“It’s Impossible” — Man Says Employer Asked for 15 Years of TikTok Experience

If you've been scouring for jobs, but feel like your resume isn't robust enough to fulfill requirements for the positions you want, you're not alone. And in some cases, it's because companies have no idea what they're talking about.

TikToker Patrick Mazuca (@patrickmazuca) highlighted how this was the case during a call with a recruiter for a job opportunity. During their discussion, he learned that the prospective employer was looking for a candidate who had 15 years of experience with Instagram and TikTok.

It's a requirement he blasted as impossible.

Patrick begins his video speaking directly into the camera. An angry looking Tiki head decoration is grimacing behind him as he adjusts while he delves into an anecdote about the difficulties in finding gainful employment.

"If anyone's interested in the current state of the job market, let me explain to you a little social interaction I had yesterday," he says.

"A recruiter reached out to me with a role that was helping a small company manage their Instagram and their TikTok account." He smiles into the camera as he relays his tale. "And she went over all my qualifications and all of those things and then she explained to me the salary band."

If you're unfamiliar with this term, Patrick delves into it further in his video. However, Indeed does a pretty good job of breaking it down: it's a pay range for specific roles with an organization dedicated to those roles. There's a minimum/maximum for these payouts, which can give interested applicants an idea of their negotiation room, given their qualifications.

The TikToker then delves into his explanation of these salary bands. "For those of you who don't know what a salary band is, it's kind of like the minimum and the maximum that a recruiter can promise a new hire or new applicator. Like where your salary will fall within depending on a variety of things."

Patrick's current annual take home was practically identical to the minimum salary band offer with the new company. He explained to the recruiter he'd have to get an offer closer to the company's upper band range in order to come on as a new hire.

However, he was summarily instructed by the recruiter this wasn't a possibility.

"Now, the lower end of the salary band was basically what I currently make. And the upper end was $20k more. And when I told her that I would need to be on the upper end of that salary band in order to make the move, she explained to me, well that wouldn't happen. And I was like why?"

You might be thinking that the company might want to first onboard someone and see their work performance before shelling out the big bucks out of the gate. This, at least to me, seems like a sound argument.

However, Patrick says this wasn't the case. Instead, the company appears to demand applicants be capable of time travel in order to reach that higher salary band.

"And she's like, well, we would need someone with 15 years of experience in Instagram and TikTok in order for them to get the upper end of that salary band. And I responded: 15 years of Instagram and TikTok? And she said yes. And I said okay, well I do not think that I am the right person for you because I do not have that amount of experience and best of luck to you."

As of this writing, Instagram is officially 14 years old: it debuted on October 6th, 2010. TikTok is much younger: the application was released on September 20th, 2016.

Perhaps Patrick could've argued that collectively he does have that much experience working with these applications, but he seemed soured by the company's job requirements.

He castigated the company's demands, but stated that this is par the course for corporate America. In that businesses demand more than what is possible from employees, but still don't want to compensate them fairly.

"We hung up and it was cordial. They are not gonna find anyone with that amount of experience because Instagram is 14 years old and TikTok is 8 years old. So those people don't exist. So, classically, everyone wants everything and the impossible on a shoe string and never forget that."

Unrealistic employee expectations is sore subject for many job seekers, who have opined in various forums and social media channels deriding businesses for such stipulations. One Redditor argued that requirements are becoming more and more stringent — to the point that even folks who are gainfully employed would be disqualified for their current roles due to these increased demands.

Forbes penned a piece highlighting experience barriers that prohibit many entry-level job seekers from securing positions at certain companies. According to the outlet, if an applicant doesn't have enough experience in official roles pertinent to the type of job they're looking for, there are other avenues they can take.

Such as enrolling in accessible online training programs and securing certifications related to the industry they'd like to work in. Securing these accomplishments can help beef a person's resume up with the keywords recruiters are looking for relevant industries and potentially give them a better shot at landing an interview.