Vent – “can’t even get a job at ____!”

I have to post a rant after reading some comments in a recent post, but honestly it comes up ALL THE TIME. The issue is people who are coming from a white collar, office, “career” background, that view a job in a retail (or restaurant, or grocery) as something that they should easily be able to obtain, and are shocked/disgusted/scared when they aren’t offered said job. “I can’t even get a job at Home Depot!”

Here’s the thing: those companies are looking for specific things that you, as a laid-off office worker, are NOT likely to have.

1. They’re looking for people who will stay for at least 6 months to a year. These hiring managers are judged on turnover, and have no interest hiring a person who’s going to jump ship as soon as they land their “real” job. They want to hire someone who sees Home Depot as the real job! It’s usually pretty obvious when applicants view the position as a temporary, stop-gap measure.

2. Relevant experience. If you haven’t worked this kind of job, then you aren’t experienced in it. For some reason office workers think that their years in finance or whatever should translate over to slicing deli meats. But you’re likely up against people who have done this work before and can speak to it in the interview.

3. Attitude. Like point number 1, when former career professionals DO get hired, they have a tendency to have a superiority complex that is not rooted in their current performance but in their past career. One example that stands out to me is a guy who filled online shopping orders and every time that he was coached on a mistake would rant about having a Masters degree. Who cares, dude? Your masters wasn’t in packing groceries. Just do a good job at what you’re actually doing, please. But there’s this constant need to inform coworkers, customers, etc about who they REALLY are. Sometimes it’s giggly and facetious, like “gosh this is all so new to me, haha! I was head of marketing and sales at my last job!” But it’s rare that someone can make the transition from their “real” career to what they see as a huge step down, and leave their ego behind. Meanwhile, everyone else there is at THEIR real job.

To work these kinds of jobs, you have to be really physically strong and tough. I can’t tell you how much I’ve softened up in the year and a half that I’ve gone from grocery to office! You’ve got to have customer service skills, teamwork ability, the willingness to work all kinds of hours and shifts, I could go on and on.

But so many people seem to think they should just be able to land one of these jobs just because they don’t pay as much, because they’re nominally ‘entry level’. But if my choice is between someone who’s been working retail for years and someone who hadn’t, guess who gets the job? Or between a new entrant to the labor market, who’s fresh and ready to learn,versus someone who has a chip on their shoulder and hadn’t ever worked a late Sunday night shift?