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Believe it or not, Wal-Mart and McDonald's are premium low wage work places that grab cream of the low wage work force, which you are not. The only advice I have - look for the bottom feeders among mom&pops operations, those folks prey on the most desperate of the desperates and you may get a job at the wages below minimum.
Why do even minimum-wage, entry-level service jobs, customer-service jobs, such as being a stock clerk, gathering shopping-carts, being an usher/ticket-taker, why do they give a crap about qualifications? why do they want to know what the prospective applicant has been doing with their life while being out of a job for a while?
Should learn to read and write before applying for a job.
Other people have already mentioned this so I don't understand why you felt the need to pile on the insults. Some individuals in this world might not be adept at writing, but they possess talents in other areas. I think we should focus on this second area to help out the poster.
To the OP: I think you should first work on your resume and make sure you have someone revise it for you. On the resume, you can include anything that you have done over the past 6 years which has been productive. Also, try physically going to the stores or restaurants you are interested in applying to and ask for a manager so he recognizes your face and knows you are interested in working. Don't give up because we are all talented in some way (I know it's cliche but I believe it's true).
Why do even minimum-wage, entry-level service jobs, customer-service jobs, such as being a stock clerk, gathering shopping-carts, being an usher/ticket-taker, why do they give a crap about qualifications? why do they want to know what the prospective applicant has been doing with their life while being out of a job for a while?
How many times have you repeated this particular rant on the forum? This mentality of yours is most likely not helping you.
Why do even minimum-wage, entry-level service jobs, customer-service jobs, such as being a stock clerk, gathering shopping-carts, being an usher/ticket-taker, why do they give a crap about qualifications? why do they want to know what the prospective applicant has been doing with their life while being out of a job for a while?
Stability and looking for the best applicant for the wage offered as long as you are not overqualified.
If I'm paying someone $10 an hour, about the minimum wage in SF, and have ten people apply for the job... how am I going to decide which "ONE" to hire out of the ten?
yeah well what am i supposed to do for money in the meantime.
listen- wherever you are, there is a community college close by. or a tech school. while you may THINK that you can't afford to go to school, you will definitely be eligible for grants. the pell grant pays 5500 a semester. a semester is around four months. so lets look at this.
i live in los angeles, a fairly expensive city. but the community college is CHEAP. VERY CHEAP. 46 dollars per credit hour CHEAP. so, as a full time student, you would be taking twelve credits. right? do the math. as a full time student at LACC, i get back about 3500 a semester. i am also eligible for other student programs that pay for your books, supplies, etc. my rent is cheap, so if i am careful and pick up odd jobs, sell stuff on ebay when i can, i can easily make it on that.
what i get is the pell grant. that is a federal GRANT. if you live in place that is cheaper than california, your cost per credit hour could be far lower. and a grant, you dont have to pay back. you only have to pay back loans. but that's something to worry about if you decide to go to a really, really good school that costs like 40,000 a month. i don't think you will have to worry about that for a while.
tech school is the same thing. you could go get a certificate in electronics, computers, something that would enable you in a year or less to get a better job than mcdonalds, for sure. if you live at home and don't have much of an overhead, you can save money while going to school and still have spending money.
be advised that schools do NOT turn your money loose til about a week after school starts. but you don't need to worry about having the book the first day of class. you can buy textbooks that cost 100 bucks in the college bookstore for five or ten bucks on amazon, so that saves you more.
you are 24, and you need to start thinking about building a future, not just making money in the short term. if you have access to your computer, there are LOADS of free classes online given by places like stanford, harvard, and MIT. you can download free textbooks on all sorts of subjects.
so school should definitely be in your top list of priorities. one reason they may not have hired you is that fact of your doing nothing for so long. you can't do nothing for a long time and then wonder why its tough to get back in the mix, or in the mix in the first place. but its never too late to start. panic is good. it brings change, and you definitely sound like you need a change.
Why do even minimum-wage, entry-level service jobs, customer-service jobs, such as being a stock clerk, gathering shopping-carts, being an usher/ticket-taker, why do they give a crap about qualifications? why do they want to know what the prospective applicant has been doing with their life while being out of a job for a while?
for a million reasons that you yourself would arrive at if you gave it some non-defensive thought.
you work with people. in most every job, you have coworkers. even a security guard who spends the entire night alone has someone come in to relieve his shift. and the safety of your coworkers and knowing that you are a reasonable person without a dark history is KINDA important in a team atmosphere. especially in fast food places i have worked at, you have to be able to work as a team. when it gets busy, it can be either like a well oiled machine or like an exploding rocket. generally, bosses like things to run smoothly.
people in menial jobs also have to be reliable. just saying "im reliable" isn't enough if you don't have some history to back it up.
also, alot of menial jobs involve handling cash. no one wants to hire someone who is going to clean out the drawer on the first day or worse. so a background check is for the safety of the money and your fellow coworkers. sucks to be at work and the newly hired floor sweeper turns on the whole restaurant and starts stabbing people with a shiv. if only they had done that background check maybe they would have found out that he was an escapee from a mental hospital......
another thing is, you are often working with the public. no one wants a ticket taker who has brutally assaulted someone and gotten thrown in jail, or stalked a coworker, or done time for violent offenses of any kind.
your character and your past do absolutely matter in any situation where you expect someone to give you money in exchange for your labor. if that didn't matter, they would just hire robots. or illegals who won't complain if they don't get paid or get paid below minimum wage and lose an arm in the hydraulic press at the laundry they work at.
Why do even minimum-wage, entry-level service jobs, customer-service jobs, such as being a stock clerk, gathering shopping-carts, being an usher/ticket-taker, why do they give a crap about qualifications? why do they want to know what the prospective applicant has been doing with their life while being out of a job for a while?
I agree with nighthouse. I also think that the OP's situation is a little different from what you describe above. It's not like he's been out of a job for a while. He's never had a job at all and he's 24. That's pretty unusual. I've met maybe one person in my life who was like that. The OP has dug himself into a hole by waiting so long to start working.
It's not really about qualifications or either. A high school student can easily get the jobs you mentioned, even with no work experience and no qualifications. It's about showing a prospective employer the things that nighthouse mentioned -- that you can function in society, that you're reliable, that you haven't just been in prison for the past 6 years.
I wouldn't even make any suggestions before knowing exactly why the OP hasn't had one single job since graduating high school several years ago - a question which he for some reason seems reluctant to answer and which is very relevant.
Since asking the simple question of what the OP has been doing for the past six years since high school graduation there has not been a further response from him.
There will be no further response.
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