NationStates Jolt Archive

It seems like the deck is stacked against you when choosing what you want to do in the professional arena. Picture the following allegory:

You are in a large open enclosure stretching skywards, and filled with hundreds of lofts each of which has a ladder leading up to it. Each loft is a possible career, and the ladder leading to it is the education required to get certified in that profession. To get to one of the lofts, you must fork over most of your money and then spend years climbing the ladder.

The catch is, there's no way from the ground floor to figure out what life is like on any of the lofts. You'll get a peek at the platform, but only once you've finished climbing the ladder to get there. And if you find out at that point that being a [fill_in_blank] is not really right for you, well you've just spent years of your life working towards something that you don't enjoy. You can climb back down and start up another ladder, but that'll take even more time and money, and the cost will probably be prohibitive.

The point I'm making is that choosing a career that you'll ultimately enjoy is like trying to get snake-eyes on the first roll. It's nearly impossible to make an informed decision about what educational degree you want and what you want to do with that degree. And once you make a decision you become committed to whatever choice you made, for better or for worse.

Has anybody else noticed this? And if so what have you done to better your odds?

OK, this is where having hobbies and intersts comes into play.

If you have those then you know at least in part what interests you.

If lay around and do nothing--well that is what you are investing in your future.

Ask me how I know about that second part.


Anyway, hobbies, reading, investigation, there are plenty of ways to examine your potential career path. You just cant be lazy, or too dull in the head.

Anyway, I myself fecked my life up pretty well--now I am thrity and just getting onto a career path that will support my family.

I for one am of the Old School belief that if a man can get a job they like--Great!!! If not? shutthe feck up and do your job anyway--your a man.

But of course I have family.

Anyway, right now I am teamster driver for an electrical supply house--whooohoo, yes I do wake up every morning crying.
Yes, I know what a gun barrel tastes like.

But I didnt do anything as youth, i laid around played guitar and got high, got into fights and stole things--I was preparing for a great future.
I had a High IQ, emotional well developed---not stable--just developed.
I tired of the drag of school--so I quit--again i was a shinning example of public education.
Anyway as it turns out severe alcoholism and LSD consumption are not very good for getting one ready for the working world.

Oh, but wait--I am not done.
I didnt practice safe sex--at all--ever---never.
Kids!!!!

So as you can imagine I am now thirty, four kids.
Luckily for them--I was raised to be a man and face your challenges.

So I am in college--working full time--and being Super Dad.
In a few years I enter my choosen field and suffer there for my remaining years trying to gather enough money so my children will not suffer my fate.


Just having interest in your future is a start. Now be proactive and start diggin for what you want to know.

It seems like the deck is stacked against you when choosing what you want to do in the professional arena. <snip> The point I'm making is that choosing a career that you'll ultimately enjoy is like trying to get snake-eyes on the first roll. It's nearly impossible to make an informed decision about what educational degree you want and what you want to do with that degree.That is by design. The "education" system as it is now structured is a business designed to suck money out of people with a promise they can't fullfil. In any other industry (except Casinos) it would be called "False Advertising" :headbang:
And once you make a decision you become committed to whatever choice you made, for better or for worse. Has anybody else noticed this? And if so what have you done to better your odds?After 3 years of 80 hour weeks looking for work in my degree field I simply quit trying. At this juncture my degree is actually a liability because it makes me "overqualified" for the jobs I CAN apply for.

I no longer advocate Higher Ed for anything but proto-Physicians or personal enrichment - and then only if you have a lot of cash you want to throw away. :mad:

If you're in a university or college, they should have a career planning thing. If you head over there, they should have some tests you coudl take to determine your interests and what careers would suit your personality type.
Then you can talk to career counsellors and they probably have a program where you can talk to people in the profession... universities like to be able to proclaim that the people who graduate are employed, so they do everything they can to help you find work when you're done.

If you're in a university or college, they should have a career planning thing. If you head over there, they should have some tests you coudl take to determine your interests and what careers would suit your personality type.
Then you can talk to career counsellors and they probably have a program where you can talk to people in the profession... universities like to be able to proclaim that the people who graduate are employed, so they do everything they can to help you find work when you're done.
Ah yes, the STRONG, Myers Briggs, MAPP and other "Career tests". I've done them all - several times. They are about as useful as a screen door on a submarine when it actually comes to getting hired.

The biggest indicator of hirability I've ever seen is extroversion &/or sex-appeal. If you can make people like you or want to f*ck you within 10 secons of meeting them then you can get past HR. Otherwise you're screwed.

The biggest indicator of hirability I've ever seen is extroversion &/or sex-appeal. If you can make people like you or want to f*ck you within 10 secons of meeting them then you can get past HR. Otherwise you're screwed.

You had to go to college to figure that out? Huh, if that wasnt the case I would have never gotten any job ever.

OK, this is where having hobbies and intersts comes into play.

If you have those then you know at least in part what interests you.

If lay around and do nothing--well that is what you are investing in your future.

Ask me how I know about that second part.


Anyway, hobbies, reading, investigation, there are plenty of ways to examine your potential career path. You just cant be lazy, or too dull in the head.

Anyway, I myself fecked my life up pretty well--now I am thrity and just getting onto a career path that will support my family.

I for one am of the Old School belief that if a man can get a job they like--Great!!! If not? shutthe feck up and do your job anyway--your a man.

But of course I have family.

Anyway, right now I am teamster driver for an electrical supply house--whooohoo, yes I do wake up every morning crying.
Yes, I know what a gun barrel tastes like.

But I didnt do anything as youth, i laid around played guitar and got high, got into fights and stole things--I was preparing for a great future.
I had a High IQ, emotional well developed---not stable--just developed.
I tired of the drag of school--so I quit--again i was a shinning example of public education.
Anyway as it turns out severe alcoholism and LSD consumption are not very good for getting one ready for the working world.

Oh, but wait--I am not done.
I didnt practice safe sex--at all--ever---never.
Kids!!!!

So as you can imagine I am now thirty, four kids.
Luckily for them--I was raised to be a man and face your challenges.

So I am in college--working full time--and being Super Dad.
In a few years I enter my choosen field and suffer there for my remaining years trying to gather enough money so my children will not suffer my fate.


Just having interest in your future is a start. Now be proactive and start diggin for what you want to know.

Oddly enough that cheered me up a bit. Thanks!

I got sucked into the drug crowd too, and had some crazy shit happen in my life when I was a teenager. I went from straight A's to not passing, but somehow I made it through.

You're right, it's spoiled to want the best and then get upset when I don't think I'll get it. Especially when I didn't put in the hard work that so many other people do. And plus my cards aren't all bad. Half of my extended family is poverty-stricken and I know no matter where I end up life will probably be kinder to me than to them.

Alright, things are getting back in perspective.

Ah yes, the STRONG, Myers Briggs, MAPP and other "Career tests". I've done them all - several times. They are about as useful as a screen door on a submarine when it actually comes to getting hired.

The biggest indicator of hirability I've ever seen is extroversion &/or sex-appeal. If you can make people like you or want to f*ck you within 10 secons of meeting them then you can get past HR. Otherwise you're screwed.

I've had that problem too. The HR's I've dealt with are full of bureaucrats that make it harder not easier for you to get work. It took me a while to figure out that it's who you know not what you know that gets you a job.

It's culture shock in a way. You come out of college with these rosey views on how things ought to be, and right away you get the cold water of the real world.

Cool, perspective is good.

Check this out.

I would always be sitting around with my friends and making the Joke "I am going to become a Mortician, no one bitches, and the work is steady--and whats is the worst thing that could happen if you feck up? Someone gets up off the table and goes home ALIVE?"

So I make this joke for years doing one shitty job after another.

Then one day I make the same joke--and it occurs to me--why dont I ?

I have the fortitude for it,--now while I am not fond of death--it suits my needs.

And so now I am working towards becoming a MOrtician--I have about two years to go.

I will be thirty two or three and into a very well paid career.
There are always options.

Ah yes, the STRONG, Myers Briggs, MAPP and other "Career tests". I've done them all - several times. They are about as useful as a screen door on a submarine when it actually comes to getting hired.

The biggest indicator of hirability I've ever seen is extroversion &/or sex-appeal. If you can make people like you or want to f*ck you within 10 secons of meeting them then you can get past HR. Otherwise you're screwed.
I wasn't talking about actually getting hired, I was talking about figuring out what to do with your life.

There are a few things beyond career tests that you need to do while in college in order to make it work.

One of them is internships. This is a tough trick for those of us who have (had) to work our way through college because with the crunch of time that school takes combined with the time you put in to that suck ass job that you're doing to live you don't have a lot of time to dedicate to fetching coffee for somebody for free. I understand that, because I worked my way through college and couldn't afford to do the internships my classmates did. But, I did find a way to do a few.

First, they give you a peak into that loft. That's really what you're looking for, isn't it? So there it is. If you don't like that loft it's still not too late to change that major.

Second, they give you those connections that you so sorely need. Work them.

Yes, you have to be personable, people have to like working with you. Unless you are a clear and amazing genius at what you do, people have to be able to stand seeing your ass everyday. People. What'ya gonna do.

The next thing you have to do at college is realize that all those other people in your class, they're going into the same field. And a lot of them are going to make it. Make friends, join or make clubs-they might get you that job later.

If you hate the classes in your major, your not likely to like the loft.

Money is not a score. Don't consider it as such. You are chosing what you are going to do for the rest of your life.

You're not bothering your professors when you talk to them. If you are they are in the wrong field. They can get you where you want to go, you just have to ask. This is not to say they have a magic wand or always know the secret, but they can help. But only if you ask.

Oh, and reseting isn't as hard as starting. There are plenty of people who've switched careers all together, it happens often. Jumping from loft to loft isn't as hard as climbing to loft level.

It seems like the deck is stacked against you when choosing what you want to do in the professional arena. Picture the following allegory:

You are in a large open enclosure stretching skywards, and filled with hundreds of lofts each of which has a ladder leading up to it. Each loft is a possible career, and the ladder leading to it is the education required to get certified in that profession. To get to one of the lofts, you must fork over most of your money and then spend years climbing the ladder.

The catch is, there's no way from the ground floor to figure out what life is like on any of the lofts. You'll get a peek at the platform, but only once you've finished climbing the ladder to get there. And if you find out at that point that being a [fill_in_blank] is not really right for you, well you've just spent years of your life working towards something that you don't enjoy. You can climb back down and start up another ladder, but that'll take even more time and money, and the cost will probably be prohibitive.

The point I'm making is that choosing a career that you'll ultimately enjoy is like trying to get snake-eyes on the first roll. It's nearly impossible to make an informed decision about what educational degree you want and what you want to do with that degree. And once you make a decision you become committed to whatever choice you made, for better or for worse.

Has anybody else noticed this? And if so what have you done to better your odds?
Contact people already working in the profession and request to visit them for an information-gathering interview. Most will oblige. Not only will you gain extremely valuable insight, but you might get some great contacts as well.

Well, I quit college when I got very sick and started working to get caught up on bills. I was always interested in technology and engineering, and thanks to my parents and friends I knew how to weld and use tools. Now I'm in Industrial engineering, with no degree, and am making much more than most people with bachlor degrees are making. No student loan payments and i love what I'm doing.

Most of the the people with degrees that I work with have almost no common sense. I don't know what it is that seems to suck all the common sense out of them.

Well, I quit college when I got very sick and started working to get caught up on bills. I was always interested in technology and engineering, and thanks to my parents and friends I knew how to weld and use tools. Now I'm in Industrial engineering, with no degree, and am making much more than most people with bachlor degrees are making. No student loan payments and i love what I'm doing.

Most of the the people with degrees that I work with have almost no common sense. I don't know what it is that seems to suck all the common sense out of them.
Um ... chances are, most of them didn't have much to begin with and college just taught them unrealistic use of intellect. :D

Um ... chances are, most of them didn't have much to begin with and college just taught them unrealistic use of intellect. :D

All to true. A degree is nothing more than a piece of paper. It means that you have been trained. Nothing more.

Ah yes, the STRONG, Myers Briggs, MAPP and other "Career tests". I've done them all - several times. They are about as useful as a screen door on a submarine when it actually comes to getting hired.

The biggest indicator of hirability I've ever seen is extroversion &/or sex-appeal. If you can make people like you or want to f*ck you within 10 secons of meeting them then you can get past HR. Otherwise you're screwed.
Never, EVER go through ER if you can help it! Their mission in life is to weed out as many people as possible. The "hire the best person for the job" is a myth!

( I know ... I was in HR for over 14 years! )

I have to disagree with the basic premise of this thread. It is, in fact, possible to look at what you are getting into before you get all the way up the ladder. Yes, when you start out at the very beginning it is a little difficult. At that point you can only make a decision based on what you think you would like doing in the future. But as soon as you are in the college system, it is easy to become better informed. The first way to do this is to talk to people already in the field. If you dont know anyone who is or has been in that field, take a look at your college professors, most of them worked in the field before choosing the teaching route. Also, many graduate students are part time students and full time workers in the field, you can talk to them as well. Another way is to read the professional journals. If the articles dont interest you, then maybe that field isnt right for you. Also, you can gauge how you like the field based on whether you enjoy the classes you are taking or not. There is plenty of time to change majors while in college.

All to true. A degree is nothing more than a piece of paper. It means that you have been trained. Nothing more.
i agree. i've just ben in college/uni for 2 years and am taking a year out to work, and it may just be the particular subjects i was taking, but uni didn't teach me 'new ways of thinking', only how to think like an academic - not all that useful in the real, business world in my limited experience.
and before you say, i have at least some experience of the "real business world" as i've been running my own graphic design company since i was 16, and my parents are self-employed (and have been since i was about 2), so i've grown up around money, around businesses, employee managment, and observing the skills and thinking processes that are sucessful in running a business. uni - what it taught me, and the academic way you needed to think for it - was so far removed from any of that, i'm hardly supsised i need a year out just to get my head screwed back on properly :P


hmm on writing that, perhaps i shouldn't have chosen such academic subjects to study (economics and politics) :p


i suppose uni probably is useful, and all that, but...meh



edit: also, i understand that the american system is generally more geared towards qualifying and teaching students to get good jobs, not just arbitary academic knowledge-mining... so take whatever i say with a pinch of salt

All to true. A degree is nothing more than a piece of paper. It means that you have been trained. Nothing more.
Worse than that. All an Undergraduate degree shows is that you have spent an unreasonable sum of money for a piece of paper that now means less than a HS diploma used to.

Never, EVER go through ER if you can help it! Their mission in life is to weed out as many people as possible. The "hire the best person for the job" is a myth!

( I know ... I was in HR for over 14 years! )
Unfortuanately Cap, some of us never really had/have an option. Untill you have built up that much vaunted "network" HR is about the only choice you have.

Networking is great if you have a long family history in an area with friends and friends of friends. (Remember what I said about extroverts and Sex appeal?)

Of course, as an ISTJ who intended to be career Military before the Clinton RIFs, I've never really figured out how to build up a "network" when you don't live in a city for more than 5 years - and have no family connections either. (Somthing the Uni's won't teach you either.) :mad:

<snip>edit: also, i understand that the american system is generally more geared towards qualifying and teaching students to get good jobs, not just arbitary academic knowledge-mining... <snip>
I wish. :rolleyes:

Worse than that. All an Undergraduate degree shows is that you have spent an unreasonable sum of money for a piece of paper that now means less than a HS diploma used to.

Not at all. I work for a fortune 500 company and am familiar with the hiring process. Every job has minimum requirements that almost always involve having a degree. If you do not meet the minimum requirements, your resume does not get past HR. They will simply discard it and wonder why you applied if you knew you did not meet the minimum requirements.

If you are able to get a job without going through H.R. first, the manager wanting to hire you will have to jump through a variety of hoops to get you on board. Assuming the manager does that for you, he is not authorized to make you a concrete offer, therefore you still have to go to H.R. and H.R. will make you the offer. Since you do not have a degree or meet the minimum requirements, your offer will automatically be from the bottom of the range that job is budgeted for.

I know of several situations where the manager wanted to hire someone they knew from a different area of the company to do a job there was suddenly an opening for. Because the person did not have the minimum degree required for the position he was being moved to, the person was forced to take a lower title and pay grade than all of his coworkers who do the exact same job.

A degree is not a magical thing. You are still more likely to gain your employment through networking than through simply applying for jobs (at least at first, until your resume is strong enough that it demands attention). But not having a degree puts you at a distinct disadvantage. Not having a degree not only makes you less likely to get a job for which you have no contacts, but it also greatly increases your chances of being underpaid and hitting a glass ceiling early in your career. I work with people who have no degree, they make up for their lack of a degree with years of military experience, but as a result of their lack of a college degree they still make less money than I do even though we do the same job and were hired at the same time. When annual review time comes around, I never get passed over whereas they sometimes dont get the raise.

That is by design. The "education" system as it is now structured is a business designed to suck money out of people with a promise they can't fullfil. In any other industry (except Casinos) it would be called "False Advertising" :headbang:
After 3 years of 80 hour weeks looking for work in my degree field I simply quit trying. At this juncture my degree is actually a liability because it makes me "overqualified" for the jobs I CAN apply for.

I no longer advocate Higher Ed for anything but proto-Physicians or personal enrichment - and then only if you have a lot of cash you want to throw away. :mad:



What is your career that you can't find a job in? :)

Unfortuanately Cap, some of us never really had/have an option. Untill you have built up that much vaunted "network" HR is about the only choice you have.

Networking is great if you have a long family history in an area with friends and friends of friends. (Remember what I said about extroverts and Sex appeal?)

Of course, as an ISTJ who intended to be career Military before the Clinton RIFs, I've never really figured out how to build up a "network" when you don't live in a city for more than 5 years - and have no family connections either. (Somthing the Uni's won't teach you either.) :mad:

Not knowing anyone is a disadvantage but not the end of the world. I moved to this region from another country and knew only one person when I got here. That person was a college student with no connections of his own. Therefore, I had to build a network from scratch.

In the beginning, I had to take whatever job I could get. It was a job far below my level that had absolutely nothing to do with what I had studied. In fact, it was a job you dont even need a high school diploma to do. But it was also a job where I could meet lots of people who are in the industry I wanted to get into. I took full advantage of my position by doing my best to befriend as many people as possible. As I found out about opportunities, I would contact the people I knew in that department to see what help they could provide. Also, I tapped all of the contacts I made outside of work (at church and other activities). It took about 7 months from the time I arrived to this country until I was hired for a job not only in the general field that I studied, but in the specific subcategory of that field that I most enjoy.

I am by no means an extrovert. My nature is to be an introvert. But I am also aware of what it takes to get ahead in life and am willing to do things that go against my nature as necessary. I forced myself to play the extrovert role, and it worked. Just because you are an introvert does not mean you cannot do it, it simply means its harder and rather than being reenergized by the social contact like extroverts are, you are drained by it. If you know it is something that is beneficial then do it anyway, even if it is draining.

What is your career that you can't find a job in? :)
I essentially have a degree in Public Relations, but I have found that my minor in Ethics tends to be a disqualifier - that and being a 38 year old White Male with essentially no "professional" work history except in blowing things up.

<snipy>It took about 7 months from the time I arrived to this country until I was hired for a job not only in the general field that I studied, but in the specific subcategory of that field that I most enjoy.I spent Three Years after graduating from the Uni (at age 32) listening to "career counselors" and following all of the "correct" steps in networking/job searching. I got one interview. I still make less per year than the cost of my undergrad degree doing virtually everything but Crisis Planning & External Communications. (I do worst-case scenerio research and devlop contingency & communications plans to deal with it.)
I am by no means an extrovert. My nature is to be an introvert. But I am also aware of what it takes to get ahead in life and am willing to do things that go against my nature as necessary. I forced myself to play the extrovert role, and it worked. Just because you are an introvert does not mean you cannot do it, it simply means its harder and rather than being reenergized by the social contact like extroverts are, you are drained by it. If you know it is something that is beneficial then do it anyway, even if it is draining.
Oh, I agree. In fact, I try to do as much "face" time as I can in various business-networking organizations. I really wonder whether it hurts or helps me though. In my entire life I have never gotten a job because someone liked me. My last "professional" job came because I was simply the best person at a particular skill set and the company that hired me was literally waiting for me to complete my military discarge. Since then, the best that I have been able to be "hired" at - even after that much ballyhooed and oh-so-important degree - has been Temp work. (Even in my current position, I wasn't so much "hired" as came to work for my father's firm because I couldn't find work and he couldn't afford to hire anyone (else) with the appropriate skill set.)

The point I'm making is that choosing a career that you'll ultimately enjoy is like trying to get snake-eyes on the first roll. It's nearly impossible to make an informed decision about what educational degree you want and what you want to do with that degree. And once you make a decision you become committed to whatever choice you made, for better or for worse.

Has anybody else noticed this? And if so what have you done to better your odds?
Ask people. Teachers, friends, friends of friends/family, etc. Go to careers talks, do some internships before you specialise. And don't be tempted to specialise too early, or unnecessarily.

I considered aerospace engineering, navy and forensic linguistics before I settled on electrical engineering, then interned at a couple of utilities, decided the energy industry was where I wanted to be, specialised more in control/power systems and got a job at an energy infrastructure company. It's early days yet, but even if I end up somewhere else five years from now, it's been a worthwhile journey and I've got a CV to die for.

My advice then, get a wide range of experience and keep your options open.