Quote:Original post by vrok137
Quote:Original post by way2lazy2care
Quote:Original post by VerMan
(18K/yr EUR with mid-senior tasks responsibilities, headaches, stress, etc, etc) |
dude that's close to minimum wage. That's pretty weak :-/ |
I can totally relate to the OP. IMHO small business is notorious in setting new lows when it comes to salary level vs. job responsibilities.
Around my area, small businesses (especially those that run a website/business application) flock towards the local universities in search of Computer Science/CIS students willing to perform demanding job tasks at near minimum wage. I figure they love this method of recruiting as it gives them a reason to give lower pay for nearly the same amount of work expected out of a full-time employee (under the argument that it's 'experience'), thus saving themselves money. Granted it’s not as horrible as child/3rd-world labor, but it’s definitely a demotivating factor for the average CS student with regards to future career prospects. |
Having been on both sides of that -- a college student working at such a job and a professional working with college students -- you should know that the bias is strongly in your favor as a student.
The tech employers generally pay more than your equivalent jobs. If you didn't get a job in a tech business, what would you do? How much money would you make flipping burgers, or working in a call center, or stocking shelves, or doing other non-technical work?
The employers are normally extremely generous when it comes to your hours. They will reschedule meetings (inconveniencing many people who make many times more money, at a cost far greater than your total pay) and adjust business plans to account for you, the lowliest workers. If you change your schedule for exams or finals they are often accommodating, sometimes at a cost to them. Since the tech jobs normally have daytime hours, they don't often require nighttime work; compare that with the many other jobs that will gladly hire you on the graveyard shift.
When it comes to evaluation they are often more generous in expectations. Often even though you are at work less than half the time of regular FTE workers, students are held to a lower standard during that time.
I've seen that the cost of hiring college students for tech jobs is often an immediate net loss financially. There are costs of training, the costs of additional supervision, the costs of reworking and correcting their errors, the costs of shuffling business needs to help them out. Businesses don't pick up college students to improve that portion of their bottom line.
Occasionally you will find a student who is a real gem. It isn't common, and it isn't the primary focus, but the rare random reward can make hiring students a very satisfying experience.
The hope isn't just that you will get experience, although it certainly is a part of it. The business choice for tech companies to hire students is really that they want to foster the community by encouraging new talent; in many ways it is an investment in the future applicant pool. We see hiring summer interns and part-time students as an investment in future talent and an investment in goodwill.
