Ask me why I'm scrolling on TikTok today and I see this girl talk about how she just graduated from a master's degree program and she's been applying for jobs she's been interviewing. Why are all of those jobs offering twenty dollars an hour? That's not even really a livable wage, Like, don't get me started on the myth that is minimum wage. But it sparked a sense of rage
in me. And if you follow me on TikTok, you already saw what I had to say about it, that companies love to take advantage of people and they love to pay you less than what you're worth. And that's what's inspired a bit of a sassy start to twenty twenty four. Also, Happy new Year, Welcome back to the show. My name is Emily Durham. I'm the host and producer of the show. And friendly reminder, if you want to support and continue to see this four year old podcast, grow,
make sure you're leaving a rating and review wherever you're listening. It takes thirty
seconds. I can wait, all right, And today I really want to talk about well generally, I just want to talk because I love speaking to you and I'm Italian, but I want to talk about the myth of higher education and how it relates directly to the myth of making more money from getting that higher education, and generally just talk about why it feels like companies are paying so little and asking for so much, and most importantly, at the
end of the episode, we're going to talk about what you can do to safeguard yourself against some of these weirdos with beirdo's. You know what I'm saying. So let's hop right on into it. Grab your coffee, get comfortable, let's talk careers. Before this episode, I googled why do companies pay so little? Not because I don't know the answers, but because I was really curious as to what news outlets would say about this, and no surprise,
most of the articles, particularly from very reputable organizations. I'll talk about how it's all about demand and supply. People are getting masters in low demand fields, naturally to pay is a little bit less. There don't know if I entirely agree with that, because if you look at the job postings for a lot of these positions, one of the examples that came up was like in the museum or hospitality industry. They are asking for a master's degree.
Some of them are even asking for a PhD. So I think it's really interesting that we're kind of spun this lie that, well, if you get higher education, you'll have access to higher jobs, and I guess that part is true, but what they don't tell you is that you're actually not going to get compensated more for all of this additional work and frankly experience that you have gotten as part of your by by way of your education. So I
want to start off there. I don't really buy into that whole demand supply myth, but I'm no economics major girl, so you know, feel free let me know if you disagree. In the DMS, I always want to hear that what I think is happening and what I'm seeing is happening is a direct response to a post pandemic workforce. In twenty twenty, we experienced something
called the Great Resignation. I've talked about this a bunch over on YouTube as well, but it was basically this phenomenon where so many people were quitting their jobs, jobs that they historically had loved and enjoyed because they realized they were being taken advantage of they weren't getting paid enough frankly to be working through a pandemic, and work from home actually meant that more people ended up working way
more hours out they're frustrated, they realize frankly, none of these companies given shiit about me, So I'm going to quit. And that's what we did. How organizations and Corporate America ended up reacting was saying, Okay, well, we've got this global pandemic, so from a health and safety perspective, we need to work remotely. But there's this growing demand for workplace flexibility, so let's introduce remote work. And while we're at it, let's raise the
base pay in salaries that we're offering people to entice them to work. Especially in tech. We saw this like salaries were higher than I've ever seen. I was negotiating with candidates for salary ranges that I never thought we'd be talking about. Like it's skyrocketed. So what's different now? Why is that not the case. Well, for starters, we're no longer in insert air quotes
here a pandemic world. So we're starting to see companies who have allowed people to work from home start to encourage people to come back into the office via hybrid or being totally back on site. I could make a whole other episode about why that is. Spoiler alert, it's not to drive company culture. It's because they are paying for that office space. But that whole other shmag
I'm not going to get into that. But they're basically saying, Hey, remember that nice, sexy, little work from home gig you had, baby, bring it back in the office. And on top of that, economic times are tough. I guess I can't give you a raise this year, won't want like. That's where we're at, so much more complicated than how I've just boiled it down to. But essentially, there is a lot of
turbulence from an economic perspective that's being taken into account. But largely the power dynamic has shifted and the power is no longer in the hands of candidates. It's in that of the employers. So they're a bit more rigid with some of their requirements. The job market is not quite fruitful. There's not that big tech boom we saw a couple of years back, and things are leveling
out and compensation is part of that. So the jobs that, yes, if you had a master's for you'd be making one hundred and fifty k a year. Suddenly it's one hundred and forty. Maybe it's one hundred and thirty five, or maybe it's one hundred and fifty k, but you're not eligible for a raise over the next three years, which ultimately isn't getting the bank for your buck, especially if you pursued higher education. And that's it.
End of the episode. Guys, just kidding. Okay, So now we have a little bit of context on why employers do this, and this is unbelievably high level. There's a whole bunch of other reasons. Obviously, companies want to make money, and part of that is cutting costs. Unfortunately, sometimes that does come into effect when we're looking at your compensation. But you
know, neither here nor there. What I'm most concerned about is how do we make sure that you're getting the most bang for your buck as you're applying for jobs. The first thing I want to talk about is that notion of higher education. There's no such thing as wasted education. And if you're somebody who loves school and it's important to you as a person to have a master's or a PhD or whatever, it might be go for it if you're on
the fence. My personal recommendation get into the workforce first, because you're actually really likely to find a company who's willing to pay for you to go to school. A lot of major companies have this where if you're getting a master's or an MBA, or maybe just like want to take a couple of extra classes if it's relevant to the field you're in, they're going to pay for a bestie. So why would you pay when they could pay you to go
to school? Why would we do that? The other thing I will consider is, or I would have you consider rather, is do a lot of research on what job requirements look like in the field you're looking for. Like I said before, I don't really buy into this whole like demand and supply people only get masters in these low paying areas. But I will say do a little bit of research. For example, having a master's in human resources is not going to fundamentally change my compensation. And let's say it is like
a ten thousand dollars salary increase. Am I really making money if I just spent all of that money on my masters? So do your research on what average salary looks like with and without a master's and do research on what the requirements are for entry level or whatever level you're at positions in the industry that you're hunting for. One second, the sweet sounds of Toronto are hitting us. Did y'all hear those sirens? All right, we'll keep the party going.
Other thing I want you to do when I spoke about this in my TikTok video a couple of days ago, when I found that girl's TikTok, make sure you're doing research on the salary range before you interview, because there's nothing worse than getting into an interview with a company who's not going to pay you what you want, Okay, So make sure you're doing that research.
You can either explicitly ask, and it is totally appropriate to do that, or you can hit a website like blind or fish Bowl or Glassdoor or Reddit and get a sense of what those salary expectations really are. The next thing that you need to do is free yourself from the pain of trying to hit
every single job requirement. And I'm not saying this is the case for the girl who posted this video, but if you're applying for a job and it's asking for five years of experience and a master's and you don't have a master's and you have four years experience, but you're reading the job description, it's still an entry level role that you're confident you could do. Still apply.
Fun fact, a lot of people don't apply for positions and take themselves out of the race and out of the running before the recruiter is even telling you that you're not qualified. And this is particularly true for women. So women tend to only apply for jobs when they feel they meet eighty percent of the qualifications for the role, whereas men will more than likely apply if they feel they meet thirty percent. So for the lot of this, yeah, these
are companies making things really difficult. Sorry, if you hear Binkie in the background, Homie is very passionate about salary because he eats all of mine. But basically what you need to focus on is can you still apply for that job? Like, give yourself a fair shot of putting yourself forward for these roles and see how the cookie crumbles, because nine times out of ten, these companies will post, oh I want an MBA, I want a master's,
and they're willing to hire someone without it. At the end of the day, though, if I could cure capitalism, baby, I would because I think it's absolutely berserk that these companies are comfortable paying you slightly above minimum wage for sixty thousand dollars masters like, it is insane. It is crazy.
My biggest piece of advice is be picky in your job application process, and if you're struggling to get those interviews and start having those conversations, I have a whole bunch of other content that's designed to help you get there. So if you're struggling to even get your foot in the door and you're thinking, do I need to accept less in terms of salary, don't do that. I don't want you to take a job just for the sake of taking it. Let's get you into the right company. So We've got a whole
bunch of content on my YouTube channel and on the podcast for this. But yeah, I just had to talk about some dollars and cents because I think it's pretty wackdoodle how these companies are operating, and having context can help you make right decisions for you, and it's a great idea for you to get a sense of what is the salary range that's realistic for the company that you're working for or for the industry that you're working in, so you can make
decisions around that. But all to say, hold off on getting your master's bestie and make someone else pay for unless you find like a very rich partner who wants to do that for you, and I support that as well. It's a good business decision. I hope this short but sweet episode was enjoyable. I so appreciate you. I'm back and better than ever For twenty twenty four, I have a year of kick ass, killer content, so much cool stuff coming out. And as always, if you have questions you want
me to answer on the show, click that link in the description. I get to those every single week and I'll talk to you next Sunday.