<p>My D2 just started a job in Boston. ( I wrote about this on another thread)</p>
<p>This job is, well I am at a loss for words. She had to submit her resume and an application that asked for her college GPA and SAT scores. If passing to the second step, a phone interview. If passing to the third step a personal interview and then a writing sample taking a position on a recent news story. THEN, if you get the job, you get to work for 60-80 hours a week for a salary next to nothing! Really?</p>
<p>It is her choice. It is a non-profit working for things she believes in. I 100% support her. ( I just do not want to be 100% supporting her financially!). I guess these organizations are taking advantage of youthful idealism and energy. But I cannot really expect my D2 to not get burned out, with so many hours and so little money, after a short time.</p>
<p>D1 had to go through an equally arduous process (provide GPA and SAT scores, multiple interviews, etc) and an internship before being offered the job. But her career is in finance and she is doing very, very well financially. She also works long hours. She said she cannot even imagine living on D2’ s salary. D1 lives in Manhattan. She did tell D2 she would not let her starve! :)</p>
<p>My D1 (and her college boyfriend) both got good jobs after college, and didn’t go through that many hoops. D1 had a phone interview, then was flown to the HQ city and had a few hours in the office. The in-office interview included a case study portion. Then she was offered the job – took it, and two years later is very happy. </p>
<p>Her college boyfriend had an internship summer before senior year with a consulting firm that offered him a job post-graduation. Not sure how much he interviewed for the internship, but he never said it was extremely rigorous. Both make decent money for their age and the city they live in. The boyfriend doesn’t like his job much (on the road all the time, long hours). But he knows it is a good starting position and plans to look for something else once he gets his expected promotion this summer.</p>
<p>I think both were asked for college GPA (what company wouldn’t?) and SAT scores – but I remember being asked for SAT scores right out of college as well, 30 years ago. </p>
<p>Sounds like your kiddos did have a lot of interviews & hoops to jump through, and one isn’t getting great pay… hopefully she is building experience that will help her in the long run, though.</p>
<p>What’s your concept of low pay? (you can answer with a salary range if you don’t want to disclose specifics). My kids both have worked largely for nonprofits and I feel that their starting pay was modest but liveable- but their jobs always came with good benefits so I factored that in as well. Son worked long hours but daughter has pretty much stuck to business hours – but I think that’s partly a result of their own choices. That is, I think son really enjoyed having jobs with intense demands – whereas daughter seems to want clear boundaries between work and personal time. </p>
<p>The reason I am asking is that I’ve learned from other posts on CC that there are wide variations in parental income and that colors viewpoints as to expected lifestyle & living expenses, which of course impacts the perspective on salary expectations. My daughter is in NYC and could not possibly make ends meet on her income if she wanted to live by herself or was being choosy about neighborhoods – but of course she shares an apartment and is very happy with the arrangement. </p>
<p>The interview process you described doesn’t seem particularly arduous. My kids have applied for many more jobs over the years than they were hired for, and it always starts with submission of a resume & cover letter & sometime writing sample, followed by a phone screening interview, followed by at least one additional interview. My daughter applied once for an administrative position with a certain very well known tech company, and they must have had her in for at least 5 different in-person interviews with different groups of interviewers over a period of several months… and then they did not offer her a job. </p>
<p>On the other hand you D1 is very fortunate – that is far beyond what most kids would get in their first few years out of college-- so you shouldn’t be comparing the two. I just think that mid-30’s would be more appropriate for a starting full-time salary with an established nonprofit. I’m not saying that there aren’t other nonprofits that are paying equally low … just that I would also be frustrated if my kid was working long hours at that pay rate too. </p>
<p>I’d bet my bottom dollar your D is going to get burned out. That’s ridiculous. To me, that sounds like a predatory org. From my quick math, she’s making less than minimum wage! Those hoops are expected in well-paid fields but NOT for that sum. </p>
<p>I was offered a job right out of college (chose grad school instead) working in a non-profit DV shelter with only an application and an interview… making a decent bit more than that.</p>
<p>My S attended job fair and attended at least one or two on-site interviews for each job he applied for that he was offered 3 different full-time permanent positions at 3 different locations. After he accepted the position he most liked but before he was allowed to work, he had to undergo a rigorous background check and screening which took over a year, including him being flown to his workplace for part of it. He receives decent pay and benefits–not as high as Silicon Valley or IB, but he has significant flexibility in his hours and is encouraged to take his comp time and vacation time. His work includes over 100,000 air travel miles most years. His work pays for all travel expenses and gives him comp time for the extra time he spends traveling for work. He graduated from college in 2010. He also received moving expenses and reimbursement for driving his car CA to his new home in DC. They are supposed to have a program where he can get further education or degree(s); if he had ed loans, his employer was supposed to help him pay them off.</p>
<p>He generally starts work about 9 and ends about 5. This allows him to have a nice work life balance and pursue a part time job and hobbies in his free time. He has done a lot of interesting and fun things which he enjoys because he isn’t weighed down by his job.</p>
<p>My D is still trying to find a job since she finished college last spring. We are keeping our fingers crossed that she is able to find something next month at the April career fairs. Her field (cinema) is very tough and generally requires very long hours and low pay. We are funding 100% of her expenses, as she has not had any income since they discontinued her position because she had no work study when she was a student and they had funding cuts. When she got hired for the prior campus job, she just inquired about whether they might have an opening and they told her to show up for an interview, where they hired her. She was surprised and thought it would be much more involved.</p>
<p>There are many jobs with non-profits that underpay their staff and have unlimited hours you can pour into the job. It’s the sad truth that many nonprofits are underfunded and are on shaky financial ground. It doesn’t seem right that she’s really working those very long hours and getting such low pay–seems a violation of fair labor standards, but there’s probably a loophole because she’s “management” and on contract and therefore isn’t ‘entitled’ to overtime.</p>
<p>By the way, some nonprofit employees qualify for a reduction in the loan repayment amount they owe under a federal program. She should find out if her job offers that as a benefit. I know some others working for nonprofits who see this as an additional benefit of their job. Seems like something worth investigating.</p>
<p>I know no young person earning 6 figures (with the exception of some young attorneys), but congrats to you that you have a kid who does. Heck, my H didn’t even earn 6 figures until he had been at his job for over 35 years, working on computers and telecommunications! Personally, I have never earned 6 figures in a year. Even many of the attorneys in our state don’t make 6 figures, let alone $600K! That’s an amazing annual salary for someone in mid 20s!</p>
<p>I’d bet most people (except for the Microsoft and FB billionaires) would be thrilled to earn 600K in their mid twenties. No doubt most parents on the board would be thrilled to earn that. Hard to believe that anyone that young can offer enough value to a company to make those kind of bucks, but then again, some companies have more than enough to pay their employees. You can’t possibly compare kids, but still, it seems like the youngest is getting taken advantage of. She would have to really love her line of work to make it worthwhile.</p>
<p>I work in the non-profit sector in Boston, and what she’s making is not entirely unheard of. In my experience, it’s the low end of the entry level range. I am horrified by the hours, though. When I was making a similar salary, I was an hourly employee and couldn’t work overtime. I know that when I work a lot of hours in a week, the first thing to go is meal preparation at home, and I start getting takeout more, and at that salary you really can’t afford to. I’m making more now, and it’s good to know that I have room in my budget to pick up dinner if I get home late. When I received a promotion from that hourly job and was salaried at not much more, my boss also wouldn’t let me work too many hours. The message was basically “we’re not paying you enough to work 60 hours a week”. One of the nice things about many non-profits is some concern for employees. I’d also really scrutinize the legal definition of an exempt employee - even if they are treating your daughter as one, I’m not sure that she legally is. </p>
<p>Also, when I was looking for my first out of college job, I had many, many interviews. A phone interview is fairly common. Most positions asked for a cover letter and resume. I’m guessing that first step she had was one of the annoying online applications that many jobs are gravitating toward. I probably had to fill in GPA on a few online applications, but that would have been pretty rare. I don’t think I ever got asked for SAT score applying for a job.</p>
<p>My personal advice would be to take that job but look to move on fairly soon. She could probably get herself up to 30K somewhere else within a year. With those hours combined with that salary, burnout is really likely. She’ll find another non-profit where she loves the cause that doesn’t have that kind of expectation.</p>
<p>Note that I am not saying that nobody ever works more than 40 hours at a non-profit, but I think it’s really telling that they told an entry level employee that that was the weekly expectation. That, in my experience, is unusual. If you feel like you can say more, feel free to PM me. I’d love to know where she is working so I can never apply fora job there, and I may have some leads if I know more about her interests.</p>
<p>S1 is a U.S. Navy officer in a very specialized area. He spent months of his junior and senior years in college going through batteries of testing, interviews, getting recommendations, filling out mounds of paperwork, training hard on a daily basis to meet all physical requirements. </p>
<p>S2’s path was a breeze in comparison. He interviewed with a small local company. Was not asked for a resume or transcript. The job is technical and does not require a college degree so guess the company owner didn’t care. About two weeks after the interview, the company owner called and told S1 he had the job.</p>
<p>After a discouraging search, many applications, and only a couple of in-person interviews, S (class of 2012) signed up with a temp agency. His first assignment was with an organization that kept asking him to stay on, then told him to hold tight because they wanted to hire him, then finally hired him. Total temp time was about four months, and it was worth it. His resume was like thousands of other college graduates’ resumes, but taking this route gave him a chance to show that he’s smart, hard working, and a good person to have on staff. His salary and benefits are good enough for him to share an apartment in our expensive city, pay his own bills, save some money, and work with people he likes while contemplating next steps.</p>
<p>D1 works in public relations. Her first job had her working 10-12 hours a day, 5 days a week for a salary in the low 30s. She came to them, from a top notch state program and a resume of several internships, jobs and awards in her field. Because it was her first job she almost didn’t know any better - work 11 hours a day? OK!!! Over time she learned that it was ok and acceptable to put limits on herself and her time so this didn’t happen every day of the week. She had a very driven but very understanding boss who knew she was being VERY productive every hour of the day and was happy to support her rather than lose her. That said, she stayed there about a year and a half and went to a well known PR firm where she works hard and SOMETIMES has a 10+hour day but its not the norm . Plus she is making better $$. Let me tell you, when that lightbulb went off and realized how good her life and activities were when she could start her evening at 5 or 5:30 instead of 7:30 - wow, she was like “why did I do that to myself?!!” But like I said, she didn’t really know any other way and she wanted to succeed.</p>
<p>These times are very tough for non profits (most). It will be rare to make a “good” salary at an entry level position. But if she can survive, set some time boundaries some of the time and build a good relationship with her coworkers and boss she will be in a better position to move up in a couple years - then she can decide whether to go Non profit or not. </p>
<p>Finally, a good question for newbies out of college to ask during an interview ( or maybe at a second Interview) is about the “typical” work day hours for someone in their prospective position. As long as you do it right its ok to ask.</p>
<p>DS jumped many hoops looking for a FT public teaching position a few years ago.
Zillions of online apps, most with no response, over several months.
Many first round interviews, including portfolio review.
A few second round interviews. Several second round sample lessons before a panel.
Finally offered a permanent PT position in desirable district.
He’s still there now, offered a FT opening several months in.
Not exactly a straight line, but he’s thriving and we are happy for him.</p>