It’s been a while since a job posting generated as much chatter as a role posted by the popular fashion podcast The Cutting Room Floor did this week.
On Aug. 25 the podcast posted on LinkedIn that it was looking for an office coordinator to join its team. The employee would be expected to “manage calendars, handle guest bookings, and oversee essential office logistics” while working from the podcast’s New York City offices from 9:30am to 6:30pm each day, according to a description that’s since been removed from The Cutting Room Floor’s website. They’d also be paid $55,000 a year—with no benefits.
Recho Omondi, who hosts the podcast, drew backlash for advertising the job which would qualify as “very low-income” by New York City’s own standards.
She initially defended the posting, conceding it wasn’t a “glamorous wage” but adding that it was intended for someone who wants to “hustle in the early years of their career.” But Omondi later told her Patreon followers the podcast was freezing hiring for the role after considering input about the posting.
The price of passion. It’s no secret to HR leaders that offering a competitive salary and benefits is key to attracting top talent in many industries. But this recent controversy shows how the calculation for job seekers in certain competitive fields—namely, creative ones—may differ.
There’s an expectation in the fashion industry and “adjacent” fields that entry-level workers will be “underpaid,” “undervalued,” and “overworked,” said Mandy Lee, a fashion writer and analyst, on TikTok. Employees’ love for the work is seen as akin to monetary compensation, she continued, and “employers have this bargaining chip of promised opportunity and experience.”
This view isn’t exclusive to fashion, one commenter on Lee’s video noted: “I feel like there’s the same convo in the nonprofit space. You’re supposed to do it for passion and caring about the mission.”
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Such views may be perpetuated by large employers posting salaries that don’t look much better than the one shared by Omondi, who runs The Cutting Room Floor herself. An editorial operations assistant role currently open at the men’s magazine GQ is listed with a range starting at $63,000, and Glassdoor estimates an editorial assistant at GQ’s parent company, Condé Nast, makes a median salary of $53,000 a year.
Takeaways for people pros. Though HR professionals can’t fix the systemic factors that contribute to these practices themselves, they can consider how such practices may affect their organization’s ability to hire and retain talent.
Recent research suggests people consistently prioritize higher-paying jobs over work they consider to be meaningful. And even when workers are willing to accept lower salaries (i.e., for a “dream job” in fashion), earning less than a living wage can have a negative impact on their overall health, HR Brew reported last year. What’s more, offering total rewards packages akin to what The Cutting Room Floor advertised may limit an employer’s hiring pool to candidates who can afford to live on that wage, likely with additional monetary support from other sources.
It may be best if HR teams sort through such issues with hiring managers before posting a role. The hiring process can be complex, with implications for how audiences and customers perceive an organization’s brand, Daniela Herrera, a DEI consultant, noted on LinkedIn. “Trust can be broken very easily,” she said.