Education vs experience

[cuttin edge]

I've been in the industry for 25 years. I started off as a truck driver, and then moved to a grader. Been grading for at least 20 years. Over the years, I have picked up skills on excavator, tractor, backhoe, loader, asphalt spreader, and crushers. But I am primarly a finish grader man. I have poked around some of the larger mining companies during the winter months, but have had no luck. It seems to be a new trend with a lot of the larger companies to choose paperwork over experience. Has anyone else had that problem.

 

[cutting edge]

yeah....this confused me too.

 

[lantraxco]

Not just that, it seems to me there's only two types of people that get hired these days, young hard working types that are willing to take low pay to start and no or few benefits (the companies turf them out before they can get to a decent wage and hire the next youngster) and if they're looking for an experienced hire they will only recruit somebody that has a good job, preferably with a competitor. They assume if you're unemployed and looking for work there's something wrong with you.

 

[Buckethead]

Not just that, it seems to me there's only two types of people that get hired these days, young hard working types that are willing to take low pay to start and no or few benefits (the companies turf them out before they can get to a decent wage and hire the next youngster) and if they're looking for an experienced hire they will only recruit somebody that has a good job, preferably with a competitor. They assume if you're unemployed and looking for work there's something wrong with you.

That is screwed up. Everybody these days seems to complain about people who don't work, but if you are not working you can't get hired? It's like some nightmare movie vision of the future has come to pass.

 

[lantraxco]

Look around..... there's a thousand things about this country that don't make any sense anymore. We can't show the flag or pray in our schools because somebody might be offended? The voters are more afraid of armed law abiding citizens than they are of only gangs and criminals having guns? We can spend a hundred grand a year to keep a pot dealer in prison but we can't care for the mentally ill. On the other hand if you happen to wander into the US illegally we have to give you food stamps and your kids get 100% free health care. More than half the voters in this country either work for the government in some way or are taking handouts from it. But wait! Those of us that pay taxes and make less than a million a year bear the brunt of all that.

The recent election shows the attitude finally changing in this country, and make no mistake, if things don't start to get better for the working class I think things will get pretty rough for the rich, powerful, and political.... Of course that's why homeland security has trained troops, armored vehicles and a Billions rounds of ammo for their automatic weapons.... to protect the status quo from the workers.

I never used to believe in conspiracies, but it looks more and more like they're coming for me soon... and you too, unless we all defend the constitution against those who would bend it to their own twisted desires.

Pleasant dreams.

 

[Axle]

Large companies suffer from having too many people in an office with nothing better to do. They can quantify and file paper qualifications. They have no clue how to translate real experience into something they can file away.

Seen it happen multiple times where I work. We lost out on a few very good temp workers simply because they did not posses a college diploma that was listed on the job requirements. To big business, paper trumps ability every time. Right now one of our guys who has been the working grunt and goto guy for repairs to a certain system, and currently filling in for somebody who has left the company, is going to be denied the job that he is filling in for simply because he does not posses a college diploma that is based on a course one year longer. "hey, you know how to do this, and you do it well, we need you to fill in for mr.x, starting tomorrow." (literally) "Oh sorry, we can't hire you for this because the job requirements state a 4 year diploma, you only have a 3year, oh, we need you to keep doing the job (you are not paper qualified for) until the end of the month". And like in our shop, they will probably end up hiring somebody with the personality and ability of a post that doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground...

Alex.