI-driven applicant tracking systems (ATS), companies are flooded with applications, leading to the creation of barriers that filter out all but the most persistent candidates. The paragraph explores the use of AI in resume screening and the development of tools to help candidates' resumes pass initial AI screenings. It also discusses the implications of this 'arms race' between applicants and companies, and how it has led to a situation where applying for jobs has become a numbers game, with low acceptance rates prompting applicants to apply to even more positions.

10:02

🛡️ Legal and Practical Reasons Behind Job Requirements

This paragraph examines the reasons behind companies setting high job requirements, which often seem unreasonable or disconnected from the actual role. It discusses the legal aspect, where companies use extensive requirements to protect themselves from potential lawsuits related to unfair hiring practices. The paragraph also covers the benefits of internal hiring, as shown by studies indicating that internal hires tend to outperform external ones due to their familiarity with the company culture and operations. However, it acknowledges the challenges of internal promotions, such as the increased difficulty and cost for HR. The speaker suggests that companies may inflate job requirements to justify not promoting from within, and to ensure they can hire the 'safe' external candidate.

Keywords

💡Entry-Level Jobs

Entry-level jobs are positions that typically do not require extensive experience and are designed for individuals starting their careers. In the video's context, the term is used to highlight the paradox where such jobs are demanding several years of experience, thus deviating from the traditional definition. The script discusses how this creates a barrier for new job seekers.

💡Labor Shortage

Labor shortage refers to a situation where there are more job openings than there are available workers to fill them. The script mentions a 'labor shortage' to underscore the irony that despite a high demand for jobs, companies are imposing stringent requirements on entry-level positions, making it difficult for job seekers to find work.

💡Resume

A resume is a document used by job seekers to present their skills, experience, and education. The video script discusses how resumes are often required to be filled out in online forms, even when the information is already present on the resume, indicating the redundancy and inefficiency in the job application process.

💡Ghosting

In the context of job hunting, 'ghosting' refers to the practice where employers or hiring managers cease all communication with a candidate without any explanation after an interview or application process. The script uses this term to illustrate the frustration job seekers face when they are left without feedback on their applications.

💡Overqualified

An overqualified candidate is someone who has more experience or qualifications than required for a job. The video points out that hiring overqualified candidates does not necessarily improve performance and can lead to higher costs for businesses due to their expectations and the potential for them to seek better opportunities elsewhere.

💡Hiring Process

The hiring process encompasses all the steps an organization takes to attract, screen, and select new employees. The script criticizes the complexity of modern hiring processes, which include multiple rounds of interviews and the use of AI in resume screening, making it more difficult for job seekers to get hired.

💡Application Tracking System (ATS)

An Application Tracking System is a software used by employers to manage job applications. The video mentions ATS as part of the problem, as these systems use AI to filter resumes based on keywords, which can lead to a loss of human touch and potential bias in the hiring process.

💡Internal Hires

Internal hires refer to the practice of promoting or transferring employees from within the company to fill new roles. The script explains that companies often prefer external hires due to the ease and reduced risk compared to promoting from within, which can be more complex and costly.

💡Probationary Period

A probationary period is a trial period during which an employee's performance is evaluated before they are confirmed in their role. The video notes that internal hires often bypass this period, which can be problematic if their performance does not meet expectations.

💡Experience

In the context of employment, experience refers to the length and depth of an individual's work history in a particular field or role. The script challenges the assumption that more experience always equates to better job performance, citing studies that show no strong correlation between the two.

💡Soft Skills

Soft skills are personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. The video emphasizes the importance of soft skills, such as dealing with difficult customers or colleagues, in every job, and how they can be a deciding factor in hiring decisions.

Highlights

Entry-level jobs increasingly require extensive experience and qualifications despite being entry-level positions.

The latest jobs report reveals widespread hiring with a paradox of requirements for entry-level roles.

Job seekers face a stressful and time-consuming task, often without enough savings to support a prolonged job search.

The corporate world has introduced obstacles that make job searching more difficult than necessary.

Overqualification does not necessarily correlate with better job performance according to a study by Portland State University.

Bloated hiring processes can be expensive for companies, affecting the cost-effectiveness of recruitment.

Job application processes have become too easy, leading to companies receiving thousands of applications for a single position.

Companies use AI and application tracking systems to filter candidates, which can lead to a lack of human touch in the hiring process.

The use of AI in resume screening may inadvertently exclude qualified candidates who do not tailor their resumes to AI systems.

The competitive nature of job searching has shifted from personal connections to mass application with the aid of technology.

Companies often increase job requirements to cover legal bases and protect themselves from potential hiring practice lawsuits.

Internal hires can outperform external hires due to familiarity with the company, but they also present challenges for HR and management.

Promoting from within can improve staff retention and motivation, but it can also be more complex and costly than external hiring.

Managers often lack knowledge on what makes a good hire and may rely on experience as a default requirement.

Studies show no strong correlation between experience and job performance in non-technical fields.

New ideas from inexperienced employees can be as valuable as experience, as demonstrated by the evolution of companies like Nintendo.

The video encourages viewers to consistently apply for better jobs to increase earning potential and career growth.

The video is sponsored by Brilliant, promoting interactive learning in data analysis to stand out in the job market.

The transcript concludes with a call to subscribe to a newsletter for early access to videos and in-depth articles on various topics.

Transcripts

stop me if you've heard this one before

an entry-level job paying eight dollars

an hour with no benefits at an

unremarkable company oh and they want

you to have at least three years

experience in a similar role and

preferably a master's degree why the

[ __ ] are entry-level jobs not entry

level anymore the latest jobs report

found widespread hiring one man's quest

to find a job is Raising questions about

the labor shortage right now he says he

applied to more than 60 entry-level

positions ridiculately strong in

Hospitality Leisure and health care we

have created more jobs in two years than

any presidential term searching for a

job is a difficult and time-consuming

task most Americans do not have enough

savings to survive for more than two

weeks without going into debt which

means it is also stressful no matter how

efficient the hiring process is made you

are never going to have fun looking for

a job and nothing can change that but

the corporate world has introduced a lot

of obstacles that make the job of

finding a job as painful as possible

filling out online forms for information

already on your resume going through

multiple rounds of interviews and

getting ghosted by hiring managers for

hundreds of positions is enough to drive

anybody mad responded to me four of

those went on to a phone call after an

email exchange and then one of those

turned into an interview zero of them

turned into a job that was actually uh

desperate for help it's also simply Bad

Business attracting the right Talent is

vital for business success if businesses

make their application process too

difficult they are going to filter out

everybody but the most desperate

candidates which are rarely the best

candidates companies that ask for

multiple years of experience from

applicants applying for entry-level jobs

also expose themselves to a similar risk

it might sound advantageous for the

business to get an employee with years

of experience that they can pay like a

fresh graduate but company management

frequently overlooks the reason that

these applicants are looking for

entry-level jobs and a field they have

been working in for years and it's that

they are not that good at their job and

they need to keep moving companies

before their poor performance catches up

with them a recent study conducted by

Portland State University and published

by the Harvard Business Review found

that overqualified candidates did not

outperform the control group and that

paying significantly under Market rates

for talent will cost most businesses

more in other areas bloated hiring

processes are also expensive sponsor job

postings on sites like indeed LinkedIn

and Glassdoor can cost hundreds of

dollars per day easily more than the

successful applicant will be paid once

they are on board and working multiple

rounds of interviews also take paid

hours from HR hiring managers and

third-party recruiters recruiters work

on a commission basis for successfully

placed candidates but if a company makes

candidates go through multiple rounds of

interviews the recruiters can ask for a

higher fee or they will be incentivized

to send their best recruits to companies

that have a simple hiring process so

they can get paid quickly and reliably

it's bad business and good company

managers know it but there are three

reasons why they still do it anyway the

first reason is that it's become too

easy to apply for a job Indeed has 60

million monthly users and Linkedin has

over 200 million online job boards make

it easy for applicants to apply for

hundreds of jobs every day based on

convenient filters that let them search

results by in industry seniority

experience and salary range companies

can get several thousand applications

for a single position because the

optimal job search strategy has become

spamming your resume into as many

positions that vaguely fit the

description of the job you are looking

for companies have attempted to adapt to

this by having landing pages where users

can fill in their details into the

company's own database by manually

completing an online form these forms

typically ask for information that

should be included on any good resume

but it enters it in a way that can be

read by a computer instead of being read

by a hiring manager saving them the time

of manually going through thousands of

applications by hand to find the

attributes they are looking for in a

candidate the back end of these forms

will enable the hiring manager to search

through their candidates by a similar

set of filters that the candidates

themselves used to find the job posting

even in the arms race between the volume

of applications and the people that

check those applications you're

quantifying human behavior human

Expressions human voices turning that

into Data we're now using artificial

intelligence to help companies find the

very best talent some companies have

studied using application tracking

systems or ATS which use AI to scrape

resumes for keywords to populate

databases that can be filtered in the

same way without requiring candidates to

fill in a data entry form themselves and

most likely you were being analyzed by

an algorithm how does that make you feel

I feel like that would Blindside me

entirely this practice has become so

common that there are now ai tools like

zetti jobscan and Rezi that check

resumes against job posts and make sure

that they are appealing to the AI system

that check resumes before the hiring

manager does so an AI will write a

resume to satisfy another AI to stand

out against thousands of other

applications also written and checked by

AI applying for a job has become easier

than when you had to search the

classifieds and call companies one at a

time but this means people can apply for

more jobs more applications means that

the acceptance rate at each job is much

lower and the best way to deal with this

low acceptance rate is to apply for more

jobs which means that applying for a job

has become harder all over again nobody

is to blame for this new paradigm I love

making fun of dumb corporate decisions

on this channel but in this case they

are just reacting to new technology that

has made finding applicants easier than

ever and everybody else is reacting to

the same thing the competitive meta of

job searching has shifted from a firm

handshake to mass spamming resumes to

get past increasingly difficult spam

filters but that's just one reason and

there are plenty of things that

companies are doing which are just dumb

so it's time to learn how money Works to

find out why entry-level jobs all of the

sudden require three years experience

and how you can take advantage of this

benefit for your own career this week's

lesson was sponsored by brilliant

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the second reason that companies have

made it so difficult to apply for jobs

is because they want to cover their ass

there are lots of reasons why a hiring

manager might want to pick one job

applicant over another but not all of

them are legal and even if they don't

violate any equal opportunity laws some

might be a bad look for the company by

listing lots of unreasonable job

requirements the company increases the

likelihood that no applicant will tick

every box which means they can hire

whomever they want and cover themselves

by saying all of the other candidates

were missing one or more of the roles

prerequisites it's rare that companies

get much pushback over rejecting an

external candidate most people have just

become accustomed to never hearing back

from a majority of jobs they apply for

if you have ever applied for a job

recently you will know that no response

is the new rejection letter

first time if companies do respond they

try to keep it as generic as possible so

that they do not expose themselves to

any potential unfair hiring practice

lawsuits which makes a long list of job

requirements redundant where these do

help companies though is in rejecting

internal hires according to a study by

Cornell University internal hires

outperformed outside hires but only

because they are more familiar with the

business from day one requiring less

training to get into a new role and

because they were more likely to stay in

a job longer than the outside hire a

similar study by McKinsey Consulting

found that a strong culture of internal

promotions helped with staff retention

and encourage staff to work harder to

qualify because they could see it paying

off for them the pandemic a lot of

companies are are not flush financially

so they can't afford to hire a new

person internal promotions are effective

but they are also more difficult than

outside hires if you get promoted or

moved around within your company then

someone else needs to be hired to fill

your role and if someone gets promoted

to fill your role then HR has to fill

three positions instead of just one

which is expensive difficult and triples

a chance that someone won't be able to

perform their new job people hired

internally also don't have probationary

periods so if they do underperform in

their new role they are harder to let go

internal hires have advantages but

external hires are easier and present

less risk if a company has no strong

internal candidates for a new role but

it doesn't want to lose the benefits

that come from occasionally promoting

people from within then the most

effective strategy for them is to

increase the job requirements so they

can tell their existing staff that

Unfortunately they don't qualify based

on the jobs criteria I know I say it a

lot but this is another reason why the

best thing you can do in your career in

your early years is to consistently

apply for new jobs that are better than

the one you currently have workers that

change their jobs every two years earn

on average 50 more than their colleagues

who show loyalty to a company sticking

around might get you a promotion but

there's no way to know how long it will

take for other people to move out of

their positions having experience at

different companies is also more

valuable to new employers than long-term

tenure at a single employer when

employers ask for three years experience

they are often satisfied with candidates

that talk about dealing with similar

challenges in different Industries so

you should apply anyway and just have

some kind of experience to talk about

even if it's not doing the same job or

even a job at all and that's a third

reason why employers make job

requirements that are so out of touch

with the job they are offering they want

to see how Apple can deal with the

challenge there is an old saying in

business that even if you are not in

sales you are in sales most people do

not have jobs that require cold calling

a list of leads to generate Revenue but

those soft skills are still important in

every job dealing with difficult

customers difficult co-workers being

able to present a strong argument or

simply showing empathy for a clients

needs are all skills that could be

demonstrated by an applicant when they

are questioned about a shortcoming of

their qualifications against the job

requirements if you're in a job

interview and can provide a strong

response to a question like this that

eases the interviewer's concerns without

disregarding them you will probably end

up doing better than someone who didn't

even have that experience Gap if you can

deal with an interviewer's concerns then

you have clearly demonstrated that you

can deal with the other challenges as

they are presented to you a skill that

is worth more than anything you can

write down on a resume and that's the

fourth reason some managers do know what

makes a good hire but most don't people

are promoted into management positions

based off having experience in a

subordinate role managers are therefore

naturally inclined to believe that when

it comes to hiring someone more

experience is more better it's a

reasonable assumption that someone that

has practice in a role should be better

than someone with no practice in fact I

said it at the beginning of this video

and you probably just accepted it but

corporate rules to non-technical Fields

change so rapidly today that the benefit

is negligible a 30 year old study

conducted by the internal Congress of

Applied psychology in Madrid found no

strong correlation between experience

and job performance since this study was

published follow-up studies including a

publication from the Harvard Business

Review in 2019 found the same thing most

corporate managers do not read Journal

articles about statistical correlations

between hiring parameters and job

performance most go off their own

experience which is the value of

experience they do the same for other

job require government because the

safest move for them is to find a

candidate that takes the most boxes

experience can help a business but so

can new ideas and neither is more

valuable than the other in fact if it

wasn't for an enthusiastically

inexperienced employee Nintendo might

still be a taxi company and proprietor

of a love Hotel I'm not kidding go watch

my video over on how history Works to

learn about the really weird 130 year

history of Nintendo and remember if you

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