- Job hunting sucks.
And to prove it, I analyzed 5,000 job listings
to figure out just how much experience you need
for an entry level position.
Must be a college Grad
with a minimum of 20 years experience
in the business world.
Let me explain.
- [Announcer] Thank you to Skillshare
for sponsoring this video.
- All right.
So, I'm a YouTuber now,
but for the longest time
I thought I was gonna work a 9-5 job,
so I did all of the things I thought I needed to do.
I studied math and finance.
I joined business clubs at university
and I ran through the gauntlet
of every new grad job opportunity out there.
It was humiliating,
it was exhausting
and honestly,
it just sucked butts.
Butts.
(chuckles) Sorry.
If you haven't been job hunting recently
here's what it's like.
- Here's the resume you asked for.
- Cool. Thanks.
So where'd you go to school?
- It's on my resume.
- Any relevant work experience?
- Oh,
this is an entry level job, right?
- Yeah, That's why we're just looking for like
3-5 years of relevant work experience.
- I don't have that.
- I... - well, you'll hear from us.
- And then you never hear from them.
And I know I'm not alone on this
because I asked you guys on Instagram
what your biggest job hunting frustrations were
and...
(sighs loudly)
There were a lot of them.
Besides being completely dehumanizing,
the biggest complaint that I saw was the notion that
you needed work experience to start working.
It doesn't make sense.
It's like the chicken and egg problem on capitalism.
But is it true?
Today in this video you and I are going to figure out
how much experience you really need to start working
and why that's even a thing.
(soft rock music)
Okay. I need data.
So what I'm gonna do is borrow some entry-level job postings
without permission
from a website that rhymes within
bid.
Yep. That works.
But jobs have locations.
So in order to make this video
as applicable to you as possible,
I'm going to be using a standardized distribution
of the top three English speaking countries
that watch these videos.
So that is the United States,
the United Kingdom
and Canada
sorry Australia,
you didn't make the cut.
It also says that at 54.5% of y'all watching this
probably aren't subscribed.
So,
you should do something about that.
Anyway, if my goal is to analyze 5,000 entry level jobs
that means I need,
(sighs)
(keyboard clatter)
Future Sabrina, can you do this?
- I did it.
All right, let's start.
So I'm doing a thing called web scraping.
It's pretty easy.
It's just time consuming
for the nerds watching I'm using Python,
Selenium and Beautiful soup
as well as a VPN because
I don't want my actual IP address to get blacklisted.
What if I need to get a real job?
Anyway, for the non nerds,
here's the gist.
Every webpage is made of these little containers
that hold the information.
I tell my code what containers to look in
to get what I need.
Then it sucks up that information like a little vacuum.
Okay.
So, that's just gonna run in the background.
Hopefully it doesn't fail.
Anyway, while I'm gathering all of the data
to figure out how much work experience "you need"
to start working.
I figured it was high time to start
on the second part of my question
why?
what is the reason?
we can't use that too many videos in a row.
What is the reason to expect experience
for an entry-level job?
(upbeat music)
I learnt two things.
First, the attitude of people writing about job hunting
is terrible.
Here's some of the stuff they said
New college hires are like toddlers
they know a bunch of stuff
but not how to put it all together.
Someone coming straight out of college
with zero years of experience is going to be a dud
a complete waste of time.
Not a human being apparently.
And like the articles that promise tips
on helping out in the job hunt,
they just call people lazy
and shame them for not being successful.
Like the whole industry around trying to get a job
seems to forget that people
are people who are just trying to survive under capitalism.
I'm so tired.
Anyway, second thing.
I did find a few articles that outlined the logic behind
why Entry-level jobs would expect any experience at all.
However, it is largely based off of anecdotes
from people who work in HR or survey data.
So take all of this with a grain of salt.
- [Narrator] Here are three reasons why entry-level jobs
might expect experience.
First, screening.
It's the same reason why college applications
expect standardized test scores in personal essays.
The more comparable data points employers have
the easier it is for them to filter for top candidates.
while not always the best measure
having relevant and recent experience
usually doesn't hurt.
Second, cost reduction.
The faster an employee can get to work
the faster they can start making employers money.
People with less experience may need
more time to learn not only the specific skills of the job
but also what is expected of them in the workplace dynamic.
Finally, non-existence,
there's a fair argument to be made
that our popular understanding
of entry-level work doesn't align
with the reality of what's available
with traditional entry-level work
being automated or outsourced
many base level jobs expect a higher degree of skill
that education alone does not prepare you for.
So, employers just jump ahead
and ask for people with experience.
Regardless,
the expectation of work experience,
consistently served as shorthand
for the employer's convenience,
not a hard rule.
If you satisfy most requirements,
believe in your competence and want the job,
then it's worth applying anyway.
The worst thing they can say is no
or ghost you.
- So those were just some reasons why
entry-level jobs might expect experience
but the question remains.
How much?
That's what this spreadsheet is for.
It's not the most impressive spreadsheet I've ever made
but you know,
I'm doing my best.
Anyway, this contains the 5,000 jobs that I scraped.
Just the word of warning.
This is recent data.
So it might not be fully representative of more
precedented times.
However, here's what I found out
of 5,000 entry-level job postings.
12% expected prior experience.
Of those jobs, only 15% expected 3-5 years of experience.
In fact, the vast majority of jobs that require experience
preferred only about one to two years.
But however,
there was this one bankers job posting that said,
'Must be a college Grad
with a minimum of 20 years experience
in the business world."
What does that even mean?
Anyway,
the most common jobs
that don't mention experience were in retail and service.
While the ones that do were usually office jobs
or work that required more technical expertise.
So, how much experience do you need to start working?
Well, if you want a job,
period.
You're willing to accept anything.
You don't really need experience,
or at least that's what the job listings say.
However, if you want a job
that's more traditionally considered "a career",
then you're gonna need at least one year under your belt.
Preferably two.
Why that happens can be for a number of reasons.
But one thing is true.
It's a bummer,
because as you know,
we live in a society
and so people need to work to live.
For most people,
their job is their main source of money.
So it directly impacts their quality of life.
And every time we increase the barrier to entry for work,
we push people away.
For example,
consider gig work.
By definition,
it is temporary.
It comes with all of the risks
and none of the health insurance.
I asked some of you why you take on gigs
and the top reason wasn't
"I wanna be my own boss".
It was low barrier to entry.
People need money now.
So they'll take the job they can get.
And listen, I know what some of y'all are about to say.
Of course we need barriers to entry.
Businesses have valid reasons supply and demand
sToNkS
but shut up for a second.
right?
Because I don't believe that that is a good enough reason
for humanity to dedicate so much of its existence
to maximizing higher ability.
Is that,
is that crazy to say?
Is that wild?
Like we're told do well in school
so you can get into an even better school.
And that stamp
from that better school will get you a better job.
That's like 10 years of your life
and economics aside.
I think that that
is silly.
And I don't have a pretty bow to tie up this video.
I had a question
and I found the answer
that everybody expected.
However, I do have one thing to say
just one request for the people on the other end
of all of these terrible job portals.
And it's this,
can you please just tell us if we don't get the job?
You already have our emails.
Just say you didn't get it instead of ghosting.
Is it that hard?
I'm done
(laughs)
- Hey there,
I hope you like that video
if you did consider sharing it with a friend
it is easily the biggest way
you could support this channel right now.
You may also like these videos we made answering
why things are the way they are
like why your parents text weirdly
or why conspiracy theories are so easy to fall for.
Let's stick around for a second
because we are thanking Skillshare for sponsoring this video
and I'm gonna do it
while balancing on a spinning chair.
Call me a Daredevil.
- In case you didn't know
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If you're anything like me
and you feel like you have too much to do
and too little time
you should join me in taking
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Where you can build a truly custom system that works.
My favorite lesson is getting better at email.
I am so bad at email.
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Why is it making the sound?
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so, you can explore your creativity.
But either way,
I do a full rotation here.
Have a lovely day.
(upbeat music)