Modulous writes:
Value doesn't come in 'kinds', as far as I can tell. Value is value. Things might be valued for different reasons. I might consider vaccine to be valuable. In which case I might walk 6 hours to get water that I can trade for the vaccine.
This means that there is no objective intrinsic 'value' to something. It depends on circumstance. But CF wants us to believe that there is no circumstances whatsoever in which one can obtain enough value in exchange for labour
Value is not value. There are degrees to value. Value means different things to different people. An employer might be looking for a specific "value" in something while the job seeker places a certain "value" on his "experinces" that the emplyer may not.
---
Hi mr employer, I have many valuable experiences
Like what?
Well, I volunteered before in a mechanics garage.
Great. Do you have any work experince?
No, but my volunteering is valube to me, that's why I brought it up.
Well, ok, but it's not valuable to me. The next guy applying for the position has actual work experience. Not even is this field, but it's work experince.
But if I can't find a job without experince how can I ever get hired then?
Good question. You might want to go get a job
anywhere even if it's not in your field so you can atleast gain some work experince. Show that you can show up, do the job they ask you, excell at it, etc.
---
There are two differnet types of value being talked about there. One might get you hired, the other might not.
You may want to buy a house some day. You're not going to get financed without any credit. You don't just get financed because you aspire to. You go get a credit card. A
real credit card. Not monoploy money. And from there, you build on it. With real things, that have
real value.
Value certainly is not just value. And if an employer is looking for a certain type of value then you better go get it or it's only valuable to you, and not the employer. A lot of people think their experinces are valuable, but it doesn't matter. If you want to buy that house, you need the kind of value the bank is looking for, not what
you think is valuabe.
You, Jon and Catholic Scientist' idea of value is being used to loosely.
Here's what Jon said:
Jon writes:
So long as the parties each get something of greater value to them out of the exchange than what they put in, they are both acting rationally.
Message 61
Then crashfrog said:
crashfrog writes:
And that something is... what, exactly?
Message 62
Jon writes:
Value, of course.
What else could it be?
Message 63
Then crashfrog said:
crashfrog writes:
So people would work for free because of the value of value?
Message 64
Jon writes:
Because of the value of what they get in returnexperience, college credit, references, networking, information, etc.
Message 65
crashfrog writes:
I asked you what they get in return, and you told me they get "value." Now you've given me a whole list, but let's look a little closer and we'll see how it makes no sense:
Experience - you can't get this from an unpaid job, because if you were getting experience that was relevant to a paid job, you'd be doing that job and they would be paying you.
Message 66
So Jon thinks value comes in many forms. But just saying that doesn't make it true. What kind of experience? What kind of value?
College credits? Where can you get college credits for doing unpaid work? You have to go to college. Then you have something valuable; a degree.
References? What kind of references? You can't just say these things to employers. And you also can't just say "I have the valuable experience of following a photograper around" and think that is somehow valuable to employers when someone else might have a
more valuable experience. If value was value then
everyone would have a job.
Information, etc? Is Jon saying information is valuable? In what sense? This is what needs clarifying. All of these things that are being said that somehow makes you more marletable. To who?
Modulous writes:
Now to the specifics of photography.
Jane is a pro photographer. But hates having to stop working to get coffee.
Sarah is a photography student who has no work to be interrupted.
So Sarah asks Jane if she can follow her around, if Jane will give her some advice on the business etc. And Jane asks Sarah if in exchange she will go get coffees a few times.
Jane benefits in that she doesn't have to be interrupted by her caffeine addiction.
Sarah benefits as she learns stuff that can be slow/difficult/expensive to learn by practicing photography.
CF seems to be arguing that it doesn't matter how much you are getting out of the exchange - it is irrational on two general grounds:
a) Sarah could find a pro photographer to do it for free so she shouldn't 'pay' for it.
b) Sarah's time could be better spent taking photographs etc.
Or, Sarah could always ask to be paid for helping Jane so then she has some real work experience. If Jane doesn't want to pay her, maybe Sarah should move on to the next photographer and stop wasting her time with Jane.
There are more than a few photographers out there that i'm sure would be willing to put someone on the books for in trade of some good assiting skills. Keep looking until you find that photographer or else go about it on your own and start taking photos and getting paid for it yourself. Why waste your time being an errand runner for no pay
or marketable experience?
Why is this such a strange concept to you guys?
Modulous writes:
That is, the kind of competence that can be gained through experience, which one can put on a CV/raise in an interview or whatever.
Yeah, it can be raised in an interview, for a few moments. It can be put under the "volunteer" section of the resume.
Hopefully, there is a "work experience" section on the resume too so the interview doesnt come to an abrupt halt at the idea of actually getting hired based on being competent enough to assist a photographer by volunteering to do so.
I'd rather start at the bottom anywhere so I can have some real work experince than hope one day an employer looks past my non-work experience section of my resume and decide to hire me based soley on my "volunteer" work. It seems a little risky to me.
quote:
The fact is that having experience helps getting future jobs. Starting a new career track can be difficult if you are competing with people with even as little as 6 months experience.
Modulous writes:
In what sense are they competing? In the job-marketplace of course. They are competing against people who have evidence of six months of experience (aka marketable experience).
Yeah, it's risky. It's not ideal.
Now - as to crashfrog's particular point 'you'd be doing that job and they would be paying you' I thought the counterpoint was obvious and implied, but maybe I'm wrong. But what if you were doing that job and they weren't paying you? Why would they not pay you? Because you don't have the competency to justify paying you. Why have you not got that competency? Maybe you're long term unemployed or seeking a job in an unrelated field from one you are experienced in.
So why waste your time working for free for someone then when it wont help you in competing against the ones
with marketable experience?
Any work experince is better than
no work experience. If someone wants to volunteer to try to get hired in a particular field then they are at a disadvantage. Do you agree?
Then
why do it? Because you're
hoping that somehow the employer will put as much "value" in that experince that
you put in it. Risky stuff and a possible big waste of time.
quote:
observe setting up shots, trade tips for quick colour balancing, will ask questions about exposure settings and learning the justifications for each. They'll learn how to approach clients and drum up business, how to sell their work, what work sells quick, what work sells high.
quote:
Start out by speaking to other professionals in the field. They are normally willing to give advice to individuals interested in their field. Besides if you speak to the right people they will tell you the pitfalls and upsides right from the start. Ask if you can follow them around for a day of work.
Modulous writes:
And so on.
Those are the kinds of reasons one might follow a photographer around.
Of course. If you are in the process of starting your own business this is valuable stuff. Tho if you are starting your own business you will need some finances. If you have those finances readily available then this will be no problem. If you don't, you will need to get a job, or ask the photographer to pay you for your services.
Modulous writes:
CS raised his example as an example of someone getting {an} experience relevant to a paid job - as an example of someone getting paid in something other than money.
Now granted, CF says he was specifically talking about marketable experience in that instance. But CS is quite clear he is talking about another kind of valuable experience, the experience of seeing a pro at work.
Yes,
crashfrog was talking about marketable experience to Jon and that is why it's a little perplexing what Catholic Scientist brought up about the photographer analogy that is
not marketable experience. That's why it should be clarified as to why he brought it up to crashfrog as a counter point when it doesn't apply to what crashfrog was saying. The analogy had no place in the discussion and it took over most of the thread.
Modulous writes:
The reason to bring the photographer example up? As an example of someone doing work in exchange for something of value that is not money.
Yes Modulous but
why was it brought up? Because Jon said unpaid work experinces can be of "value". Great. Now what? Just like you said, you are competing possibly with someone who has six months work experience. Are you going to suggest to the one who doesn't to go about and apply Catholic Scientists analogy for themselves? Do you think the is good advice? Or should they seek a photographer that will pay them for the
work they will be doing? Because like I said, if they are starting their own business, either they already have enough money, or they will need some.
This is what I don't understand. You guys are being completley unrealistic and not thinking this whole thing thru, it seems.
Modulous writes:
Even more to the point of the thread: It is my position that the long term unemployed face a certain barrier to gaining employment. That barrier is 'lack of recent marketable experience'. They may be in a Catch-22 situation of 'can't get a job to get experience because I don't have experience'. It may be of assistance for the long term unemployed to give them marketable experience by way of certain workfare schemes. Workfare often fails on a number of grounds: requiring too much work (making paid job seeking difficult) or not taking into consideration the difficulties faced by those with multiple barriers to employment.
Some things are just not going to be resolved Modulous. People will be unemployed. But if we are going about the best way to try to gain employment I think it best to try to gain some sort of work experience whether it is for yourself or someone else that you can put somewhere on your resume other than the volunteer section or bringing it up in an interview how you gained a valuable experience, while doing work in exchange for something of value that is not money or marketable that might not be at all "valuable" to that employer.
™ Version 4.2
(1)
