Willing to See New Grads?

At first blush, I thought this job was awful to offer up to $16 / hour. Read the job description:

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Specification Writer
Sunrise Systems Inc 7 reviews - Cedar Falls, IA 50613
$15.00 - $16.60 an hour - Contract

Job Title : Specification Analyst I

Duration : 1 year

Location : Waterloo, IA- 50613

Job Description :

• Develops and maintains product specifications, engineering decisions, Common Specifications System, factory Bills of material and the drawing imaging system to ensure that complete and accurate specifications and drawings for less complex parts and assemblies are available to manufacturing and other information users.
• Works from an Engineering Change Order (ECO), ensuring that the data is accurate and conforms to the common specification guidelines.

Duties :

• Creates and modifies production level specifications in the factory data base using inputs from an Engineering Change Order (ECO) and sister factory decisions.
• Organizes, enters and maintains data for specific programs. Communicates Engineering Change Decisions to production.
• Prepares drawings for the decision process, creates simple models of components or simple modifications to existing components and drawings.
• May create 3D assemblies for new Bills of Material with support from senior designers or engineers.
• Provides consultation services on standards, processes and related technical issues in order to identify, prevent or solve problems.
• Works from system generated error reports, ensuring the data is in sync with other systems that interface with the common specification system.

Specific Position Requirements

• Prefer candidates with 4 year degree or equivalent work experience.
• SAP experience is a plus. Willing to see recent grads.
• 1st shift position, business casual dress code.
• End date is based on fiscal year, planning to extend the assignment at that time.

Job Type: Contract
Salary: $15.00 to $16.60 /hour
Required education:

• Bachelor's

Required experience:

• Manufacturing/Production: 1 year

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Then I realized, with horror, that at my first technical writing job, that I mentioned the other day, my hourly salary was 1/2 of that $16 - it was (roughly) $8.65 / hour. I arrived at that number by dividing 18000 (my salary) by 52 weeks to get $346.15 / week, divided by 40 hours a week = $8.65 / hour. This job, below, is $16 / hour x 40 hours in a week = $640, times 52 week to get to $33,280 / year. I can say that I had to change jobs, moving to a different company, before I was making close to that salary range.