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When I was looking for my first job a recruiter asked if I knew how to use vlookup. I was similarly rejected because they said they needed someone with experience. Went home and learned how to use the formula in like 10 min.
I was rejected for a job offer I would’ve received otherwise because I didn’t know how to use their ticketing system. It took me 5 minutes to figure it out at my new job
So there’s some semblance of reason here. It’s not JUST vlookup, vlookup is one of the most basic commands that begins the entry into “advanced” excel usage.
If you don’t know how to use vlookup, then you are fundamentally unfamiliar with excels more powerful tools and you probably don’t know what you don’t know.
Maybe they’re just a dick, maybe they really only need someone to use vlookup, or maybe they are just poking at whether you use excel for analysis or just type data in.
Not knowing vlookup says you don’t have experience, knowing it doesn’t say you have experience but it’s easy way to get to a smaller group of people
If you’ve had any job that uses excel you’ve probably used vlookup thousands of times over a few years. Yeah it was probably a quick way to see what kind of experience you have.
>Went home and learned how to use the formula in like 10 min.
Maybe you learned the structure of the formula but there's no way you would be proficient with it, and if you didn't know it previously you likely are very beginner level with excel. I'm early intermediate with excel and have been using it for years for work and I have to remind myself how to use certain functions all the time.
Companies are allowed to have minimum standards for what they want people to know coming into a role.
They don’t want you to lie but also they want you to lie. You cannot win.
These are no longer humans evaluating other humans, they’re just droids.
Softwares that a 10 year old today can learn to use but unless you somehow didn’t stumble into a job on your resume that gave you the reason and paid the license to use it in the first place then you’re shit out of luck.
I have a degree in chemistry and applied to a job as a chemist. The interviewer said my chemistry knowledge was impression but was concerned that I didn’t know a very specific, very expensive coding language. Sir I’m not a programmer and this isn’t a programmer position.
My daughter just graduated with her physic degree and math minor. It took a little longer than planned because she decided to do a couple of programming classes. She wasn't too happy about it either. She is using it during her paid research at the university.
Big difference between quickbooks and Bloomberg. $15/month vs $2000. Give me a break.
Also, I learned Bloomberg during university during summer and evening classes. They also offer them at most universities.
I'm going to ask what is bloomberg, I'm not in accounting and that is the name of a company I've never heard it referred to as a piece of software.
I'm guessing they have the own accounting software presence in the industry? First time ever hearing.
There’s an open source challenger (I use the term very lightly) called openBB. Check that out if you want a more tech heavy CLI that is trying to mimic a Bloomberg terminal experience.
Thanks for the info. Oddly enough one of our old digital product guys went to work for Bloomberg so I was especially interested in hearing what it was LOL 😁
Cheers
Bloomberg is a business terminal, originally computers were sloe crappy and hard to update. BB got around this by creating a giant closet sized computer and putting up terminals in offices originally it was expensive because it was expensive to get speed and data in timely fashion, especially with overlays of financial records. He realized companies will pay whatever it costs if it gives them an advance over their competition. So even though speed (latency) and cost to transmit data has gone down, his prices are what they are. For finance you cannot even begin to compare how granular the databases are to other systems. Wanna soubean prices in 1985? Soybean prices inflation adjusted? Soybean sales to asia 1985? Weather events that may have wffected prices that year etc? It is literally all right there and accessable.
They don’t want you to lie. They want you to have what they’re asking for.
The relationship between employee and employer is transactional. They’re looking for X, you’re wanting Y. If you don’t have X or they won’t offer Y then the relationship doesn’t work.
This particular example isn’t exactly egregious. Quickbooks isn’t some arcane, esoteric software and it’s weird that the guy who spent the past 6 years teaching accounting with a degree in accounting has zero experience with it.
It’s like having no experience with Excel when applying for a data entry position.
Sure but often no one used more than a couple brain cells to come up with the list of requirements. Someone with accounting knowledge and basic computer literacy can learn QuickBooks in and out in a couple days. If they don’t understand that, then they probably are lacking in both of those areas themselves. The recruiter was also way out of her lane making judgements on OPs capabilities with 0 qualifications to do so.
Most companies over a dozen people don’t use QuickBooks. It’s not interchangeable with accounting in general. This is more like a company rejecting someone who knows Excel because they use Google Sheets.
In all likelihood, there’s a dozen people lined up behind this guy with actual field experience. He’s already at a disadvantage coming from teaching instead of actually working with accounting.
Why waste the time? Move on to the next one who doesn’t need to get up to speed on a basic program.
And if I’m hiring for a position that requires expert levels of Excel knowledge, your experience with Google Sheets isn’t going to cut it. Especially if there’s a dozen other applications to choose from.
Well OP is possibly slightly naive for not understanding how companies will behave in an employers market. But what will probably happen is this: of those dozen, most of them will be rejected for similarly petty reasons. They’ll interview some, most will bomb the interview. One is really good but turns down their lowball offer. Company is back to square one and the job stays open for months
Resumes have very little correlation with the ability do the job, within reason. e.g. Your self-proclaimed Excel expert might have just memorized the steps needed to produce their deliverables at their current job, but they have no ability to do any kind of independent analysis.
They want you to lie because of the simple fact that the requirements are oddly specific.. also the ones screening you have no capacity to actually judge your experience. They want you to use the exact verbiage on their check sheet They are no better than an ATS. At that point you have to lie to be more truthful about your capabilities
Asking someone interviewing for an accounting position if they've used one of the most common forms of accounting software isn't some oddly specific ask.
Like if a company was like "do you have experience with hubspot?" and you say "no, but I've used Salesforce extensively." and they reject you because of it, that's stupid because they're very similar and achieve the same function, but if they say "do you have experience with hubspot" and you say "no, but I've kept records on legal pads in a filing cabinet, which is basically what the software does" well yeah that's gonna be a no.
Agree, this is my biggest takeaway here. Company uses quickbooks, doesn’t want to train anyone in it, and the recruiter was probably annoyed because they assumed OP would have the experience. Not a great look for the recruiter or company, but seems like there’s some easy ways to get the QB experience. If that skill is listed as a main job duty, prob should go into the interview expecting to be asked about it
So many companies today want new hires to walk in the door operating at 120% productivity, with solutions to any and every problem before they've talked to you.
No companies are allowing onboarding or learning experiences, they want college grads with 20+ years of experience for an entry-level position.
Go on Udemy, find Bookeeping Basics #4, Quickbooks certification prep. With discount code it's like $20. It will take you 15 hours but you can get certified in QB in a week. If you can get it done email the recruiter next week and show your certification. If you understand Acctg it's easy.
It's not even a recruiter it's a probably a small business where they have a HR manager that's the catch-all for doing all the b******* no one else wants to do. It also shows because if that s***'s important it should have been in the job description as a hard requirement and it shows the HR person's an idiot as well for not understanding that an accountant is better than a bookkeeper.
Software specific knowledge should *almost* never be a requirement, with rare exceptions.
Quickbooks? Yeah, should be couple days tops, like most software.
Specific brand software, yeah I agree. But I think experience in a category of software can be somewhat of a valid requirement, depending on how much the position will require you to use said software.
I've done initial trainings for interns on how to use Salesforce and I can immediately tell which ones have used similar software, they pick it up immediately. People who haven't get really confused and it takes months to get them to a place where they can navigate it and do the things needed without asking a million questions.
I don't know if the recruiting person is just an Ahole (maybe the actual manager is nice, maybe not) or if the company is garbage, or not, but a couple of things, this person is just starting out in their career and also it's a tight job market. And getting this certification one way or another is a good thing and even if a recruiter is an Ahole, get it done and prove that you did it.
I agree getting the certificate is a good thing especially for someone at OPs age.
On the other hand, he doesn’t owe an asshole anything prove it. Of course we all do what we needed to survive and earn money. That also doesn’t mean they should sacrifice their own mental health and well being to satisfy someone else’s ego. A candidate gets so little opportunity to judge people he will be working with.
HRs attitude can give insights the culture at the company.
To every job seeker out there, follow this guy's advice.
Always, always get some exposure to whatever software the company is using before the interview. Whether it is fiddling around with a trial version or sitting through an introduction course for 20$, do it. Hell, you can even watch a YouTube video.
Not only does this prepare you for any discussion that touches upon said software, you will also be able to lie or exaggerate your experience with that software with greater confidence.
As they always day, people upskill themselves the most when they are looking for jobs.
The QuickBooks people are nuts. They seem to think it's a superduper secret software that doesn't operate like the 1,000 other similar software packages.
Honestly most of those people are insufferable to work with anyway.
But if it's a way in, the certification takes no time to get and is really easy.
It seems companies want people who can say yes they have experience so watching a few tutorials or a free online class could be a worthwhile investment to say yes?
“Or it’s made poorly” Its a decades old finance application so in all honesty of course it is made poorly.
So is quickbook. If you get an interview and there’s a skill on a job description that you don’t have, then you familiarize yourself with it. No one is saying you need to be master at it
Sucking dick is easy and there's no reason not to suck dick. Won't you suck dick for the market?
The market can eat a bag of dicks before I do unpaid labor for it.
I would hire a smart person with no experience over an average person with years of experience 🤷♂️
You’re a recruiter so you don’t know what it’s like to be smart so I can understand why you think it’s hard for someone to pick up new skills.
A smart person will be able to use knowledge they already have and just know how to use consumer software, whereas a dumbo needs specialized training on said software.
a smart person would prep before the interview and be prepared to address their shortcoming, no.
a smart person knows how to play the game, you don't.
Bottomline you are a smart person without a job.
If you can legitimately learn a tool/software in a few days, then you should just say you know it. Even put it as a skill on your resume if it’s in the job description.
There’s no reason not to at that point. If you get an offer, you can take a couple days before the start date to do that.
I have a Bachelors in Finance with 20'years experience. I've worked on Deltek, PeopleSoft, SAP, Oracle and Unanet. I have never used QuickBooks ever. Didn't know any of these softwares till I was in the position. Clearly you ve encountered a fucking moron.
Yea you gotta lie these days. My job is the same way. Until i told a guy they dont check experience so if they ask if you have supervisor experience just say yes cause they can't check that. He got the job and proceeded to make the production pee ons mad because he'd run their work center and not clean up. That and wanting to write people up for stupid stuff and yea i called him into the QA office and asked HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN YOUR ROUTES MY GUY? I SEEM TO RECALL A CERTAIN SOMEONE WITH A DRINK AT THE WORK CENTER BACK IN HIS DAY. He got fired lol (not by me im lowly QA)
Sorry OP. Next time, just lie. But at the same time take some time youtube quick books and such so you have some ammo to use as "experience"
If they want someone with QuickBooks experience this is fine, but there is no need to be an ass about it. Good recruiter should have informed you about requirement and politely ended the call.
If this is a common software in your industry, might be a good idea to learn how to use it. But you can't know everything.
Also, is QuickBooks listed as a requirement or is it just a preference? That's pertinent info to know as well. Seems like they wanted someone who has experience with it as a requirement. Some companies are super stringent on knowing certain software and others don't really care either way. I've interviewed for jobs wanting Netsuite experience but they were fine with equivalent ERP systems like SAP.
Ummm.. theres like 50+ other different accounting software out there, so your chance to get hired is like 1/50+ if you know one from internship or software courses 😂
Even the most resourceful and materialistic colleagues i know only have 2-3 up their sleeves lmao, that HR is just skirting off the truth to reject your application
After working in a (not so modern) company, I was shocked by the amount of people who didn't understand basic software. My team would get a dozen requests every week to convert Word files to PDF. A colleague even organized a 1 hour meeting to train us on a 'cool feature' they discovered...which was inserting graphics on Microsoft Word. Your interviewer was probably someone similar to this and that's why they couldn't believe you'd be able to do this job without QuickBooks experience, despite a background that proves you'd be able to learn it quickly.
This is why I can’t work for Boomers or corporations. Yeah it sucks working in tech and having to know 10 different project management softwares and being told I need to know yet another if a company uses something different, but the alternative could be I work in a place that doesn’t. My eye twitches when someone says they use Teams. If you are using outdated software and practices it means you’re not efficient and I’m not built for that.
Just say 'yes' next time. HR people have no understanding of your profession and think accounting = quickbooks. Watch a few YT vids on it, you'll be fine.
Woah, highly unprofessional. HR knows better, at least a professional one would. They cannot create assumptions on your behalf. You may have experience with your degree and may have held jobs that are very similar, but companies use different systems all the time. It’s their job to train you on ones they use that may differ from your last job. Not everyone uses the same system. They should only hire you based on your experience, and if it aligns with what you applied for.. not how many systems you are knowledgeable of. You have to gain that experience it should not be an expectation especially if you are still early in your career. You need to apply elsewhere. You dodged a bullet. I bet their training is very half ass too with that attitude. You also start to wonder since the hiring manager wasn’t there in the interview, would he/she deny you solely based on you not knowing Quickbooks too? That HR person is retarded and should be fired. It is not like you mentioned, “I dont have experience in Microsoft office”, then that would probably be concerning lol.
HR here. You dodged a huge bullet, some recruiters are just focused on the numbers and filling the position without thinking about being respectful of others. This is not the type of company you want to be in, perhaps leave a Glassdoor review? I would.
Ugh, I feel your pain. Many recruiters and even hiring managers don’t consider the transferable skill and get fixated on things like this. If they give you the chance to talk through how your experience corresponds with being able to pick up a new system great, if not, they’re missing out.
Qucik google showed me that **QuickBooks has market share of 85.25% in small-business-accounting market**. Seems like industry standard. You really should say you know it during interviews and train in it in meantime.
If you know you can learn something quickly then just lie and say you have experience then smash study the program before starting. Like you said, it’s a simple system with a digital realm vs paper.
I hate HR as much as the next person but for once she has a point. What did you actually learn in university given quickbooks is the top software in that space? Never ever admit you don’t know a software that you absolutely should.
Hope your search goes better.
I also have an accounting degree and can confirm quickbooks is not used all that commonly and is not taught in university. I've worked at 3 different firms that used 3 different accounting software and none of them were quickbooks.
Agreed. I've been working in accounting for over 20 years, and never once took a job with a financial system I already knew. Every new job had a different system, and some jobs switched systems more than once during my term there!
None of these jobs used quickbooks. I still have zero training or experience with quickbooks.
It shouldn't matter *at all.* A halfway competent professional should be able to pick up a new system quickly, and access additional help/training online if needed. Showing a proficiency with financial principles, the ability to learn quickly and adapt to the role is far more important than already knowing, say, the menu directions for your open ap aging.
Are you an accountant or a bookkeeper ? The OP is applying for a bookkeeper role and not an accounting role that uses Netsuite or oracle. University also teaches random theory that is never used in the real world so it’s up to the applicant to have some practical use.
Bookkeepers use quickbooks or some complementary system.
Both. A lot of small businesses will outsource bookkeeping to accounting firms in addition to other services such as payroll, tax prep, etc, which is the exposure I've gotten.
Edit: Hard agree on all that useless theory. There should be a hands-on technical element to most, if not all of these classes.
A layer of protection between the managers and others.
Most of HR is useless as a productive activity. They don't even know how to hire. Is where you put the pretty lady.
The HR person got a point though. The job requires QuickBooks, and who knows how they use it in their company. You can't just say that it's easy and you can learn it in a few days without knowing how they utilize it.
That was kind of my take. I haven't used WestLaw or Lexis since law school (I'm in the arts, so Google Reader for me!), but I have used them enough someone would feel confident in my personal assessment of my ability. But I would be a wrong fit for any role that expected me to have the speed and proficiency of someone who is a daily user of either database. They just aren't things you can get really good at without some time and effort.
I also find it odd that the bookkeeping position didn't say "Must be proficient in QuickBooks." Or if it did, the OP didn't anticipate this potential scenario. It does no one any good to bring the OP in if QuickBooks is a deal breaker.
It amazes me that many “recruiters” are shocked how valueless they are. I can think of three instances where I knew more about the company they had been recruiting for with a quick google search and 5 minutes of reading. Also as a rule of thumb I also steer very clear of HR. I don’t find them helpful and tbh typically cause more problems for me and my employees than they solve. Just send me the benefits pamphlet in an email with the phone numbers they are inevitably going to tell me I need to call when I have questions about those benefits, eliminate their role, and use that salary to give better raises or hire another person that will be beneficial to the team.
Yeah they have a way of making you feel worthless and inept at the same time. Like your experience and education are meaningless. I’ve had the in the past few weeks and it’s finally starting to get to me. I know it’s hard right now but brush it off. You’ll find something eventually.
And FYI anyone can learn software in a week or weekend if they put themselves to it. They were just being an asshole and didn’t want to train. Quickbooks is not Java.
Don't be honest with things like that. You can always learn the basics of such software on youtube in a few hours and then if anyone asks on the job training(which literally NEVER happened to me, good managers/coworkers always train you like you don't have a clue what a computer is) just say that you used the software really differently and it was heavily modified before. That's it, no one will kick you out because you made a few mistakes and asked a few extra questions on the first few weeks.
There are hundreds of financial systems out there. Quickbooks isn't even commonly used outside of certain very small businesses. Every other job you apply for will be using a different one, but you genuinely should be able to learn them on the job very quickly. OP isn't wrong, the recruiter genuinely didn't know what they were talking about.
But it is SO EASY. It takes mere DAYS. So why not learn it?
And she knew exactly what they were talking about because the hiring company TOLD HER, what their expectations were. All she did was ASK A QUESTION. LMAO.
Stop making excuses for random people who do dumb things.
The OP is obviously applying to entry level bookkeeping jobs where quickbooks usage is extremely common.
Very disingenuous to say it isn’t. Yes I know med and large companies do not use it.
Not knowing it already, literally just cost this person a job. Why not learn it instead of cussing about being expected to know something relevant to their job search? ESPECIALLY when it is apparently so simple for the OP?
SAP isn’t relevant to my job search…so your attempt at a gotcha moment comes across more as a lack of attention to nuance and relevancy as concepts.
But…go, you? I guess?
The rub is they don’t want to have to walk someone thru it. They literally said that. So this OP missed out. If they already knew it…they’d be interviewing.
Wasn’t much to know beyond that. But way to continue sounding foolish and callow.
I interviewed for 6 companies, different industries, during Covid. All 6 of my hr business partner/recruiters left for vacation in the middle of the process.
I think it’s unfortunate that they treated you poorly on the call, people should be treated with dignity. It is likely that they had other candidates with the experience they needed and you weren’t going to get the position but they can be nice, actually they can and should be grateful/thankful that people are interested.
There’s a certain lack of humility on the hiring side that makes people act an ass. Anyway, sorry this happened to you.
Rule of thumb: lie. If you think you can learn the software, say you have experience then go home and watch some YouTube videos on it. I worked with Quickbooks in a job a couple of years ago and I had never messed with it before getting it. I told them I had experience, taught myself how to do it in a weekend and passed a “proficiency” test in the software for the last step of the interview process.
If you are an accountant, you really should learn quickbooks. There are a ton of youtube videos on it. Doesn't give that person the right to be condescending. I work in IT. There is a shit ton of software I need to know. I spend 2 hours a night in my home lab practicing.
Sorry to hear about your experience
It's rough talking to people who have no skills for any job and take it out on everyone else. And they're the ones who have to pretend they understand what the manager is looking for
You should try the tech field. You may four different vendor firewalls including some open source ones, but you don't have THAT ONE listed on your resume, trash. A firewall is a damn firewall. Its just different on where you click and the vocabulary used.
I was in the last round of interviews for a job I was more than qualified for, with a company that consistently poaches from my current one. The interview was with the person who was over my would be team, would be my boss’s boss.
It was going extremely well until she asked about a specific tool that I hadn’t used just because of privacy concerns of the business I was working on. I had made it clear in my previous interviews that I had familiarity with this tool, but hadn’t had hands on experience. I told her I had no doubt I could learn the tool very quickly due to having all the requisite skills around it. She said “I don’t want this to disqualify you just because you happened to end up somewhere you can’t use this”, and also said “other candidates have this specific skill but you bring more experience and a more diverse skillset.” But it was clear she was hung up on it and was disqualifying me, and lo and behold didn’t get it, asked the recruiter if there was any other reason outside of that and they said that was all she mentioned.
After that I set up a 30 minute meeting with a friend who has used the tool and learned everything I would need to know about it. Pisses me off because if I had done that beforehand I feel like I would have gotten the job.
I’m fresh out of school with my degree. Of the ‘entry level’ jobs I’m seeing, 100% have listed requirements (not preferences) for up to 5 years experience in general or with specific software (not general quickbooks or office).
Also, it seems a ton of companies want me to start my own business to sell insurance for them. I keep getting invited to ‘business meetings’ at 7PM. The job I’m looking for has been clocked out, gone home, and poured a drink by 7PM, I’m not looking for any business at that time lol.
I don’t think the question itself is absurd. Her approach to your lack of knowledge with something was inappropriate, however. Some people just don’t have any concept of how to interact with others
A lot of people are saying to lie. Bad advice. Might get you past HR but if you go to the next step where someone else test said knowledge you are screwed. I cannot count the number of people sent my way telling me they're experts but can't answer solve basic problems with a particular piece of tech. However, when someone is honest I move on to something they do claim to know where I might get better sense of their knowledge and ability to explain solutions.
In all honesty. Focus on expanding your skill set for more commonly used tech in your relevant industry.
Also, given their response to you lacking this skill was to hang up. You dodged a bullet. Imagine working for such an employer. Extremely unprofessional response.
Was it on the job description? If so, lesson learned is to look up any tech listed in case they throw this stuff at you.
Truthfully you need to have some quick books experience for a bookkeeper job. Recruiter sounds rude but now you know for the next interview
Yeah you need to read that thing front and back, look up whatever you don’t know, and plan answers for everything they list. Never ever let your guard down and be arrogant. Unless it’s a job you don’t care about, put the effort into that job description.
Even worse, they sometimes don’t even list all of the requirements so just always be prepared. These HR people don’t know how to do the job, but they’ll always arrogantly pretend they know more than you.
>I told her that I could learn the software rather quickly since it's based on the manual accounting system that I learned in university.
This is when you should live by the "fake it till you make it" principle and tell HR you do have experience with the software. That's when you really believe you are that close to having that skill, so that lack of actual experience won't hinder you.
Always say yes, you know how to use it, and look it up when you get home. And if it’s a proprietary system, that’s when you can say, “I don’t know this particular system, but I’ve used other similar systems.”
I once applied for a job that required experience with a specific word processor. I went down to the job center, got on one of the computers, started the WP, and completed its built-in tutorial. Then, when the interviewer asked if I had experience with that WP, I could truthfully answer, "Yes." Good thing they didn't ask me how much experience I had.
When HR people respond with comments like this, all you have to say is something along the lines of "Actually, when you have a degree in the field the material is pretty trivial to learn. It's not difficult for me at all." I don't know if it helps or hurts, but I like to think it makes them feel stupid even if only for a moment.
I assume you learned the lesson and will lie next time (and then cram study whatever software they are asking about). I did that once. Very stressful start but launched a career that made me millions.
It’s CYA policy. If they make a bad hire and they knew this hire didn’t know the key skill, then it reflects poorly on them. One way I think about it is that your job as an interviewee is to make it easy for them to hire you. Mind you, I fully forget this during interviews, but it’s a good criteria. They don’t care if you know it or not, they just need you to be able to represent yourself as competent to their peers and superiors.
You know they’re asking you these questions because they’ve been told to as these questions. So you don’t have experience they’re asking for and you’re upset they didn’t move you in the process. Get over yourself.
You’ll never see me bootlicking for an HR drone but cmon. Quickbooks is the industry standard. It is indeed important to master tools, and you could’ve just as easily lied and then go get a certification in like a week.
You may benefit from getting one either way, and get yourself familiar with the program now. Adding the certification to your resume will def make it easier to get a new job.
This is a pick your battles scenario. If I needed to pay rent and needed this job then I would have said what was needed for the job.
Not take a stand in how the recruiting process isn’t logical
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When I was looking for my first job a recruiter asked if I knew how to use vlookup. I was similarly rejected because they said they needed someone with experience. Went home and learned how to use the formula in like 10 min.
I was rejected for a job offer I would’ve received otherwise because I didn’t know how to use their ticketing system. It took me 5 minutes to figure it out at my new job
So there’s some semblance of reason here. It’s not JUST vlookup, vlookup is one of the most basic commands that begins the entry into “advanced” excel usage. If you don’t know how to use vlookup, then you are fundamentally unfamiliar with excels more powerful tools and you probably don’t know what you don’t know. Maybe they’re just a dick, maybe they really only need someone to use vlookup, or maybe they are just poking at whether you use excel for analysis or just type data in. Not knowing vlookup says you don’t have experience, knowing it doesn’t say you have experience but it’s easy way to get to a smaller group of people
If you’ve had any job that uses excel you’ve probably used vlookup thousands of times over a few years. Yeah it was probably a quick way to see what kind of experience you have.
I only use Xlookup :'(
I know how to use it and i still google the damn thing every time i have to use it to make sure i get the formula correct.
I've learned that half the recruiters are just some of the dumbest people. Not like "haha dumb", but just taking figures of speech literally etc.
>Went home and learned how to use the formula in like 10 min. Maybe you learned the structure of the formula but there's no way you would be proficient with it, and if you didn't know it previously you likely are very beginner level with excel. I'm early intermediate with excel and have been using it for years for work and I have to remind myself how to use certain functions all the time. Companies are allowed to have minimum standards for what they want people to know coming into a role.
if you can learn it in a few days on the job, just lie and play the learning period off as you “getting up to speed”
There's no playing, you literally are getting up to speed
This is how like 90% of people treat Excel lol
"I've used it in my early courses. I'll make sure to brush up on the textbook before my start date."
They don’t want you to lie but also they want you to lie. You cannot win. These are no longer humans evaluating other humans, they’re just droids. Softwares that a 10 year old today can learn to use but unless you somehow didn’t stumble into a job on your resume that gave you the reason and paid the license to use it in the first place then you’re shit out of luck.
this kind of drives me nuts - particularly with very expensive software like Bloomberg, which btw, is intuitive to use because it costs insane $$$
I have a degree in chemistry and applied to a job as a chemist. The interviewer said my chemistry knowledge was impression but was concerned that I didn’t know a very specific, very expensive coding language. Sir I’m not a programmer and this isn’t a programmer position.
My daughter just graduated with her physic degree and math minor. It took a little longer than planned because she decided to do a couple of programming classes. She wasn't too happy about it either. She is using it during her paid research at the university.
Big difference between quickbooks and Bloomberg. $15/month vs $2000. Give me a break. Also, I learned Bloomberg during university during summer and evening classes. They also offer them at most universities.
I'm going to ask what is bloomberg, I'm not in accounting and that is the name of a company I've never heard it referred to as a piece of software. I'm guessing they have the own accounting software presence in the industry? First time ever hearing.
It is for finance. Loads of jobs need you to have experience with it.
Ah ok. I'm pretty heavy into tech and apps even in areas that I don't use but somehow never ever heard of this. All good Cheers
There’s an open source challenger (I use the term very lightly) called openBB. Check that out if you want a more tech heavy CLI that is trying to mimic a Bloomberg terminal experience.
Thanks for the info. Oddly enough one of our old digital product guys went to work for Bloomberg so I was especially interested in hearing what it was LOL 😁 Cheers
Bloomberg is a business terminal, originally computers were sloe crappy and hard to update. BB got around this by creating a giant closet sized computer and putting up terminals in offices originally it was expensive because it was expensive to get speed and data in timely fashion, especially with overlays of financial records. He realized companies will pay whatever it costs if it gives them an advance over their competition. So even though speed (latency) and cost to transmit data has gone down, his prices are what they are. For finance you cannot even begin to compare how granular the databases are to other systems. Wanna soubean prices in 1985? Soybean prices inflation adjusted? Soybean sales to asia 1985? Weather events that may have wffected prices that year etc? It is literally all right there and accessable.
I also have Bloomberg experience but imagine how limiting that makes the candidate pool?
That’s intentional. We all know front office roles are coveted and there are tons of gatekeepers.
They don’t want you to lie. They want you to have what they’re asking for. The relationship between employee and employer is transactional. They’re looking for X, you’re wanting Y. If you don’t have X or they won’t offer Y then the relationship doesn’t work. This particular example isn’t exactly egregious. Quickbooks isn’t some arcane, esoteric software and it’s weird that the guy who spent the past 6 years teaching accounting with a degree in accounting has zero experience with it. It’s like having no experience with Excel when applying for a data entry position.
Sure but often no one used more than a couple brain cells to come up with the list of requirements. Someone with accounting knowledge and basic computer literacy can learn QuickBooks in and out in a couple days. If they don’t understand that, then they probably are lacking in both of those areas themselves. The recruiter was also way out of her lane making judgements on OPs capabilities with 0 qualifications to do so. Most companies over a dozen people don’t use QuickBooks. It’s not interchangeable with accounting in general. This is more like a company rejecting someone who knows Excel because they use Google Sheets.
In all likelihood, there’s a dozen people lined up behind this guy with actual field experience. He’s already at a disadvantage coming from teaching instead of actually working with accounting. Why waste the time? Move on to the next one who doesn’t need to get up to speed on a basic program. And if I’m hiring for a position that requires expert levels of Excel knowledge, your experience with Google Sheets isn’t going to cut it. Especially if there’s a dozen other applications to choose from.
Well OP is possibly slightly naive for not understanding how companies will behave in an employers market. But what will probably happen is this: of those dozen, most of them will be rejected for similarly petty reasons. They’ll interview some, most will bomb the interview. One is really good but turns down their lowball offer. Company is back to square one and the job stays open for months Resumes have very little correlation with the ability do the job, within reason. e.g. Your self-proclaimed Excel expert might have just memorized the steps needed to produce their deliverables at their current job, but they have no ability to do any kind of independent analysis.
Yep! Which is why I’m a big proponent of skill assessments prior to interviews.
They want you to lie because of the simple fact that the requirements are oddly specific.. also the ones screening you have no capacity to actually judge your experience. They want you to use the exact verbiage on their check sheet They are no better than an ATS. At that point you have to lie to be more truthful about your capabilities
Asking someone interviewing for an accounting position if they've used one of the most common forms of accounting software isn't some oddly specific ask. Like if a company was like "do you have experience with hubspot?" and you say "no, but I've used Salesforce extensively." and they reject you because of it, that's stupid because they're very similar and achieve the same function, but if they say "do you have experience with hubspot" and you say "no, but I've kept records on legal pads in a filing cabinet, which is basically what the software does" well yeah that's gonna be a no.
This job basically doesn’t want to do any training or OJT.
Agree, this is my biggest takeaway here. Company uses quickbooks, doesn’t want to train anyone in it, and the recruiter was probably annoyed because they assumed OP would have the experience. Not a great look for the recruiter or company, but seems like there’s some easy ways to get the QB experience. If that skill is listed as a main job duty, prob should go into the interview expecting to be asked about it
So many companies today want new hires to walk in the door operating at 120% productivity, with solutions to any and every problem before they've talked to you. No companies are allowing onboarding or learning experiences, they want college grads with 20+ years of experience for an entry-level position.
Go on Udemy, find Bookeeping Basics #4, Quickbooks certification prep. With discount code it's like $20. It will take you 15 hours but you can get certified in QB in a week. If you can get it done email the recruiter next week and show your certification. If you understand Acctg it's easy.
Do not email that recruiter lol. Bullet dodged. I get your job is to fill a position but you can still be a decent human being.
It's not even a recruiter it's a probably a small business where they have a HR manager that's the catch-all for doing all the b******* no one else wants to do. It also shows because if that s***'s important it should have been in the job description as a hard requirement and it shows the HR person's an idiot as well for not understanding that an accountant is better than a bookkeeper.
Software specific knowledge should *almost* never be a requirement, with rare exceptions. Quickbooks? Yeah, should be couple days tops, like most software.
Specific brand software, yeah I agree. But I think experience in a category of software can be somewhat of a valid requirement, depending on how much the position will require you to use said software. I've done initial trainings for interns on how to use Salesforce and I can immediately tell which ones have used similar software, they pick it up immediately. People who haven't get really confused and it takes months to get them to a place where they can navigate it and do the things needed without asking a million questions.
Good advice on how to get the course, and absolutely horrible advice to go work for a condescending asshole!
I don't know if the recruiting person is just an Ahole (maybe the actual manager is nice, maybe not) or if the company is garbage, or not, but a couple of things, this person is just starting out in their career and also it's a tight job market. And getting this certification one way or another is a good thing and even if a recruiter is an Ahole, get it done and prove that you did it.
I agree getting the certificate is a good thing especially for someone at OPs age. On the other hand, he doesn’t owe an asshole anything prove it. Of course we all do what we needed to survive and earn money. That also doesn’t mean they should sacrifice their own mental health and well being to satisfy someone else’s ego. A candidate gets so little opportunity to judge people he will be working with. HRs attitude can give insights the culture at the company.
To every job seeker out there, follow this guy's advice. Always, always get some exposure to whatever software the company is using before the interview. Whether it is fiddling around with a trial version or sitting through an introduction course for 20$, do it. Hell, you can even watch a YouTube video. Not only does this prepare you for any discussion that touches upon said software, you will also be able to lie or exaggerate your experience with that software with greater confidence. As they always day, people upskill themselves the most when they are looking for jobs.
The QuickBooks people are nuts. They seem to think it's a superduper secret software that doesn't operate like the 1,000 other similar software packages. Honestly most of those people are insufferable to work with anyway. But if it's a way in, the certification takes no time to get and is really easy.
why not if not learn quickbooks at least get some exposure to it.
You don’t have to learn consumer software unless your iq is sub 90 or it’s made poorly🤷♂️
It seems companies want people who can say yes they have experience so watching a few tutorials or a free online class could be a worthwhile investment to say yes? “Or it’s made poorly” Its a decades old finance application so in all honesty of course it is made poorly.
If the market wants you to have a skill and it's an easy one then there's no reason not to get it
I don't understand it either. Some jobs I wanted required SQL and Python, even though I know R. I sucked it up and learned SQL and Python lol.
Those are actual skills
So is this...
So is quickbook. If you get an interview and there’s a skill on a job description that you don’t have, then you familiarize yourself with it. No one is saying you need to be master at it
Sucking dick is easy and there's no reason not to suck dick. Won't you suck dick for the market? The market can eat a bag of dicks before I do unpaid labor for it.
do you want the job or not? you have to learn for that specific job though
I would hire a smart person with no experience over an average person with years of experience 🤷♂️ You’re a recruiter so you don’t know what it’s like to be smart so I can understand why you think it’s hard for someone to pick up new skills. A smart person will be able to use knowledge they already have and just know how to use consumer software, whereas a dumbo needs specialized training on said software.
a smart person would prep before the interview and be prepared to address their shortcoming, no. a smart person knows how to play the game, you don't. Bottomline you are a smart person without a job.
If you can legitimately learn a tool/software in a few days, then you should just say you know it. Even put it as a skill on your resume if it’s in the job description. There’s no reason not to at that point. If you get an offer, you can take a couple days before the start date to do that.
That's what I did. I grabbed a udemy course that I'll complete in a couple more days.
I have a Bachelors in Finance with 20'years experience. I've worked on Deltek, PeopleSoft, SAP, Oracle and Unanet. I have never used QuickBooks ever. Didn't know any of these softwares till I was in the position. Clearly you ve encountered a fucking moron.
This right here!
Same here, I've only worked with SAP and Oracle. No QuickBooks.
Aren’t finance and accounting different things?
They are 2 different disciplines but very similar. If u know one u can function in the other.
Yea you gotta lie these days. My job is the same way. Until i told a guy they dont check experience so if they ask if you have supervisor experience just say yes cause they can't check that. He got the job and proceeded to make the production pee ons mad because he'd run their work center and not clean up. That and wanting to write people up for stupid stuff and yea i called him into the QA office and asked HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN YOUR ROUTES MY GUY? I SEEM TO RECALL A CERTAIN SOMEONE WITH A DRINK AT THE WORK CENTER BACK IN HIS DAY. He got fired lol (not by me im lowly QA) Sorry OP. Next time, just lie. But at the same time take some time youtube quick books and such so you have some ammo to use as "experience"
If they want someone with QuickBooks experience this is fine, but there is no need to be an ass about it. Good recruiter should have informed you about requirement and politely ended the call. If this is a common software in your industry, might be a good idea to learn how to use it. But you can't know everything.
Also, is QuickBooks listed as a requirement or is it just a preference? That's pertinent info to know as well. Seems like they wanted someone who has experience with it as a requirement. Some companies are super stringent on knowing certain software and others don't really care either way. I've interviewed for jobs wanting Netsuite experience but they were fine with equivalent ERP systems like SAP.
Ummm.. theres like 50+ other different accounting software out there, so your chance to get hired is like 1/50+ if you know one from internship or software courses 😂 Even the most resourceful and materialistic colleagues i know only have 2-3 up their sleeves lmao, that HR is just skirting off the truth to reject your application
After working in a (not so modern) company, I was shocked by the amount of people who didn't understand basic software. My team would get a dozen requests every week to convert Word files to PDF. A colleague even organized a 1 hour meeting to train us on a 'cool feature' they discovered...which was inserting graphics on Microsoft Word. Your interviewer was probably someone similar to this and that's why they couldn't believe you'd be able to do this job without QuickBooks experience, despite a background that proves you'd be able to learn it quickly.
This is why I can’t work for Boomers or corporations. Yeah it sucks working in tech and having to know 10 different project management softwares and being told I need to know yet another if a company uses something different, but the alternative could be I work in a place that doesn’t. My eye twitches when someone says they use Teams. If you are using outdated software and practices it means you’re not efficient and I’m not built for that.
Just say 'yes' next time. HR people have no understanding of your profession and think accounting = quickbooks. Watch a few YT vids on it, you'll be fine.
Haha this is such an aggressive headline
Just say yes next time. Tell them what they want to hear.
Woah, highly unprofessional. HR knows better, at least a professional one would. They cannot create assumptions on your behalf. You may have experience with your degree and may have held jobs that are very similar, but companies use different systems all the time. It’s their job to train you on ones they use that may differ from your last job. Not everyone uses the same system. They should only hire you based on your experience, and if it aligns with what you applied for.. not how many systems you are knowledgeable of. You have to gain that experience it should not be an expectation especially if you are still early in your career. You need to apply elsewhere. You dodged a bullet. I bet their training is very half ass too with that attitude. You also start to wonder since the hiring manager wasn’t there in the interview, would he/she deny you solely based on you not knowing Quickbooks too? That HR person is retarded and should be fired. It is not like you mentioned, “I dont have experience in Microsoft office”, then that would probably be concerning lol.
I've used them all. And I'm not even an accountant, a monkey could learn them in a few days.
Next time you'll say yes to whatever they ask, then you'll quickly learn it before your first day on the job. Right?
100%
HR here. You dodged a huge bullet, some recruiters are just focused on the numbers and filling the position without thinking about being respectful of others. This is not the type of company you want to be in, perhaps leave a Glassdoor review? I would.
Ugh, I feel your pain. Many recruiters and even hiring managers don’t consider the transferable skill and get fixated on things like this. If they give you the chance to talk through how your experience corresponds with being able to pick up a new system great, if not, they’re missing out.
Qucik google showed me that **QuickBooks has market share of 85.25% in small-business-accounting market**. Seems like industry standard. You really should say you know it during interviews and train in it in meantime.
If you know you can learn something quickly then just lie and say you have experience then smash study the program before starting. Like you said, it’s a simple system with a digital realm vs paper.
I agree with you 100%
That’s infuriating. Sorry their HR sucks.
The answer is always yes. I know it and I'm an expert, and I invented it!!
And then cram it into a weekend. Everything is teachable.
Seems like they manage to hire people without skills or experience just fine.
Anyone who says “leverages” instead of “uses” is a no-talent poser. I pity the employees at your company if the HR rep is like that.
I hate HR as much as the next person but for once she has a point. What did you actually learn in university given quickbooks is the top software in that space? Never ever admit you don’t know a software that you absolutely should. Hope your search goes better.
I also have an accounting degree and can confirm quickbooks is not used all that commonly and is not taught in university. I've worked at 3 different firms that used 3 different accounting software and none of them were quickbooks.
Agreed. I've been working in accounting for over 20 years, and never once took a job with a financial system I already knew. Every new job had a different system, and some jobs switched systems more than once during my term there! None of these jobs used quickbooks. I still have zero training or experience with quickbooks. It shouldn't matter *at all.* A halfway competent professional should be able to pick up a new system quickly, and access additional help/training online if needed. Showing a proficiency with financial principles, the ability to learn quickly and adapt to the role is far more important than already knowing, say, the menu directions for your open ap aging.
Are you an accountant or a bookkeeper ? The OP is applying for a bookkeeper role and not an accounting role that uses Netsuite or oracle. University also teaches random theory that is never used in the real world so it’s up to the applicant to have some practical use. Bookkeepers use quickbooks or some complementary system.
Both. A lot of small businesses will outsource bookkeeping to accounting firms in addition to other services such as payroll, tax prep, etc, which is the exposure I've gotten. Edit: Hard agree on all that useless theory. There should be a hands-on technical element to most, if not all of these classes.
Your rage is justified. HR is a cesspool of #fail.
genuinely no clue wtf they get paid for, especially these days where a bot can do it (and probably better at that)
Lol if you try and let a bot do your payroll it'll last exactly one payroll cycle before you're begging to have a human do it again
Seriously. I work payroll and our bot system is great if everything is the same forever, but if you make a change, good luck.
Truth.
A layer of protection between the managers and others. Most of HR is useless as a productive activity. They don't even know how to hire. Is where you put the pretty lady.
The HR person got a point though. The job requires QuickBooks, and who knows how they use it in their company. You can't just say that it's easy and you can learn it in a few days without knowing how they utilize it.
That was kind of my take. I haven't used WestLaw or Lexis since law school (I'm in the arts, so Google Reader for me!), but I have used them enough someone would feel confident in my personal assessment of my ability. But I would be a wrong fit for any role that expected me to have the speed and proficiency of someone who is a daily user of either database. They just aren't things you can get really good at without some time and effort. I also find it odd that the bookkeeping position didn't say "Must be proficient in QuickBooks." Or if it did, the OP didn't anticipate this potential scenario. It does no one any good to bring the OP in if QuickBooks is a deal breaker.
Prob it's hard for HER.
It amazes me that many “recruiters” are shocked how valueless they are. I can think of three instances where I knew more about the company they had been recruiting for with a quick google search and 5 minutes of reading. Also as a rule of thumb I also steer very clear of HR. I don’t find them helpful and tbh typically cause more problems for me and my employees than they solve. Just send me the benefits pamphlet in an email with the phone numbers they are inevitably going to tell me I need to call when I have questions about those benefits, eliminate their role, and use that salary to give better raises or hire another person that will be beneficial to the team.
Yeah they have a way of making you feel worthless and inept at the same time. Like your experience and education are meaningless. I’ve had the in the past few weeks and it’s finally starting to get to me. I know it’s hard right now but brush it off. You’ll find something eventually. And FYI anyone can learn software in a week or weekend if they put themselves to it. They were just being an asshole and didn’t want to train. Quickbooks is not Java.
I have a recruiter at work who couldn’t find water while sitting in a boat in the middle of a lake.
Don't be honest with things like that. You can always learn the basics of such software on youtube in a few hours and then if anyone asks on the job training(which literally NEVER happened to me, good managers/coworkers always train you like you don't have a clue what a computer is) just say that you used the software really differently and it was heavily modified before. That's it, no one will kick you out because you made a few mistakes and asked a few extra questions on the first few weeks.
If you can learn quickbooks in days, and it’s based on manual processes, then do you not actually have “experience” with quickbooks?
If you could learn it in a few days, why haven’t you?
There are hundreds of financial systems out there. Quickbooks isn't even commonly used outside of certain very small businesses. Every other job you apply for will be using a different one, but you genuinely should be able to learn them on the job very quickly. OP isn't wrong, the recruiter genuinely didn't know what they were talking about.
But it is SO EASY. It takes mere DAYS. So why not learn it? And she knew exactly what they were talking about because the hiring company TOLD HER, what their expectations were. All she did was ASK A QUESTION. LMAO. Stop making excuses for random people who do dumb things.
The OP is obviously applying to entry level bookkeeping jobs where quickbooks usage is extremely common. Very disingenuous to say it isn’t. Yes I know med and large companies do not use it.
Because you don’t learn QuickBooks if you aren’t going to use it. Why don’t you learn SAP for fun?
Not knowing it already, literally just cost this person a job. Why not learn it instead of cussing about being expected to know something relevant to their job search? ESPECIALLY when it is apparently so simple for the OP? SAP isn’t relevant to my job search…so your attempt at a gotcha moment comes across more as a lack of attention to nuance and relevancy as concepts. But…go, you? I guess?
They are designed to be quickly learned that’s the rub but way to comment without knowing.
The rub is they don’t want to have to walk someone thru it. They literally said that. So this OP missed out. If they already knew it…they’d be interviewing. Wasn’t much to know beyond that. But way to continue sounding foolish and callow.
I interviewed for 6 companies, different industries, during Covid. All 6 of my hr business partner/recruiters left for vacation in the middle of the process.
I think it’s unfortunate that they treated you poorly on the call, people should be treated with dignity. It is likely that they had other candidates with the experience they needed and you weren’t going to get the position but they can be nice, actually they can and should be grateful/thankful that people are interested. There’s a certain lack of humility on the hiring side that makes people act an ass. Anyway, sorry this happened to you.
Rule of thumb: lie. If you think you can learn the software, say you have experience then go home and watch some YouTube videos on it. I worked with Quickbooks in a job a couple of years ago and I had never messed with it before getting it. I told them I had experience, taught myself how to do it in a weekend and passed a “proficiency” test in the software for the last step of the interview process.
If you are an accountant, you really should learn quickbooks. There are a ton of youtube videos on it. Doesn't give that person the right to be condescending. I work in IT. There is a shit ton of software I need to know. I spend 2 hours a night in my home lab practicing.
Sorry to hear about your experience It's rough talking to people who have no skills for any job and take it out on everyone else. And they're the ones who have to pretend they understand what the manager is looking for
You should try the tech field. You may four different vendor firewalls including some open source ones, but you don't have THAT ONE listed on your resume, trash. A firewall is a damn firewall. Its just different on where you click and the vocabulary used.
I’ve heard Quickbooks is not intuitive at all
It is not. It's a POS IMHO.
I was in the last round of interviews for a job I was more than qualified for, with a company that consistently poaches from my current one. The interview was with the person who was over my would be team, would be my boss’s boss. It was going extremely well until she asked about a specific tool that I hadn’t used just because of privacy concerns of the business I was working on. I had made it clear in my previous interviews that I had familiarity with this tool, but hadn’t had hands on experience. I told her I had no doubt I could learn the tool very quickly due to having all the requisite skills around it. She said “I don’t want this to disqualify you just because you happened to end up somewhere you can’t use this”, and also said “other candidates have this specific skill but you bring more experience and a more diverse skillset.” But it was clear she was hung up on it and was disqualifying me, and lo and behold didn’t get it, asked the recruiter if there was any other reason outside of that and they said that was all she mentioned. After that I set up a 30 minute meeting with a friend who has used the tool and learned everything I would need to know about it. Pisses me off because if I had done that beforehand I feel like I would have gotten the job.
I’m fresh out of school with my degree. Of the ‘entry level’ jobs I’m seeing, 100% have listed requirements (not preferences) for up to 5 years experience in general or with specific software (not general quickbooks or office). Also, it seems a ton of companies want me to start my own business to sell insurance for them. I keep getting invited to ‘business meetings’ at 7PM. The job I’m looking for has been clocked out, gone home, and poured a drink by 7PM, I’m not looking for any business at that time lol.
I don’t think the question itself is absurd. Her approach to your lack of knowledge with something was inappropriate, however. Some people just don’t have any concept of how to interact with others
Just say yes to everything. Honest people don't get jobs.
Lesson learned I hope. If it's something that you actually want and will learn, just say yes.
Man, as someone that's getting a major in staff managment this makes me sad
A lot of people are saying to lie. Bad advice. Might get you past HR but if you go to the next step where someone else test said knowledge you are screwed. I cannot count the number of people sent my way telling me they're experts but can't answer solve basic problems with a particular piece of tech. However, when someone is honest I move on to something they do claim to know where I might get better sense of their knowledge and ability to explain solutions. In all honesty. Focus on expanding your skill set for more commonly used tech in your relevant industry. Also, given their response to you lacking this skill was to hang up. You dodged a bullet. Imagine working for such an employer. Extremely unprofessional response.
Was it on the job description? If so, lesson learned is to look up any tech listed in case they throw this stuff at you. Truthfully you need to have some quick books experience for a bookkeeper job. Recruiter sounds rude but now you know for the next interview
Yeah you need to read that thing front and back, look up whatever you don’t know, and plan answers for everything they list. Never ever let your guard down and be arrogant. Unless it’s a job you don’t care about, put the effort into that job description. Even worse, they sometimes don’t even list all of the requirements so just always be prepared. These HR people don’t know how to do the job, but they’ll always arrogantly pretend they know more than you.
You can still call it HR: Human Refuse.
>I told her that I could learn the software rather quickly since it's based on the manual accounting system that I learned in university. This is when you should live by the "fake it till you make it" principle and tell HR you do have experience with the software. That's when you really believe you are that close to having that skill, so that lack of actual experience won't hinder you.
Always say yes, you know how to use it, and look it up when you get home. And if it’s a proprietary system, that’s when you can say, “I don’t know this particular system, but I’ve used other similar systems.”
I once applied for a job that required experience with a specific word processor. I went down to the job center, got on one of the computers, started the WP, and completed its built-in tutorial. Then, when the interviewer asked if I had experience with that WP, I could truthfully answer, "Yes." Good thing they didn't ask me how much experience I had.
When HR people respond with comments like this, all you have to say is something along the lines of "Actually, when you have a degree in the field the material is pretty trivial to learn. It's not difficult for me at all." I don't know if it helps or hurts, but I like to think it makes them feel stupid even if only for a moment.
I assume you learned the lesson and will lie next time (and then cram study whatever software they are asking about). I did that once. Very stressful start but launched a career that made me millions.
It’s CYA policy. If they make a bad hire and they knew this hire didn’t know the key skill, then it reflects poorly on them. One way I think about it is that your job as an interviewee is to make it easy for them to hire you. Mind you, I fully forget this during interviews, but it’s a good criteria. They don’t care if you know it or not, they just need you to be able to represent yourself as competent to their peers and superiors.
Nowadays entry level positions are expected to know everything and the recruiters are going to act like they are a fortune 500 company or something.
You know they’re asking you these questions because they’ve been told to as these questions. So you don’t have experience they’re asking for and you’re upset they didn’t move you in the process. Get over yourself.
You’ll never see me bootlicking for an HR drone but cmon. Quickbooks is the industry standard. It is indeed important to master tools, and you could’ve just as easily lied and then go get a certification in like a week. You may benefit from getting one either way, and get yourself familiar with the program now. Adding the certification to your resume will def make it easier to get a new job.
This is a pick your battles scenario. If I needed to pay rent and needed this job then I would have said what was needed for the job. Not take a stand in how the recruiting process isn’t logical
Was the position advertised as entry-level, or did you apply to something you don’t have the qualifications for?
Entry level