How is a human Resource director who lost her job not quailfy for a job at Starbucks?

[redirish28]

My wife is reading this article :


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/14/jobless-mom-to-son-santa-_n_796725.html



And she is just sicken that someone who was a resource director NOT quailfy to work at a Coffee shop?


She is seriously wondering if people REALLY want to hire.

[Fire1]

1. Over qualified. n/t

[Freetradesucks]

2. Over qualified.

They don't want to invest in training and other associated costs when they know that the person will leave the second they find another job.

[alarimer]

6. But why would anyone settle for working at Starbucks?

Why wouldn't anyone with half a brain leave as soon as they got a better offer?

It's a shit job, just like any retail job.

Anybody with any ambition at all would still be looking for a job even if Starbucks or McDonald's or anyone else hired them.
I never stopped applying for jobs in the whole time I have been at mine. And that will be the case no matter where I go. I have to look out for my best interests first. There is always a better job out there. It doesn't mean you will get it but you can't stop trying.

Does Starbucks or anyone else actually think people are working there because it's their dream job? No, it's the best job they can get right now. Or it pays the bills while they are going to school or whatever.

[TwixVoy]

9. When I was in management at Target

When I was in management at Target we had several team members (employees) who were referred to as "lifers".

These were people that had been with the company in minimum wage positions for 10+ years and likely would be with the company for many more years. If you asked them if they planned to move on you would be told they had no current plans to do so nor did they anticipate ever doing so. I was their boss.... I know for a fact most of them who had been there a decade or more were barely breaking $10/hour. We had people in their 40's and 50's who had held absolutely NO OTHER JOB their entire lives outside of retail/food service.

You don't seem to realize that there is a VERY large amount of people working retail/food service who have NO "ambition" (as you put it) to look for even a slightly better position.

[lumberjack_jeff]

19. Daughter in law works there.

She loves it, and pretty decent money. The hours are also pretty flexible, she's taking a pretty heavy business college classload.

[Hannah Bell]

24. people leave starbucks all the time. they don't care so much about that.

they care that the person will make trouble, won't fit the culture.

[LanternWaste]

36. Sounds like just about every worker and every job in existence...

"...or anyone else actually think people are working there because it's their dream job?"

Sounds like just about every worker and every job in existence. Outside of the few and semi-fictional "dream-jobs" out there, your description of having a job at Starbucks appears to be the description of the vast majority of people doing their jobs... :shrug:

I doubt many children dream of becoming Human Resource Managers or CPA's one day...

[KurtNYC]

31. The article is more about explaining Santa to their kid and btw

$1350/mo for health insurance ?!

Santa already gave to the "big bank." I have met some good people working in HR but while working for corporations including "big banks" my opinion of HR degraded. I mentioned to a co-worker that I was going to Saratoga for opening weekend (it is a legendary horse track from the 1800s) and the next thing I know HR has a million questions for me with the basic gist being: Am I a compulsive gambler?

At another bank HR hit me with a surprise drug screen and I lost my job over smoking a little pot on the weekends.

I don't think this about "over qualified" vs under. I think it is just a whole different skill set. Selling caffeine versus screening for drug use. Selling and service versus nit-picking, gossiping and being a pariah.

[madinmaryland]

3. Well, I hate to say it, but would anyone hire an "HR" person for a "non-HR" position??

I doubt it. HR people are tools of the corporations.

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. Overqualified. They'd leave in an instant.

if something more along their line of work opened up.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. As if any other barista would not. nt

[gmoney]

37. But they want to hire someone who has fewer prospects...

some college kid or HS dropout or whoever is less likely to keep looking or be qualified for a job that's much better, so is less likely to leave for a better job. College kids may leave after graduation or at summer break, but that's predictable.

Business must have CERTAINTY!

:sarcasm:

[DCKit]

5. Obviously a communist and socialist union organizer... not to mention overqualified. nt

[redirish28]

7. Look at the way this economy has been for the past 2 years They may not be ANY better jobs.

[Kat45]

18. Agreed.

I have an advanced degree and have not been steadily employed for two years. There are NO JOBS out there! Even if I got a crappy job that I would want to leave at the first better opportunity, it might be years, if ever, before any better opportunity came up. I wouldn't think companies would have to worry all that much about overqualified people leaving any time soon.

[doc03]

10. Maybe she doesn't have the personality required

to work in retail. Maybe she would be overqualified for the job and they didn't hire her thinking she wouldn't stay on the job. Another thing maybe the manager didn't like hiring someone with more qualifications than his or her self.
Myself I worked in a steel mill that paid the highest wages in the area and nobody would hire us knowing we would quit as soon as we were called back. Another reason nobody would hire us is we belonged to a union and employers didn't want any union people possibly influencing their workers.

[surrealAmerican]

11. Perhaps she's never worked a cash register before...

... or doesn't know how to operate a coffeemaker.

Having had a high paying job doesn't automatically qualify her for anything that pays less.

[redirish28]

12. NO but considering how the market is hurting all around you would think people wanted help would

higher. It seems someone being "overly" or "under" qualify is just an excuse now at days. when you have ads running in the paper AND 20-30 people show up for the job and NO ONE is hired one starts to wonder what is really happening.



My wife has a friend who has been out of work for 10 months. She like the mother in the article has put in apps EVERYWHERE and it seems she is competing with 20 to 30 people every job and 9 times out of ten she goes back to the places and it is either high school kids they hired at min wage OR they are still looking.

Makes one wonder.

[Waiting For Everyman]

13. She needs a DEGREE IN STARBUCKS - you can't just do that job without

specialized training in it you know, and of course the right resume to go with it for the interview.

Sheesh. What do you think - anybody can get any job just because they can DO IT or they're GOOD AT IT or something? Nobody knows anything unless they're taught it in college and pay a ton of money for it and pay off the loans forever. We can't have unprofessional barristas running around, now can we? And they'd better have a license too, dammit. :sarcasm:

[upi402]

14. Structural engineers and masters degree holders taking 100 level course at community college

trying to get a certificate that gets them a little job somewhere.

Thanks for NAFTA and GATT Clinton!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[customerserviceguy]

15. What does being a human resource director qualify you for, anyway?

besides going to seminars to learn how to tell people not to tell sex jokes to each other at work.

Once upon a time, we had the "Personnel" department. It would process the minimal paperwork needed to get a new employee to work, and just handle the payroll related matters. Over my working life, it has morphed into a place to sink a lot of cash for most companies, without getting much in return from it.

My company even has us do most of their functions with a website. Who needs HR anymore, anyway?

[lumberjack_jeff]

20. Feeding resumes to the scanner.

And reading the results shat out by the HR database.

[customerserviceguy]

25. Bingo

Most HR people have never done any real productive work related to their company's core business, anyway.

[Buns_of_Fire]

29. More likely, feeding resumes to the shredder...

One (of many) reasons I rapidly became persona non grata at my last "real" job was because I refused to refer to "Human Resources" as anything other than "Payroll/Personnel." (That, and I steadfastly refused to participate in "team building" exercises, "spring outtings" for the peons, papering my office with motivational posters, or adjusting to new paradigms. A real rotter, I was.)

[Lance_Boyle]

26. + eleven trillionty-seven

"HR" is the worst self-perpetuating abomination to ever spring from the shit-filled skull of a useless MBA nothing.

I've never met an "HR" person qualified to breathe, much less pour coffee.

[Nye Bevan]

16. What does handling Human Resources at a bank have to do with being a barista?

I have an advanced degree in applied math but I would be a terrible barista. The "oh, *anyone* can do that" attitude in this thread is a bit demeaning to the barista profession.

[redirish28]

17. I'm saying that this is fustrating. People want jobs and no ones wants to hire.

You telling me that because you or her can't be TRAINED to be a barista?!

[Rabrrrrrr]

22. Try to think about this logically - you have someone with an advanced degree and corporate experienc

who is applying to make coffee at your coffee shop for minimum wage or barely over it - are you seriously going to hire this person who, unless they are really and truly looking to learn how to be a barista for a legitimate reason, is going to be looking for a job for what they've trained for?

What's the point of spending a few thousand dollars to hire and train and do the paperwork for this person when you're pretty well damned sure that they're gonna leave as soon as they find something better?

It's goddamn insulting to insinuate that a job like a barista is so fucking easy and deplorably low level that any coffee owner should be breaking their pelvis spreading their legs for someone with a college degree.

Fucking hell.

[redirish28]

23. And I'm saying after 6 months or 10 months or a year people are soooo desperate for a job they will

take anything Degree be damn!

[Statistical]

35. Yeah but there is also someone without a degree and experience and has good personality

who likely is a better match.

If you were running a coffee house and could hire:

a) hipster 20 something college student
b) corporate executive

which would you pick?

Good business sense says pick a even if they have comparable skill around the coffee pot. Why? Because a is more likely to stay long. Corporate exec is going to keep his resume out there on monster and leave the instant something better comes along.

Now there is no guarantee a) will work out either but it simply makes more sense to go with a).

Given 10% unemployment there are plenty of a) out there so if you run a business in which a) is a a better match then you hire a) not b).

That simple.

[Llewlladdwr]

47. Why should Starbuck's hire some one who needs training if they have other applicants who don't?

Starbuck's is looking for experienced barristas (not HR people) to work the counter.

As pointed out above, having had a high paying job at one point does not automatically qualify one for any job that pays less.

[snooper2]

41. I know, it 's just stupid...Maybe she is a huge clutz

Maybe she bombed her interview and was demeaning and snarky to her potential boss...

Maybe she's scared of the PPFFFFFFFFFT PFFFFFFFFFFFFT sound that one machine makes...

Maybe she says she won't work weekends or nights...

[Rabrrrrrr]

21. She's not qualified. That's the answer.

and the part of me that's spent time in the corporate world says "She was a human resource director - no one wants one of those talking to human beings".

And the other part of me from the corporate world says "Why would anyone spend thousands of dollars to hire and train someone who's qualified for a higher paying job, and who will, clearly, leave this job as soon as a better one shows up for her?"

[WolverineDG]

39. as opposed to spending all that on a teeny-bopper who'll quit

when you put him/her on the morning shift or because you won't give him/her Saturday nights off all the time?

My cousin works at a place where they are constantly having to hire because all the young kids either quit, sometimes not even giving notice, or refuse to work particular shifts (like holidays when they offer double-time). I was stunned when I heard this, because when I was that age, my friends & I were the first ones in line for holiday shifts--more money, ka-ching! She said they're starting to hire more workers who are older & probably "over qualified" simply because *they* are the ones who can be counted on to show up for work & often volunteer for extra shifts & holiday work.

dg

[snooper2]

42. My friend Brian worked at Starbucks from age 18-24

Making pretty decent money...Ask anybody if they claim all their tips :P

I worked at White Castle for a couple years in Missouri. Some of the folks had been there for a long time..I would say 70% of the staff had at least 3 years in. Most of us in college...but there were some people late 20's, early 30's who had been there for 5+ years. Good benefits and was pretty decent pay (considering it is fast food)

And we all used to fight for the double time shifts on holidays...

This is the White Castle in Festus MO right off hwy 55...Where is this place your cousin works at?

[WolverineDG]

44. In Texas

btw, I myself logged several years at a local fast food joint while in high school & college. But it seems that a lot of kids today don't have that work ethic & don't want to work early shifts or late shifts, or holiday shifts to make extra money.

dg

[MadHound]

27. This is what a lot of people, including myself, are facing

If you've got a college degree of any sort, and are applying for a basic gruntwork, customer service, lower tier type job, you get damned for being overqualified.

Then there are jobs that you know you can do, but since the job market is so slack, the businesses and corporations know they can get what they want, so they ask for years of experience for jobs like factory work, convenience store clerk, etc.

It is very, very discouraging.

[adamuu]

28. afraid they will bail as soon as the economy picks up n/t

[LeftinOH]

30. Maybe the hiring person at Starbucks is getting back at the HR creeps who

wouldn't hire him/her. Some HR/hiring managers are dreadful.

[KurtNYC]

32. if she is applying at Starbucks then maybe she wasn't that great

with connecting the right people with the right jobs. I mean, she is not doing it for HERSELF. An HR person should understand this better than most.

[rucky]

33. Barrista is a skill.

Not hard to learn, but still a skill. In Portland, you need a "coffee resume" to get a barrista job. Not kidding - it's that competitive.

Not to mention Starbucks has laid off a shit ton of people recently, so there is a pool of more experienced people out there.

She's an HR person, she should know that. But she doesn't value the skills enough required for the job to understand, so maybe she wouldn't do so well in the job. Sorry if that sounds assholish, but I've jumped through my share of hoops with HR people for jobs I actually have experience in. They've helped create the job environment we're in now.

[Statistical]

34. What makes her qualified.

Also companies tend to not like to hire people who will leave at first chance they get.

Someone with years of experience and college degree likely would leave at the drop of a hat for anything which pays even slightly more.

This persons seems to have an attitude that she is more entitled to a job than the other 15 million unemployed due to her career experience.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

38. As an employer, you want employee that RELY on you. Unskilled employees are an investment.

You want employees that are essentially STUCK in thier employment.
This is true for low-wage/low-skill work as well as Section 8 (gov't assisted) housing/appartment rental.

Someone overqualified will be able to leave for a better job the moment the job market improves or a better offer suited to thier qualifactions comes thier way - wasting any time and money you spent training them. Applicants like this have OPTIONS. You don't want employees with options. You want OBEDIENT employees that NEED the job your offering and who are STUCK in thier current working position - basically, you want someone who just barely meets the minimum competence level for the position you are hiring. If person A and person B can both perform work satisfactorially for equal wage, but person B has more superfluous qualification... you want to hire person A as a more reliable investment.

Ask yourself, would you hire a plumber that was likely to NOT finish a job you contracted them for because they found another house down the street paying 2X for thier services? Why is a business any different... all a business does is contracting labor from individuals. Why should a company be expected to invest in an employee likely to flake out on them.

Similarly, as a low-income assisted housing provider, you want to provide your units/houses to applicants that qualify for governmnet assistrance and have the least cash and skills because you know they won't be able to leave your housing easily. This ensures they are STUCK in your apartment which keeps your unit rented for longer periods and the government paid rent bills up to date.

[HopeHoops]

40. She didn't use the word "dude" enough in the application.

[WCIL]

43. I wonder if it was a question of availability

I work in retail and our store hired seasonal workers in September. If you were not available to work 5AM to midnight 7 days a week you were not considered. Of course, you will only get 15-20 hours a week and you will be let go early in January, but you had to be available whenever the store decided to schedule you. Nearly all of our seasonal workers this year are recent college graduates who can't find a job and have moved back home with their parents.

[tammywammy]

46. Yes, Starbucks hires seasonal by October.

Also it doesn't say that she was applying for a barista job, she may have been turned down trying to apply for a management position at Starbucks (to which a HR background doesn't not make one qualified to run a restaurant). Also even when I worked there many years ago, we had people walking in all the time filling out applications to be a barista. We weren't always hiring, it was basically luck of the draw if you walked in when we were actually looking for someone.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

45. if you have 10 people applying for a Starbux job

that have food service experience or experience from a competitor they will be vastly more qualified for THAT position over the former HR Director

sP