Has anyone noticed an increase in ridiculous job postings? As in: jobs that seem to be looking for senior level roles at very junior levels of pay, or temp/contractor jobs that seem kind of fishy?
There’s one currently on stylecareers right now: a remote role at Vervineus (when I googled them there is nothing)- looking for a senior level designer to design a whole collection of apparel, footwear and accessories. This including sourcing fabrics, making patterns, costing, tech design, tradeshows, fittings, overseeing sample development and managing marketing. Whew! And the pay for this jack-of-all trades genius? $30/hr… for 30 hours a week, for 6 months.
Besides the fact that footwear is a totally different animal than apparel, this whole posting seems EXTREMELY fishy to me. Does anyone else feel this way?? (I get that potential/start up “companies” have every right to post jobs as they want, on stylecareers, indeed, etc… however, I also feel that this website is for us to discuss things like this to warn each other).
Yeah, this company is totally a start-up and has very little experience, if any, in running/staffing a fashion company. Super-nice people BUT really naive.
Yes, let’s face it, the entire industry has imploded! I am seeing design director jobs posted for hourly salaries! Salaries in general have gone way down, and most companies are expecting much more assistant type work from senior levels, its very disheartening. I know the pendulum will swing back eventually but this has been a long and difficult road.
A lot of job postings ask for all kinds of expert skills for minimum wage compensation. Let’s be real, you get what you pay for. Wrapping up all the functions into one role and trying to pay the lowest salary possible usually won’t get the best results, especially when there are high expectations. But some companies try to keep headcount really low or only do part-time or short-term, temporary contracts because they don’t want to shell out for benefits. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t some start-ups or small companies that really don’t have the resources to hire a solid design & development team, (if you get the right people it only takes a few) but maybe they should realistically assess what they want to accomplish & balance that against what they can afford as far as headcount and skills. And yes, a job description that asks for too much in return for too little should be a red flag. As far as “assistant- type work”: a lot of “design jobs” in companies that have PLM systems- and most do- rely heavily on data-entry: flats & revisions in Illustrator, garment specs, uploading photos & entering fit comments, calibrating print strike-offs and lab dips etc. Very tedious and time-consuming, and not much creativity involved except for the few who are the decision-makers.
It’s the entire industry. I’ve interviewed for sales positions that are not considered “SR” level but the work and analytics are definitely only someone at a sr level could handle or be able to do. The pay is off by off $20 thousand or more dollars for the type of person they really need to hire.
Yes, that Vervineus post seemed extremely fishy to me as well. Companies really need to step outside themselves and look at how they are viewed to someone not familiar with their company.
I’ve had a number of interviews recently and companies seem shocked, SHOCKED! that a senior tech designer with 10-15 years expertise in the area they are looking for is requesting a salary of $100k+. One of them even had the balls to interview me multiple times, leave me hanging, reject me only when I followed up a few times (I call that rejecting myself :)), THEN invite me back to interview a few months later, pull the same ghosting game again, and finally told me they couldn’t pay what I’d requested as a salary 6+ months ago (in the first interview of the first interview round) and they were going for a lower level position for $60-70k. They wanted an expert the first time around, someone who could handle it all by themselves. Do you think they’ll get that with 5 years experience?
I get the salary negotiation game, I want the highest number and you want to pay the lowest. But companies need to realize that if you fish around for the absolute LOWEST salary you can pay, you will get the worst applicants. But, I’m not the one hiring and dealing with that
I’ve been having the exact same same issue since losing my job a few years ago. Nothing pays what I used to make or even close—if I even get to the interview stage—which I don’t often because recruiters ONLY look at your last role. In my case it’s retail sales because I had to pay my bills and it was the best I could do at the time. So I am told that my 20+ years of experience in footwear supply chain and materials is worthless as a result of being out of the industry too long, even though I’ve been trying from day one to get back in. So beyond frustrating.
The thing is, the current generation, fresh out of college, often with advanced degrees will work for that little and tell recruiters they can do anything. Recruiters are jack of all trades and masters of none—they cannot see through the ego and often only send hiring managers their filtered candidates. They’ve thrown out most with legit experience because they’re too expensive or aren’t the purple unicorn that fits the job description precisely. And then companies wonder why new hires so seldom work out. SMH.
My sister started recruiting herself on LinkedIn for this reason. She would let HR do their thing but then make a post asking people to message her directly if they were interested. She has the best team now. I just wish all hiring managers would do this!
I have noticed recently this year- the assistant/associate designer salaries ate went up a lot- up to 75K and designer salaries went up to 90K(obviously this case is more like senior role;but pay is in designer)
somehow senior/director job salary seemed lowered a lot.
Am I the only one who felt this way?
Id reather do 2 jobs of associate designer making more money thab me being a design director doing designer+director 2 persons job right now.
I don’t think it’s just NYC… it’s LA/West coast too… it’s more about what BRAND you work for… and how much they appreciate/respect design and development people. (Sadly, that’s not always the case)
