Jeff the Great Cuts Your Pay

I know the economy is bad and unemployment is higher than its been in decades. Is it so bad though that companies think they can pay half of what people are worth? I mean, don't you still have to pay to get and retain talent?

Case in point: some recent job listings I came across today (no, I'm not looking). The first is a "Financial Modeling/Excel Wizard" at an self proclaimed professional business planning firm. They essentially need someone to build Excel proforma financial statements to help clients raise capital. They'd prefer a CPA or an MBA that had a finance focus.

The pay you ask? Try $30,000 a year. Don't fret, after 90 days they will bless you with a 5% raise if you deserve it! Once last thing, they make it very clear that they will not pay for your parking!

The second job I stumbled upon is a Project Manager for an "established website design" firm. They want you to have strong communication skills, have great organizational skills and to be familiar with internet technologies. Your job will be to make sure that they stay on task, on time and on budget.

They key to this job is that they specifically say "Project management experience is not required" but a 4-year college degree would be nice. I'm serious folks, you can't make this stuff up!

The pay on this one? A whopping $26,000 a year folks.

Do these companies really think they can hire good people for this type of pay? Do they understand that people go to school for an MBA so that they can make more than they did without the degree? Thirty thousand dollars a year is $15 an hour. I've known 18 year old's that make $15 an hour.

Here are the direct links if you'd like to check out the jobs on your own (note, the content probably wont be on Craig's List for long so don't be surprised if the links don't work a week after I write this):

Financial Modeling/Excel Wizard- $30,000/yr
Project Manager- $26,000/yr

Happy job hunting!

-Jeff the Great

Jeff the Great Raises $1 Billion for Nike!

If you didn't pay very close attention to the business news this week, you may have missed a substantial story.

Nike has filed papers that outline their plan to raise approximately $1 billion in cash....very soon.

What makes this really interesting is that Nike is already flush with cash. Their latest quarterly report shows just shy of $2 billion in cash and equivalents. If I am not mistaken, they are adding to their coffers every quarter.

So why do they need to raise their envious cash positions from $2b to $3b? Sit down for this one: rumor is the are putting together an offer to buy rival Adidas (which owns Reebok).

This is going to be fun to watch! If the Adidas rumor is just that and untrue, Nike must have something else BIG up their sleeve. Stay tuned!

-Jeff the Great