To think this is a joke? Companies want so much for nothing

[ALittleCrisp]

Just seen two job adverts saying "Advanced Microsoft package skills is an absolute must".

The pay? £7.80 and £7.85 an hour

This country really has a problem.

Many office jobs are dreadfully paid. You can earn much more cleaning but because the UK has such a weird class based system, people view office workers as higher up the pecking order from cleaners.

If it’s for an admin role, then yes, I would expect enhanced IT skills even at entry level, compared with say a warehouse worker.

But then, I’ve worked with admin people who allegedly don’t do long lists of stuff (like minutes). I tend to be very specific in job descriptions now.

I get you ALittleCrisp but you are fighting against people who know nothing but just want to be contrary

The ones which bug me are the simple ads for 'admin assistant' and when you read the job description, they want someone with sales experience, someone with Sage experience, minute taking at meetings and team diary management for basic admin assistant pay.

I get you ALittleCrisp but you are fighting against people who know nothing but just want to be contrary

I think most people are saying it's a vague term, they are not citing any Microsoft certs not are they asking for developers have alluded to.

I don't know how you can say people know nothing.

Many office jobs are dreadfully paid. You can earn much more cleaning but because the UK has such a weird class based system, people view office workers as higher up the pecking order from cleaners.

That's because more people want admin jobs than cleaning jobs...

That's because more people want admin jobs than cleaning jobs..

Yes, that was my point in a roundabout way.....more people want admin jobs over cleaning because there's a stigma. People working in offices generally look smart and give off a vibe of success because they are behind a desk. But it's all smoke and mirrors.

plus you have a natural progression in admin job that you don't have in cleaning job. It's also more helpful to have office experience on your CV than cleaning experience, it opens you a lot more doors.
it's not all about stigma, it's also practicality .

To be honest the phrase "Advanced Microsoft package skills" isn't clear at all to me.

Do they mean the standard programs like Word, Excel, Power Point, Outlook and Access or are they talking Office 365 and expect the person to know OneNote, SharePoint etc. And even more what tasks do they consider advanced? What might be 'advanced' to them might not be 'advanced' to someone else.

In terms of pay, I think it depends on what they want them to do with the packages that would determine the salary.

My job advertised for someone with advance excel skills. When I came to the interview and they asked what excel experience I had. I started talking about pivots and if queries and lookups and tables and macros. To be met with blank stares. There idea of advanced excel was to be able to use the sum formula and probably a little conditional formatting.

^ that is a £7.80 job an hour.
My skills are not.

I think Microsoft need to clarify what is meant in their packages by intermediate and advanced

If it’s for an admin role, then yes, I would expect enhanced IT skills even at entry level, compared with say a warehouse worker.

But would you expect the same pay for the admin person as for the warehouse worker? Because the pay in the advert was the legal minimum, so definitely no more being paid for the skills asked for.

Pretty basic description, mandatory in my high school. Most people my age could fill this brief (23)

Yep, and them wanting 10 years experience for entry psitions with entry pay. Then they go on the radio whining that they cant get the people to apply.

YANBU

Advanced Microsoft package skills t me means the course i had to do for months with the resulting certificate. Yes it was eay to do but it still took ages.

I agree with those saying they probably don't actually mean Advanced skills or the skills would be listed. They most likely don't even know what advanced skills are.

I can do simple macros, pivot tables, nested functions and look ups etc, I am considered in our office The Advanced Excel user.....

I WISH!!!! I consider myself a fairly basic user but that is because I realise how much more excel can do.

There is an idea that office work is thought of as more respectable than retail isn’t there? Because office administrators generally don’t work weekends, nights or bank holidays and get to sit down at work. Or something!

Years ago, I worked in retail as a student. I always remember office workers coming in the store at lunch times with their work lanyards on, heels and “office workwear” (probably from Next!) and feeling envious of them!

Over a decade ago, I remember in my town, basic office admin paid around 18k-20k I think the NMW was around 12k.

Yet in 2019, office admin (outside London) often pays less than 20k yet NMW is more like 15k today.

In terms of current school leavers due to Gove's insistence that IT doesn't matter only CS you will find there is a massive IT skills shortage about to happen.

A PP mentioned about ECDL - this is no longer running as it was suddenly withdrawn from being able to be reported on Progress 8 league table measures, students now have to follow a computer science curriculum (with a very small traditional IT aspect) in KS1-3. I have had in the last couple of years yr7 students who can annotate a block of code but do not know the very basics of Word, never mind anything else - they do know how to use Snapchat .

There are very few IT qualifications available for schools now and every IT teacher at the time shouted as loudly as possible about what would be the result of these measures but we were ignored as apparently everyone knows how to use IT

year 7 students who can't even type a capital letter without hitting caps lock

Do you know we have to pay so much as a business

Insurances
Wages
Pensions
Taxes
Pay for business banking
Accountants

Every little thing a business has to pay for. It’s so hard. And so frustrating when you work your socks off and have to pay all this out.

Id be grateful for that opportunity if I was looking for work.

I earn £35k driving a recycling lorry! I'm amazed how low paid some office work is.

13 months ago, so fairly current, I applied for a job at a local computer firm.
Basic skills required (according to the advert) were for someone to build PCs and carry out repairs.
Went for the interview and was fairly confident that with 10 years experience I would be a suitable candidate.
Actual job requirements started with basic PC stuff - no problems. Then went onto Linux setups - a little bit more knowledge required but still straightforward. Then we got to the point where the firm was expecting Server commissioning / installation skills as well. Sorry but at that point I would be expecting a little more in the pay packet than the 25 pence above minimum the company was offering.

You can earn much more cleaning but because the UK has such a weird class based system, people view office workers as higher up the pecking order from cleaners.

This is totally my experience.

The looks I get walking around in my yellow hi viz mean that I usually remove it on my breaks. I've actually got a degree and spent 15 years in business development roles, most recently managing contracts and proposals for a FTSE company. I was on a comparable salary but the pressure and corporate bullshit was grinding me down.

Nowadays I just pull over and get a cheeky pasty/coffee if I'm feeling a bit tired. Zero stress and when I turn the engine off my day is over (well, I do sometimes have to clear a cup or salad box from the cab and put it in the bin, but I usually get my driver's mate to do that lol).

*Every little thing a business has to pay for. It’s so hard. And so frustrating when you work your socks off and have to pay all this out.

Id be grateful for that opportunity if I was looking for work.*

Classic example of a piss poor employer attitude who shouldn't be in business, resentful of having to actually pay people to do work. How entitled can you get? Employers like this deserve utter shite employees because they feel like they're doing someone a bloody favour by paying them for the skills they have and feel hard done by for the fact that people expect paid for work they do. So do it yourself then!

London pay is different isn’t it.

Several years ago I had a (very easy and laid back) job as an office manager on around 30k. Then I was an PA in banking earning nearly 40k. Today there are hundreds of those kind of jobs in London paying 30-50k.

Yet outside of London I’ve seen many secretarial jobs paying under 20k. That’s the NHS, Civil Service and smaller businesses too. The council and university here pay secretarial jobs 22-24k. Admin is more like 17-20k. Although I’m in an area with some of the lowest salaries in the UK.

“Id be grateful for that opportunity if I was looking for work.”

REALLY?

What next? Employees paying for the honour of working themselves to death for you?