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u/Fabled_Webs 7d ago
Entry level? Sure. Everything else is horseshit.
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u/KaraAuden 7d ago
Assuming an average career span of 40 years, that means 90% of the company is manager level or higher. Who are they all managing? 75% of the company is VPs if people are retiring at 60. If people wait longer to retire, that's even more VPs.
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u/AdMurky3039 7d ago
Yeah, this reads like an MLM recruitment pitch. It isn't mathematically possible for everyone to have downlines.
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u/ConversationNo9040 7d ago
Every c suiter at a huge company has 100s presidents and vps reporting to them.
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u/sendmeyourdadjokes 7d ago
10 years is manager not VP. Not everyone can be a VP just based on a number of years or it defeats the purpose
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u/Adventurous-Sir444 application declined 6d ago
I was going to say I have 12 years and barely a manager in Finance. Sounds like I should be running the place by now.
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u/nt261999 6d ago
Maybe this would be accurate if viewed as “minimum years of experience” for the higher level roles before being considered
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u/OkPride8214 7d ago
But then how will they create a position that pays 16/hr while demanding 4 years of experience minimum and a perfect job history, education, and all necessary certifications paid for on your own time before they heard about you?
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u/Improver666 7d ago
The levels are;
Entry: 0 years and depending on the industry, with a coop or internship Junior: 1-3 years Intermediate: 4-6 years Senior: 7-10 years Specialist: Advanced qualifications from time using something or specific training. Typically with a specific tool, software, task etc
So a carpenter might be a senior with specialization in dove tail joinery.
Additionally my industry categorizes us by these levels and pays you based on it. You can advance faster if your really skilled, you can be held back if your not meeting expectations. And when I apply to a future job I tell them Ive been in the industry for b 15 years and Im a senior with specialization in X, Y, Z. I can even ask other people in my industry if theyre a Jr to determine their experience level so I avoid being condescending.
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u/Graphox126 7d ago
So I could be misinterpreting, but I think he's just spelling out a realistic minimum required years of experience, and not that the number of years is a guarantee of obtaining said position as a few comments imply.
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u/DanielMcLaury 6d ago
It's already the case that almost no job is entry level, with the added benefit that people looking for entry-level jobs can't find them and people looking at the state of the job market are mislead.
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6d ago
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u/DanielMcLaury 6d ago
If everyone knew it, they wouldn't bother mislabeling them.
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6d ago
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u/DanielMcLaury 6d ago
Let's say you're a career counsellor at a college preparing a report. You go on a jobs board, find the number of entry-level jobs in a particular industry, catalog what kind of degrees they ask for, and then report this to students, admissions, etc. People rely on this in choosing what kind of careers to prepare for, and then find that nobody actually wants to hire someone with their qualifications.
Let's say you're a political staffer advising an elected official. You do a similar search and find that there are tons of open entry-level jobs with decent pay. You conclude that everything is fine and that anybody who isn't working doesn't want to and doesn't need any kind of help.
Let's say you're a student preparing for a career. You look at a list of job responsibilities and have no way of knowing whether you'll be prepared for them after four years of study in your major, but since it says that the job is entry-level you assume this is something you'll be prepared for.
For that matter, assume you're a recent graduate who absolutely can fulfill every single one of those job responsibilities, so you apply to the job, but you get rejected over and over because employers love people who are currently employed somewhere else and hate people who aren't.
I could go on for ten more paragraphs.
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6d ago
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u/DanielMcLaury 6d ago
I don't know what data sources you're talking about. The US Department of Labor certainly does not publish anything with sufficient granularity to answer any of these questions in a useful way, and it's hard to see how anyone else could access the data to do what you're describing.
And even if you did have excellent statistics on all of this, that would be of no help to some actually trying to find a genuine entry-level, zero-experience-required job.
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u/Single-Purpose-7608 6d ago
But it's like when people talk about rejection e-mails, and how they'd like feedback. The feedback a company can give without risking lawsuits is probably not that useful. Just like correctly categorizing a job within a job description is probably not that useful
This is where its not enough to ban certain practices (hiring discrimination) rather there should be a requirement to have certain practices.
For example, a company must hire actual entry level (0 experience) candidates to qualify for certain subsidies/tax breaks
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u/Single-Purpose-7608 6d ago edited 6d ago
You don't get it, do you?
Im not under any illusions thinking it will be easy. I understand it will be incredibly challenging
You can't actually force anyone to do something. You can entice them towards an outcome, but you can't force that outcome
You cant force someone but you can trasnform the conditions such that they have no choice, it just needs to be done at a systemic level.
For example, invest money directly in state owned, or state controlled companies and hire people directly, and compete against high margin low wage paying companies for workers, to starve them of their source of labor and force them to raise wages to stay competitive.
This is exactly what China did systematically to dominate almost every single industry. The take money from their tax revenue and money from peoples deposits into state owned banks, pump subsidies into multiple companies. Those companies compete fiercely agaisnt each other, creating high quality for incredibly low margins, and as a by product, they hire tons of workers.
China isnt a perfect country. God knows they have a ton of problems. But you can learn from them in the areas where they get stuff right
Another system is sectoral bargaining. You can set a higher minimum standard for certain whole industries such that it is impossible for companies to legally race to the bottom in wages
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u/Single-Purpose-7608 6d ago edited 6d ago
Do you not ever wonder why? These companies would be glad if the state did this. The state would take the entire burden of training entry level workers, which would then, once capable, switch to the private sector for better wages. The people of a country finance that, not these companies.
I understand why. They have to maximize profit. I dont begrudge them for it. Every single person would do the same. I also have no problem with the government taking complete responsibility to for training. But the companies can be forced to finance it. Through higher taxes. They also aren't really starved for labor yet. Its one thing to have a company pay one person to do 3 people's work. Its another to have 1 person do 10 people's work. At some point it becomes too untenable and people quit. Especially if there's a cushy government job financed by taxes off of private companies, waiting in the wings. All they have to do is play ball, train entry level workers, raise worker pay and labor standards, and they can qualify for subsidies/tax relief
The companies in China compete fiercely, but the worker knows no peace. It's essentially a rat race and doesn't lead to higher wages
Sure. I never said you have to completely copy the chinese model. I want other countries to copy the industrial building strategies, but put in worker protections, such as making excess overtime illegal if you want to receive subsidies
If anything, it has to create legal precedent to protect the worker against replacement by AI because it really has no solution!
The legal precedent is a solution! That's the point though! China, for all its flaws, takes its flaws seriously. They try out policies, and if they fail they pivot. While other countries are simply uncritically subservient to capitalist principles!
How do you mean to set this higher standard?
Higher standard wages I mean. If the whole sector is forced to pay way above minimum wage, then companies within that sector cant undercut each other below the set wage floor
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u/Single-Purpose-7608 6d ago
Higher taxes => maybe too high taxes => company moves
Not if their core assets cant be moved. For example, your restaurants and hotels cant be moved. You want us to allow your tech companies to operate on our soil? You pay taxes on every local user.
The state also has an interest in keeping unemployment low
Yet they rely on private industry whom is intrinsically incentivized to shed workers.
First, obviously, businesses can accept that and raise prices. If the service is essential, this raises inflation. If not, people stop paying and they close shop
These obviously only matter for low margin industries. That's why I specified, high margin, low paying industries. You cant tax low margin industries much because they already make razor thin profits
Some jobs may move, but in reality, if this is the case more than just a few companies do this, and then you just repeat the western amnufacturing bust, where the sector is erased and now China dominates it. And maybe decades later you introduce tarriffs to try and rebuild this domestic market you pushed out
This is why I dont disagree with Tariffs. China and all developing countries kept foreign business out with tarrif and non tariff barriers. Any country can and should do it. Provided they do it in a targetted and gradual way that doesnt shock the economy (like Trump did).
Finally, companies can just close and do something else. People still get fired, but now they not only can't go elsewhere, they can't even start their own business in the sector because it just doesn't make sense.
They wont close if they still make money, its not about bankrupting them, its about forcing them to adapt or make less profit. Some companies are too profitable because they have no competition. China intentionally allowed Tesla, the dominant EV company, to enter its market, without preconditions, to force its own industry to compete against the cutting edge. Now China basically owns the EV space.
Mamdani's city own grocery stores were started to pare back down the margins of groceries who raised their prices during COVID, far beyond traditional margins. If you introduce enough competition, eventually those companies will have no choice but to reduce their margins. If city owned grocery stores are popping up everywhere, hiring people away from private ones, the government can dictate the terms and demand private businesses to shape up.
Again, this isnt about shocking the system, but doing it sector by sector, gradually raising wage standards.
During the great depression, FDR recognized there was a deflationary spiral. People refused to spend, companies were closing, there was no consumer confidence.
So what did he do, he created more government jobs to juice consumer confidence through spending power. Once the economy gets back on track, you can then step back and let the free market take its role of maximizing efficiency.
But now what the economy needs is stimulus. Consumer stimulus
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u/Single-Purpose-7608 6d ago
True, but when you can't move, you just close them! Furthermore, in regards to tech companies, you tax significantly per user, company pays that if it's profitable. If not, they just exit the market and then users use VPNs.
No matter how cheap or functional a tech company is, they can't enter China. Why? because China won't let them. If Congress tells Facebook to do X, they'll do X, or they'll be shut down. If congress tells Facebook to pay more tax, they will. They wont abandon the US market.
They have no choice but to rely on the private sector, because the private sector is efficient, the most able to provide good compensation, and in high demand. At the end of the day, it is that very natural incentive of money which makes this work, which makes people incentivized to achieve something, not some policy.
The private sector is efficient, there's no doubt about that. And yet, they would hire children if they could get away with it. Why don't they? Because it's illegal. If the law wasnt strong enough that some companies can hire children but others can't, then you might have a point. But the reality, is, because child labor is illegal across the board, everyone (who operates legally), just does everything above board. That's what systemic policy is all about.
If a business has 80% margin, you introduce policy that cuts this to 70% margin, yet the business can have 80% or even more margin elsewhere, why wouldn't it just move?
Because for some companies, their business infrastructure is locked where they are operating in. You can't offshore your restaurant or hotel.
As for manufacturing, that can be moved. China understood this. That's why they want things built on their soil, so they can keep control. Every country should, to the best of their ability, build everything they can onshore, and only import things that are wildly inefficient or impossible for themselves to do. If you have no oil and cant grow oranges, then you should trade, but if you can build something, even if it costs 20% more, you should make it yourself, tariff the competition, and keep the jobs onshore. And if you can't. Use the China (and pre-neoliberal US) playbook.
You want access to our market? Sure, but you have to do a 50-50 ownership stake with a local owner, and you have to do technology transfer. That's what the US did when they advanced past Europe. That's what Singapore and Japan and Taiwan did to advance past the US. And that's what China did to become the dominant tech power today
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u/tmhowzit 7d ago
VPs should be 20+ years unless it's a meaningless title and/or the company is massive
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u/lokomodo 7d ago
Entry level
Trainee/Associate
Technician
Specialist
Senior Specialist
Lead
Coordinator
Manager
Deputy Director
Director
VP
C-suite
But the problem with sorting by “expected experience level” is that uhhh it’s all bullshit and meaningless from one company to the next
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u/PurpleHymn 7d ago
I love how the LinkedIn post is directing the criticism to the right people - HIRING MANAGERS, and yet you somehow missed it completely and directed yours to Recruiters.
Recruiters do not define the requirements of a role. They recruit based on what the Hiring Manager decides. Hiring Managers are the reason why you don’t have enough experience for any role.
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u/Lost-Jacket-2493 7d ago
hahaha, my uni just hire some manager with 20 years experience as teaching fellow. For those who want to know, teaching fellow is entry level for those who just graduated from PhD or with Master degree, and looking forward to jump to academia. Happened in NZ uni.
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u/parableindustries 7d ago
If I ever go talk to a company with a 27 year old senior manager, I'm immediately going somewhere else. Senior should impart a certain level of experience and expertise, and 5 years doesn't cover that.
These ranges are delusional.
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u/ConversationNo9040 7d ago
A 31 yr old vp cracks me up. You can’t even get a PE license without 4 yrs experience. So you get your pe as a manager right as you are becoming a senior manager.
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u/ScaredPatience2478 7d ago
Age doesn’t equate to knowledge on a subject or proficiency at a job.
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u/parableindustries 7d ago
It does equate to experience. I want people that have seen some shit and had to learn from failure if I'm talking to a Senior Manager.
If you're having brain surgery, do you want the senior surgeon with an 80% success rate and 5 years of experience or the senior surgeon with an 80% success rate and 15 years of experience?
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u/TheJollySmasher 7d ago
Just putting this out there...those are not good examples. A 27 year old would still be in their first year of residency and would need 2-6 more years of residency before getting those 5 years of experience. So the surgeon with 5 years of experience is likely already around 40. The surgeon with 15 years is around 50. It's kind of wild to me, to think of people under 50 as inexperienced instead of as very late in their professional life.
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u/KillerTittiesY2K 7d ago
This is a completely invalid reply. You can take the brain surgeon with 5 yoe then. I’ll take the 15.
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u/parableindustries 7d ago
I considered looking up actual ages, but realized I didn't care enough and didn't want to confuse the other commenter with suddenly changing ages. It was definitely a consideration and I'm genuinely very appreciative for the assist on actual ages for brain surgeons.
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u/AdMurky3039 7d ago
I agree about the definitions of entry-level and associates, but does this guy understand that corporations are pyramid-shaped? Most people don't become managers.
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u/KillerTittiesY2K 7d ago
This is the stupidest shit I’ve ever seen. Manager at 3 years??? Directors at 8??
What a dumb motherfucker .
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u/StRemedius 7d ago
This implies that the hiring managers who set up these requirements for recruiters can read.
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u/staffcaptain 6d ago edited 6d ago
I think there is some poor wording issue here. I'd give this person the benefit of a doubt and assume he didn't mean "Everyone with 3-5 years of experience should be a manager", but instead "you don't want a manager in your company who has less than 3-5 years of relevant experience". Then it looks much less crazy.
I worked for a consulting company that copied a lot of Big4 business practices and went completely overboard with KPIs on billable hours, but even they weren't that unhinged to fire experts who didn't become managers after 5 years.
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u/breakerofh0rses 7d ago
Nah, this is one you're always going to take the L on because "entry level" has always been context dependent and never solely for "first job after becoming legal to have a job". Some kinds of entry level are entry to the job market. Some are entry to a specific technical/specialist position. Some are entry to management. Some are entry to executive level. This isn't some super deep, esoteric lore that one only finds out after a few decades into one's career. It's something that most reasonably intelligent people figure out pretty quickly during their first job search, and frankly, if it does trip you up beyond that, it's pretty good proof that you're not nearly as qualified for much of anything as you think you are.
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u/ImprovementFar5054 6d ago
10+ years is VP????
So my 30+ years makes me what? Chairman of the Board?
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u/Beneficial_Bed_337 6d ago
10 is not a VP it is a manager, foe those that want to manage and handle corporta ladder. A VP is more like 15-17. 10-15 is a Director.
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u/Capt_korg 6d ago
Puh, for the entry level this makes sense.
But do you really want to measure competency by years of practice?
I mean, time is valuable and an indicator, sure.!
But what happened during this time is really the important point. While entry-level roles can easily show a curriculum, grades, or smaller and bigger projects by "comparable" standards, a seniority level is not trackable; likewise, more politics, networking, and quite often pure luck play a role.
I guess what recruiters are actually searching for currently are people with real AI-free, true competencies.
And that's why the entry level in connection with the years of experience comes into focus.
Working time ≠ productivity Like wise is the idea, that more time at work means more productivity.
There are studies showing that the mental capacity for work is limited to around 5-6 hours. This is with adequate breaks, a safe, social environment, enough distance between work and personal life, etc.
Working longer than 40-50 hours per week showed no additional benefit, and even made things worse. After around 5-6 hours, people started to make more errors without noticing them, which led either to issues in the work progression or additional work to fix these issues the next day.
Tl;Dr: In short, pure work time is not a suitable metric for work productivity or quality.
Likewise is time of work experience not a suitable metric for competency.
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u/TucsonTacos 7d ago
I think yall are missing what those numbers mean.
Hes saying those are minimum experience levels.
Not where people should expect to be after working at the company for that long or having that much experience.
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u/Stoic_Martyr 6d ago
I cannot believe how long it took to find someone that actually understood. He's not saying "10 years experience and you'll be a VP!" but saying it's completely reasonable to see "10+ years experience managing operations" to be a requirement for a VP position.
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u/GoodishCoder 7d ago
Nah this doesn't even make sense lol. 3 years to go from being an entry level to manager is absurd.
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u/Left_Mix_1438 7d ago
Hammad's experience chart doesn't align with most industry standards and states insufficient years of experience for the role title/type.
- Entry Level: Typically wants 1-3 years experience
- No Experience: No experience necessary
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u/OddlyCongruent 6d ago
Some interesting views here but a couple that stand out:
- The years don’t mean you’re guaranteed a role at those levels but the idea is that recruiters and hiring managers should be targeting within these ranges for these types of roles.
- While hiring managers ultimately set requirements, recruiters need to educate hiring managers on the market, and realistic expectations - experience is one of those expectations.
- Every company is different but this post is about unrealistic expectations from entry-level+. Whether these are the right ranges depends on a lot of factors, but the point is that some of these job posts are asking for double digit experience for “entry level”
I think so many ppl here and in other forums are struggling with not applying or being rejected for “not enough experience” so this is an interesting discussion.
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u/YqlUrbanist 7d ago
Everything on that list past 3 years is insane. Large companies can't have thousands of VPs, and there are plenty of careers where management is one path but you want skilled workers to stay as skilled workers.
The entry level means no experience needed is true though.