I manage employees that earn $17 an hour to start. We used to be an employer of choice for entry-level candidates as we paid more than our competitors and our jobs require minimal training — a couple of hours, and you’re ready to go! California’s minimum wage is now $15 an hour, so our “great pay” is barely better than minimum wage, and we’re getting less applicants. How can I continue to attract entry-level candidates when I really cannot afford to raise their pay rates?
To read my answer, click here: How Can I Attract Entry-Level Candidates Without Raising Pay?
Leave your own suggestion in the comments!
If you can’t afford to pay more then you don’t have a viable business.
I would agree if the writer was paying $8, but $17 for truly entry level work is good in many areas. MIT has a great living wage calculator. I would say as long as you are above a living wage your business is ethically ok.
Great article, solid ideas.
Money may make the world go ’round, but money is not the answer to every problem.
The pay is more than adequate for an entry-level position. I did like the article’s suggestions of ways to find potential employees. I, for one, don’t understand the attitude, presented by Steve, that an entry-level position, should require a higher pay rate. An entry-level job requires no skills but teaches you a job skill for the rest of your life
The suggestion of hiring someone who hasn’t worked in a while is a good one. As a long-term unemployed person, I’ve struggled even to find a job like this. Most entry-level employers see my experience and assume (rightly so) that I won’t stick around. They truly want someone to stay forever for low pay. Maybe it’s the idea that hiring and training cost more and it’s not worth investing in someone who will leave? Yeah, but if your business only offers bottom-rung jobs with no chance of advancement, that’s going to happen anyway.
I’ve been asked what I’ve been doing during this time, but publishing three books and earning a project management certification in the middle of a global pandemic while caring for a family member doesn’t seem to be good enough to get a subsistence job. 🙁 As if writing and publishing books and starting my own small press isn’t work. (Spoiler: it totally is. I worked my butt off.)
I hate that we unemployed folks should have to take a huge step back in our careers because of the (WRONG) perception that unemployed people can’t or don’t want to work.
Well, of course writing and publishing books and starting your own small press is work. But it doesn’t seem to be the kind of experience that someone hiring for minimum-wage jobs would value. And as you state here, presenting that way is simply telling the employer you’ll leave in a heartbeat.
Maybe the answer for you (maybe, I certainly don’t know) is to apply for higher-level jobs, that are more in line with your skills, experience, and knowledge.