Here is an excerpt from a stupid-long job posting full of BS, but the only “relevant” part is this crap from the very end:
“Required skills and Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) in graphic design, art, or related field preferred.
Exceptional creativity and innovative design skills
Motion Graphic experience preferred but not required.
Excellent communication and presentation skills
Organizational and time-management skills for meeting deadlines in a fast-paced environment
Pay depends upon experience.”
Let's break this down…
Required skills and Qualifications – “Required” already implies a sense of employer entitlement. Remember – “Beggars can't be choosers”. This is some type of creative job. Maybe they know or have heard of the “starving artist” trope, and are seeking to exploit someone they perceive to be like this. The heading says required”, but later they use the softer word “preferred”. Using the hard language first shows they're probably inflexible and heavy handed in other ways.
Bachelor's degree, etc – I touched on this already, but workers MUST demand higher pay. Everyone from lenders to merchants raise their rates & prices, unchallenged. Workers absolutely HAVE TO do the same, or be stuck with crap exploitation another few decades. Charge for your time and your degree (you know you were certainly charged for it!) like your life & financial survival depends on it. It does. Yeah, someone else may undercut you. Big deal. The point is, kindly but firmly make your point. Once more people catch on, employers WILL learn their lesson that “costs of labor” go up, too.
Exceptional …skills…. – Yeah, well PAY better be “EXCEPTIONAL” also. Quit asking for the moon, employers. Again – this teeks of severe entitlement. But I can almost guarantee this job only pays like $17/hour, which is only $2 above most minimum wage.
*Excellent….skills… – See above. Pay better be “excellent” as “you get what you pay for”, employers.
Time management, Deadlines, Fast paced – Here's where they show their hand. This is the BIGGEST RED FLAG for a toxic work environment (legal term). They've already showed they're entitled mindset asking for the moon, and here they show they're going to most likely threaten your long term health via stress. Follow the science, it's real. They better provide health insurance.
And finally,
Pay depends upon experience – HAHAHA That can be easily calculated vs student loan payments & living expenses. Everybody knows this is just a cheap cop out to see how much they can low-ball you during interview, probably by asking illegal questions to see if you're susceptible to lowballung, being taken advantage of, bullying and illegal questions “about you”. They probably already have your address, so any info you volunteer or reveal, such as your church volunteering (religion) or upbringing (financial bracket), ANYTHING having to do with social media, etc – is just usually a way for them to get your answers to illegal questions without them going through the formality of asking.