I am looking for an in person job, I freelance and am comfortable but miss having a set routine. First off she got the interview time mixed up, so I called her 10 minutes after the scheduled start time because I was going to go back to bed if the interview was cancelled.
I interview well, but she didn't make the job sound all that attractive. She really emphasized how it was chaotic and nonstop paced. I of course said that wasnt a problem. Then she got to the point of mentioning, the position paid less than a dollar more than the local minimum wage. I was kind of pissed because I am only applying to positions that pay above a certain amount hourly, if this pay rate had been in the job posting I wouldn't have bothered applying.
I straight up told her “No offense to you because I know you don't set the rates and you are just the messenger from HR, but I could literally make that with a job at McDonald's that I care absolutely nothing about. Isn't that basically the minimum wage in the county? If this was a comfortable front desk position that might be acceptable, but the way you have described the job, it doesn't sound like you want a minimum wage effort. After taxes that wouldn't even be enough to cover rent and all my other basic bills.”
The beautiful thing about minimum wage jobs is how little care the employees actually have about them unless they are just misguided and young, because the rest of us know we can always just pick another one. But if you are going to advertise a more technical and traditionally professional position but only pay minimum wage you don't deserve employees or a business.
I am pretty sure this employer has an incredibly high turn over rate because she did ask about my freelance position which I've been doing less than a year, in what I felt was an inquisitive but predatory way. I happily told her it pays significantly more than minimum wage and was actually completely remote, in addition to not having a set schedule. I politely told her, it's actually a wonderful job I plan to continue doing, I just want to return to the office instead of working from home, but that I was in no way desperate for a different job.
Btw it goes without saying that minimum wage should and needs to be a living wage.