I applied for this job at the end of July and was not contacted for an interview until mid September. The first interview was conducted through HireVue and set up via email by a staff member in Maryland. The HireVue interview was remedial and impersonal. A week later, I was contacted by the same staff member via email about a live video interview with three staff members from the school I’d be working at. One interviewer was not present. The other two were friendly and made the interview experience a breeze, despite asking me a few of the same questions that had already been answered in my first HireVue interview, but I blame that on the initial staff member not communicating my answers, maybe. The two interviewers were very prompt in reaching out with a job offer.
And this is where it became surprising.
This was my ideal job. It utilized all of my experience, had the schedule I needed and I was really, genuinely excited about it.
I’d done my research for area admin salaries, salary averages around the country as well as reported salaries here through Glassdoor for Connections Academy employees. I was offered $14.25/hour, told I would accrue vacation time after 30 days, but no explanation could be given how that formula worked. What’s more, is that because they run on the local school district’s schedule, there would be large chunks of time where I would essentially be without a paycheck. Ie Christmas vacation, mid winter break, spring break, summer break, etc. I was not offered a livable wage for the area in which they were seeking to employ me and to add insult to injury, it was half the area average.
I was sincerely disappointed because it did seem like a nice team. But the lowball pay reports people have put here are true. I don’t know anyone who can live on $20K, best case scenario after taxes and when you start deducting from that based on school off days, it’s an insulting amount of money for someone who was described as the “hub” of the school. It’s insulting for anyone, honestly.
The excuse was given that the budget simply did not allow for a better salary. Which is a shame. There’s a reason it’s taken three months to fill this position. If you are not going to pay your employees enough to live, you need to stop expanding and start reinvesting in your staff. They deserve better.