Hey, NS! Do you know why your people are leaving? Because we gotta do something like, you know, survive? This place has practically the highest taxes yet has the worst wages for the very few “good” jobs it has! And speaking of good jobs, there are none! I graduated from university, studied finance and accounting, three years ago and am still careerless! I tried everything! Volunteering in my field, temp agencies, networking, pounding pavement, workshops to improve my resume and cover letter and interviews (btw, I’ve been told many times my resume/cover letter and interview skills are great), you fucking name it! Nothing has come of it. The temp agencies won’t give me any assignments, my connections don’t know of any places hiring, etc etc et fucking cetera! I’ve been volunteering in my field for the past six years. This is all people will give me around here, volunteer work! I go and apply to any places that are paying, I’ll get an interview if I’m lucky. Six years of volunteering and I still can’t get the fucking job! I’m sick of working for fucking free! This place is cursed, I swear. I went and got an education, took out student loans and now I’m fucked. I’d LOVE to go out west and put this fucking shit I’ve been going through to an end. But the only problem is, there’s not even any menial jobs that I can get around here to save money to go!! Can’t seem to get many restaurants or whatnot to bite either. I had one restaurant hire me but can’t give me near enough hours! I’m not taking out a loan to relocate, to put myself in more debt. Fuck you NS, I’m sick of getting the shaft around here over and over! —I Paid My Dues, Now I Want My Job
This article appears in May 17-23, 2012.
i guess you’re going for jobs you’re not yet qualified to do.
You don’t leave university expecting to get something above entry level.
I didn’t experience this problem. My guess is you either apply for jobs you’ll get hired for and blow the interview on the merits of your stellar personality or you’re applying for jobs that you are not yet going to get hired to do.. which is admirable gumption but still isn’t going to do you any good.
You’ll eventually figure out that you’re not the brilliant mind you still think you are. At which point you’ll take entry level like every other faceless grad out there.
In the workforce sweetie, education counts for about 20%. Experience is the other 80%. You can argue with me all you want. Your type always does. But take it from someone who DID get a job out of graduation and has been working her way up for going on three years now. It’s how it is.
I don’t like it either. But unless you’re a genius (and it doesn’t seem like you are) those are the rules.
Try maybe a call centre… as awful as they can be, just stick around for the paid training and then quit. There is more than enough call centres in Halifax to keep that going until you save up enough to get out. My brother as has a commerce degree but works at Tim Horton’s. Well, worked at Tim Horton’s. His baby mama had to go back to work as a teacher in PEI so I think he’s on EI or something now so he can take care of his son while she’s at work. Lovely system!
OB: There is never ‘NOT’ any options. Sounds like you were custom made for this:
http://www.forces.ca/en/job/logisticsoffic…
Seriously. Take the time and read it. They are currently hiring for these positions and if you already hold a degree from a recognized university, (which it sounds like you do), then you join under the Direct Entry program. Starting salary is almost $3500/month gross. Once you complete your required training and reach the top of your entry rank, that increases to $5518 gross/month! (Click on “pay scale” for more info.) And that’s just your first rank. It goes up as you progress.
Unless you’re medically unfit or you wrote your bitch from the confines of your residence courtesy of Corrections Canada, you should have little trouble signing up.
Call the recruiting office and ask questions. What have you got to lose?
You really try to push the forces, eh’ Avast? Are you on the inside?
What sucks, though, crayons, is that in some fields, even the ‘entry level’ jobs are being advertised to those who have experience around these parts.
When I was hunting, it was always frustrating to see jobs that you know new grads could and should be doing being advertised as requiring 2-5 years experience. And the salaries are ridiculously entry level! Thing *is* they do it because they can. I saw one job ad the other day with a job description that someone with 2-3 years experience could do for a salary of 35-40k…. THEY WANTED WITH SOMEONE WITH “7+ YEARS OF EXPERIENCE.” What. the. hell?
It’s wack around here.
I agree with OP.
that is all.
There is way to many educated people in nova scotia for what jobs there are in the place. If everyone has a university degree in something, and a ton of volunteer experience, thats what you need to even begin to think of getting your foot in the door.
I agree with Eats_Crayons. To the bitch: sounds like your expectations are higher than they should be. I graduated last year with a Masters and it took about 3 months to find a permanent, super-sweet ass job related to my field. Not bad. While my degrees were relevant to the hiring (ie. I’ll be promoted in a few months), it was really my earlier job experience in similar roles that got me the job. And luck. Mostly fucking luck. So hang in there or take off but the economy isn’t that bad; I think it’s a general shitty attitude, which is worse.
Captain, I can neither confirm nor deny your claim. Let’s just say I see ALL……(I’m on the roof with a pair of binoculars. WTF did you THINK I meant??!) BTW, you’re out of milk. lol
In all honesty, I just think it’s a great option for those who claim they “tried EVERYTHING” or “looked EVERYWHERE” and there is “NOTHING AVAILABLE ANYWHERE”…it’s all bullshit and 9 times out of 10, the recruiting website proves it.
Avast – after reading your 2 posts the fucking Village People song arrived, In the Navy?
PK So then take a call center job and build your portfolio on volunteer, freelance or plain old creating projects on your own time and peddling them as experience.
I did that and it counts.
lol Vic…I’m more the biker dude…when I let my moustache grow, that is. And I look fucking dangerous in black leather pants and jacket.
PLUS, I bought my first motorcycle last week! (Ring-a-ding-ding!) Now I gotta pay the taxes, get it insured and registered and inspected. Fuck! I’ll be down like $2 grand and I haven’t even gotten it on the bloody road yet! Legalized robbery, I tell ya.
I hear that… make/model?
getting mine out this week…
time to tear up some road.
Highest taxes and lowest pay in Canada… Jobs hard to find and weather is crummy 50% of the year—
Sounds like home! Sign me up! When can I move? Wait-the ship going between Mass and NS has been marooned in Bedford Basin for 3 weeks? WTF?
What I don’t understand is how it took you this long to figure out NS is a no future shit hole? Seriously.
2005 Yamaha V-star 1100, zZz. Got a great deal on it. I’m not a big cruiser fan but this was too sweet a deal to pass up. I just wanna ride already!!
I’m relegating myself to quiet back roads and empty parking lots for the first few weeks until I get the feel and my confidence built up a little higher than it is now.
You got a Honda, right?
jesus christ vastie…
an 1100 for your first???
for god’s sake don’t kill yourself! There’s power in that demon bike.
Yamaha doesn’t fuck around…take it slow and easy there buddy…
that looks like one beauty of a bike from the pics.
I’ve yet to venture in the city with my cb900 custom…
as you said, sticking to back roads and highway when necessary.
You have to REALLY LOVE TO RIDE to take the highway with no windscreen….
stick your head out the window while on the highway some time and you’ll see why.
hours of that can drive you batty.
we have a good sized parking lot, you could come and roar around in there…vroooom
Just because you might have gotten a good job in your field here doesn’t take away from the fact that this place sucks economically, hence people leaving in droves for better prospects like Montreal Toronto or Alberta. Sometimes I wish I had stayed in Montreal when I was 18.
Even if you get a job there’s no such thing as job security here because the minute you slip up there are hundreds of qualified people ready to take your job in an instant, often for less money. You wonder why the vast majority of people making even a half decent living are unionized.
What also drives me nuts is our public education system puts so much emphasis on going to university with little to no mention of trades or other ways to earn a living, we’ve been sold a dream. We need to bring it back to my parents time when you could take shop or auto in high school. Might help to alienate less kids who know early on, like I did, that university wasn’t for them.
and to maybe present other options to kids who might not see any other alternative to university, so they don’t end up like OP
I agree 100%, crayons — it’s just hilarious how employers rip employees off. Expecting years of experience for entry level or near entry level for shitty ass pay.
Luck has a lot to do with it too — most people just need someone to give them a break or to find the right combo of the right hiring manager for the right job at the right time.
Also: I have a sneaking suspicion that I *may* know you, crayons. Maybe.
vastie & egzzz drivin’ out here in the boonies !
Fuck.
Now to be safe i gotta stop driving my little 4cyl shit box & drive my gas guzzeling truck to be sure i’m safe on the roads out here ! ~;)
Actually guy’s some of the roads out here ( meadow bank or cooks brooke comes to mind) are in real bad shape, they look like jigsaw puzzels made with small pieces (with lots missing),
heading up the other way at exit 8 through the 9 mile , 9 m upper area & Noel are really bad, with places & shoulders …. like driving on marbles.
I wish i could go back and do it over again. I 100% agree that university is pushed as the only real option in high school. If i was coming out of high school now in the same situation i was in 7 years ago i would completely skip post secondary education and stay working at mcdonalds. By now i would of worked my way into a corporate job that would be paying me over double what i make no (and equal to what my highest earning potential is here) and i would of been able to skip the massive debt that i accumulated paying for an education that frankly i learnt squat form. Oh well it can’t keep going on forever.
“We need to bring it back to my parents time when you could take shop or auto in high school.” I’m not sure about anywhere else, but at the high school I went to we had a class called Tech Ed which was basically what you would call a “shop” class.
I remember that class… we made metal 5.25″ floppy disk trays…
what a ‘useful’ class that was.
/sarcasm
No arguments here…this town (yes town, Hfx isn’t worth being called a city) is so dead with quality work it’s sickening. If my kids weren’t so close to finishing school I’d be out of here in a heart beat. Don’t get me wrong, I love NS and all it offers from a quality of life standpoint but lack of quality employment and the high taxes make this a less than desirable place to live from a middle class point of view. I tried self employment for 7 years, worked my ass off with long hours but the raping by the government was unbelievable. So now I work for a company doing what I did 20 years ago for the same salary I made 20 years ago. In NS, if you aren’t born of the loins of some well placed Nova Scotian who gets a job because of what your last name is, then you are fucked.
It’s definitely true that the whole concept of “go to university, get a nice job” has been massively oversold. These days, trades are where it’s at. Learn one, make sure you got your sea legs, go offshore and make the big bucks. It’s hard work but it’s worth it.
Hell, in some places, ROV/AUV techies and pilots can _start_ at over $800 a day.
See, that’s the thing. For me, doing a trade would suck. I hate that kind of work, and all the money in the world wouldn’t make me do a job I hate. I’d rather be po’ as fuck than spend my life doing a job I hate day in and day out. That shit’s worse than death. So while that’s fine and dandy that there are a lot of jobs in the trades out there, I’ll stick to my current field.
And yes, I do have a job in a field related to my education.
I think the thing to remember here is, there are those of us who go to university and *gasp* get an actual job out of it! Most people eventually do. It just takes a while in a lot of cases and we tend to live in a world where the generation graduating from university is looking for instant gratification and quite frankly, isn’t willing to start at the bottom and work their way up. They want those high paying executive jobs NOW NOW NOW.
I’d rather do a job I hate day in and day out than be po’ as fuck…
Doesn’t help with my chipper attitude though.
And you can’t find a job you don’t hate because…?
Also, I should mention that in my current position, I’m *not* po’ as fuck.