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Contemplating Potentially Risky Career Decision
Hexmage-PA
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I've been looking for a job requiring a four year degree for the better half of a year. I hate my current job, which only requires a High School diploma and has no advancement opportunities, but it pays $15/hour. It's a manufacturing job, and I only took it out of temporary necessity.
A friend of mine works at a call center specializing in business-to-business lead generation in a nearby city that I could probably get into. However, even with their advancement track, I'd still only get up to $12/hour (3 dollars less than I make now) unless I made supervisor (which my friend achieved in six months). Worse, I'd be guaranteed to lose at least $200 from my savings each month until I passed two advancement assessments (which at best would take two months, possibly longer). Finally, I don't know how well I'd perform at that job. However, my hope is that it would look better on a resume than my current manufacturing job and help me get a HR or administrative assistant job later.
Should I stay at the well-paying manufacturing job I hate, or should I go to the call center position that pays somewhat less in hopes that it will look better on my resume and help me get better jobs later?
A friend of mine works at a call center specializing in business-to-business lead generation in a nearby city that I could probably get into. However, even with their advancement track, I'd still only get up to $12/hour (3 dollars less than I make now) unless I made supervisor (which my friend achieved in six months). Worse, I'd be guaranteed to lose at least $200 from my savings each month until I passed two advancement assessments (which at best would take two months, possibly longer). Finally, I don't know how well I'd perform at that job. However, my hope is that it would look better on a resume than my current manufacturing job and help me get a HR or administrative assistant job later.
Should I stay at the well-paying manufacturing job I hate, or should I go to the call center position that pays somewhat less in hopes that it will look better on my resume and help me get better jobs later?
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Why are you losing $200 from savings each month? Spell this out for me, because that sounds shady.
Call center work at ADT (we're home even when you're not) helped a tiny bit in moving into software test, just because I had experience helping people work through a problem online. That being said, I'm not sure what cold call sales would help with resume wise.
Call center work is pretty much all people who are miserable at their jobs but signed on because they needed an income but couldn't find anything better...usually with the hope/expectation it will only be temporary.
(And employers probably know this, so I seriously doubt that having a call center job on your resume is any kind of enhancement.)
So in other words, call center jobs are for people who are in just the same situation as you, @Hexmage-PA...except that you already have a "Lousy job taken out of temporary necessity," BUT it pays better than the call center ever would!
So this decision boils down to "Should I trade my crappy job for another crappy job which comes with a 20%+ pay cut?"
I think you know the answer.
If I come across as snarky or blunt, I apologize, I don't mean to, but I cannot emphasize enough that whatever optimistic ideas you may have about a call center job being better than what you're doing now or giving you better opportunity to advance you're career, they're almost certainly wrong.
Put it this way: My little sister has kind of steered her life down a cul-de-sac (didn't want to go to a four year or even two-year college, spent a year at a high-end cosmetology school, decided after graduating she didn't like/wasn't good at cutting hair, has worked food service jobs ever since)...and when she considered applying at a local call center company, I (successfully) talked her out of it and told her to stay in food service or do literally anything else.
If I was in your position, I would ask myself what part of my job is the part that I actually hate,
If its the hours: Try and find pretty much the same job but with a day shift. I'm not sure where you are, but I saw plenty of manufacturing jobs on craiglist when I was hunting for menial retail work, and they all paid way better than what I was looking at.
If its the actual work: See if you can find a smaller or more flexible company who may have pretty much the same work for you now, but offer the opportunity train you in something you are more interested in.
I've watched a lot of friends with actual degrees be pretty much chronically unemployed, while ones with genuine experience in some sort of work place use that as a stepping stone to get further. I would try and figure out how the skills you have right now could move you towards a job you want, rather than going to a call center or hoping that your old degree should be worth the same as job experience.
Is it just your organization? At the very least supervisory roles should be possible, especially with a four year degree to help the transition.
As for my current job, I was a forklift driver until they decided they only needed one person and moved me over to doing manual labor in the packing department (why they're still paying me the same amount as they were when I was a lift driver is beyond me). I don't like working for this company for many reasons, chief of which being that it requires a lot of mandatory overtime (I've only gotten both Saturday and Sunday off twice this year so far), first shift is nearly impossible to get on, the company has a history of OSHA violations (including failing to protect employees from exposure to the carcinogenic substance hexavalent chromium), and the plant is located in a rural area nearly an hour away from any decent-sized cities. I think I'd rather sacrifice a few dollars than stay here, but I'm not 100% positive if I should leave or not.
1. It is very difficult to advance out of a call center experience. You can do it (and I did), but it's not easy. My company made it a point to promote from within, but also made it a point not to let people jump from the call center over to corporate. Our call center was relatively large (100 agents), and over the seven years I worked for the company, only 3 people, including myself, got promoted out of the call center. A lot of business people, for various reasons, have prejudices against call centers. They tend to view them as cheap labor farms, despite the fact that the employees can actually be quite talented.
2. Sometimes it's good to take a position in a new industry. Yeah, you're starting on the ground floor, but learning new skill sets, and showing you can succeed in them, is very valuable on a resume. But you also don't want a history of job hopping. You have to make sure you're committed to staying at this new job, even if you don't get promoted right away.
3. Sales is hard. But, if you can succeed in it, you open up a lot of high paying, commission jobs. But, to reemphasize, it's hard. Especially cold calling. I've seen a lot of burnout and most people can't handle call center based sales for more than a year. A lot of call center sales jobs are also VERY competitive. I was at a company that straight up fired the bottom 10% every month. Make sure you know what you're in for.
Like I said, I've seen people get promoted from call center agents, but I've also seen dozens of others keep applying for promotions that never came. In my experience, a lot of call centers like to hire kids straight out of college. This means you'll be up against a lot of other talented and qualified people that also want those same promotions. When I started at my last job, I got to shadow one of the other agents. He was around my age, college educated, and a genuinely bright guy. He kept talking about his goals to move up to manager and build a career. Seven years later, he was still answering phones. It wasn't that he wasn't qualified, he was just never the MOST qualified person when an opening came around.
Nintendo Network ID - PirateLuigi 3DS: 3136-6586-7691
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I just don't know what else I can do to get out of my current job. Right now I'm working 3 PM to 11 PM (often 3 to 3, actually), 6 or 7 days a week, in a place out in the middle of nowhere with a ton of OSHA violations (if I remember correctly I think the facility received 7 citations last year alone, including not having a functioning fire alarm). I've applied for over 80 different jobs since the start of the year and only heard anything at all back from three of them. I assume they are looking for someone with relevant experience, and I thought a business-to-business call center would at least get me that. Even if it doesn't, it would get me a five day a week 8 AM to 5 PM job in a small city so I could actually have a life outside work.
I'm open to other suggestions. I don't really want to work at a call center, but it does seem like it would at least be better than my current job.
I started working for a large hotel company taking inbound calls and making reservations. The pay was decent, especially for the area, and the job wasn't horrible. Yes, it was basically being on the phone for 8 hours a day, but being inbound reservations meant that when you got a call, chances were you were close to making a booking.
Within the five years I stayed at the company, I had a chance to move up and try a variety of departments. Some were still taking calls, but I also did IT work for them, and also ended up in QA and being a trainer. The only reason I didn't become a supervisor was because the hours would have conflicted with my school schedule.
So no, not all call centers are soul crushing, dead end jobs. That said, 'lead generated" is cold calling as others have pointed out, and that takes a special sort of person. Your quotas are probably going to be a lot more demanding than you would find in an inbound call center, and you have to be an outgoing person that knows how to get through receptionists and speak to people in charge.
If you haven't done so already, see if there are any staffing agencies near you or near the city you want to work in. They might be able to put you in somewhere, and even if it's for a couple of weeks/months, that's another way to build experience.
Nintendo Network ID - PirateLuigi 3DS: 3136-6586-7691
G&T Grass Type Pokemon Gym Leader, In-Game Name: Dan
that being said unless you desperately want out of manufacturing/labor related jobs, I would think that various machinery-operating qualifications could get you a gig with regular hours somewhere that would probably pay better than driving a phone
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
They were all entry level positions in other fields. Most were for Athens, Georgia, although I have applied for jobs in other parts of northeast Georgia.
Seriously, skilled labor is in high demand
...So, you'd be cold calling offices to see if they want to buy Dell computers / printers / whatever?
i mean, your current job sounds terrible, and at least a call center won't give you cancer / will give you reasonable hours, but this is how a typical shift at a call center goes:
You sit at a desk for 8-9 hours, using a bottom of the line computer that can just barely function, while people yell in your ear. There are usually no goals for you to achieve, no pile of work that you can tackle and then get a sense of accomplishment about: just an endless queue of either outbound or inbound calls and a set of guidelines that are often impossible to follow.
Job security is non-existent. Most call center companies happily uproot entire operations and go elsewhere to save bucks whenever possible and very few of them have unions.
The best thing that can be said about it is that it's easy work. Boring & stressful, but easy.
If you want to give it a shot, it's probably better than your current job (except for the extra pay you'll be missing every month) - but not by much, and it'll probably also be temporary work. I second @Usagi 's advice: see if you can find someone who wants a forklift driver (assuming you enjoyed that kind of thing).
I work at the worst performing plant in an otherwise successful company. From what I've seen and heard of how management treats people I think putting myself in a leadership position would be too risky.
Primarily because I have a Bachelors degree and would rather be in a position that requires one.
I understand that. However, I'd guess that those same business people would be even more prejudiced against people who work in manufacturing. At least someone who works at a call center can talk to other human beings professionally and keep their temper, whereas many of the people I work with at my current job don't seem like they could do even that.
Here's how my shift at my current position goes:
I stand on my feet for 8 hours (or 12 hours, usually at least twice a week) on a grimy factory floor in sweltering heat, alternating between taking pieces of an assembly line to put a plastic cylinder on them and placing finished product in containers. My only goal is to keep up with the ceaseless pace and hope my team leader doesn't tell me I have to stay over that day. We normally work at least six days a week, but often work all seven.
As bad as what I've already described sounds, at one point soon after starting work at this company I was working twelve hours a day, seven days a week for months on end with a supervisor who I imagine was as unpleasant to talk to as the most irate cold call receiver.
I already have to deal with uncooperative co-workers at my current job. The only thing about this call center job that keeps me from taking it is that I have no idea how well I'll be able to perform cold calls. If I knew I could do that well I'd quit my current job as soon as possible.
Of course, I'd still rather get an Administrative Assistant or HR job, but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen any time soon.
This is the wrong attitude to have.
First, I hate to break it to you, but Bachelor degrees aren't a big deal anymore. Yes, a lot of companies ask for them BUT by the same token, I know a lot of people that aren't working in the fields that they went to school for and are perfectly happy. I have an English degree along with certification to teach High School and are not doing anything remotely close to that. And for the most part I'm okay with it.
If you want to do something you love, and are finding yourself unhappy not doing it, then that's one thing, but from this thread, and your resume thread, I sorta get the feeling that you think the work you're currently doing is beneath you. Like others have pointed out, you should have more opportunities if you sought out jobs within your current expertise-- including forklift operator. Instead you seem to be trying out for office jobs with a resume that looks vastly underwhelming compare to other applicants.
Sorry if this comes out like I'm picking on you, because I'm not trying to. I been where you are, and it does suck to feel like you spent all the time (and if you're like me, money) on a degree that you're not putting to good use.
That said, I still wouldn't recommend the job you're talking about here, simply because it's cold sales. If you're really serious about getting an office job and moving away, I would honestly tell you to try to move up in your current company. A supervisor role will give you a lot of skills that you'll be able to put down on a resume that will help you get that office job in a year or two and shows that you're proactive in your career growth.
you basically have to know you want to do sales before you make that leap.... because its not for most people
stick with your current job. also $15/hr aint nothin to sneeze at... you think you'll get a raise just because your job requires a bachelors degree? Perhaps you should speak to some teachers or graphic designers.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
How would I have built up a resume that would get me an office job? That's what I'd really like to do. I absolutely hate working in manufacturing, and I especially hate the company I work for, but it was the only work I could get within months of graduating college to be able to pay my student loans.
I could have worked at my current job and made the same amount of money as I've made now (and kept more of it) before going to college. That way I could have afforded to wait for the job I want to get after college instead of taking a terrible job (and apparently locking myself into a career with it) to pay my student loans for a degree that has as of yet helped me in no way. However, my father was adamant that I go to college immediately after high school because he thought I'd never go if I didn't do it right then.
On the other hand, the company got into a lot of trouble with OSHA a few years before I started because of a leak of hexavalent chromium into the general facility that wasn't discovered for months, so I would have been in even more danger then.
The one good thing about the job I've got now is that it has allowed me to save $18,000. I could go for a while without a job if I had to for whatever reason. Hell, I'd gladly pay any one of the companies I've applied to if it would get me a job.
The money isn't the problem. I'd ideally like to make more eventually, but I'd settle for as low as $12/hr if it was at a job that I didn't actively hate in an urban area.
I might be making good money right now, but it's in exchange for any chance to have a life outside work. Nearly everyone I know is in the city while I'm stuck out in the country, and I can't even visit them or really do anything because most people have afternoons free while I'm working 3-11 PM. I get one day off work at best, and even then I'm usually at home looking for another job online. I've made a few attempts to make friends at work, but one guy turned out to be very misogynistic and the other a racist. Don't forget the facility has had many OSHA violations, including failing to protect employees from cancer-causing chemicals.
I just don't feel like $15/hr is worth social isolation in a job I hate in the middle of nowhere that gives me no experience towards a job I might like and might end up giving me lung cancer.
So what's your degree in? Do you have relevant work experience? Internships? Co-ops? Student or independent projects? What do you want to do? Because "office job" is a really vague description.
Also, I'm trying really hard not to be irritated that you think having a BA/BS makes you above a skilled labor job. They pay well, generally have amazing benefits packages, paid OT and holidays, healthcare, and a promotion track to supervisor or project manager regardless of how many pieces of paper you have, almost none of which you're going to see as an entry level phone monkey at a call center.
Compare that with manufacturing, where you have the job satisfaction of looking back at your day and saying, "Well, I can physically see the things that I did today. I helped make those things there."
I apologize for offending you. Maybe I just work at an exceptionally awful plant and similar positions with other companies are better.
Again, maybe my current workplace is just spectacularly awful, but my job already feels soul crushing. General morale is very low (especially thanks to the massive amount of mandatory overtime), and my plant also has a lot of problems with defective product, so I can't even have the satisfaction of knowing I helped make a good product.
I originally wasn't considering this call center position at all until I found out I could possibly get to $12/hour in as little as six months and also have a chance at becoming a supervisor, which I thought would look better on a resume towards getting an HR or administrative assistant job. From what I've seen this call center has been growing steadily for years now, just purchased two new buildings to house additional workers, and is expecting to add 100 more positions by the end of this year, so as long as I can make cold calls I thought I'd have a decent shot at making supervisor. It's also a local company, so I'm not terribly concerned about it moving someplace else.
Based on what you've all said I'm leaning towards passing on the idea, but I'm not certain what else to do. I definitely don't want to stay working at the company I'm at, so I could try to get a similar job at another company that is closer to the city. However, I also don't want to stay in this career, and I'm afraid getting a similar job at another company would just cement me even further into a job I don't really want to be stuck in. I could stay where I'm at and continue trying to get the job I really want, but I've been trying that for over half a year now with no luck.
Given what you've got in savings, maybe the change of scenery is what you need. Get a room somewhere and apply at all the temp agencies. If you are a good temp, show up on time, work hard, and are generally a good person, these can turn into longer-term options, good people are hard to find.
A staffing agency isn't going to want or be able to put you to work "for free," but get in there and talk to someone. You've got demonstrated ability to get to work and do a job, plus a bachelor's degree, you should be able to find something.
Please note: I don't know geography.
Steam Me
Aren't employers usually hesitant to hire someone who quits a job before getting another job? It's always been my understanding that doing so will make them think you're likely to jump ship at any time. I'd love to quit my current job and just start job searching full-time, though, but it seems to me likely any even riskier option.
I'll apply for it. It's a bit farther away than I've been looking at previously, but why not. Thanks!
I've been hesitant about using Craigslist, honestly. I've mostly stuck to websites like Monster and Indeed. Is Craigslist really that good for job hunting?
You have experience in several different areas, but none in direct HR role... my company just got a new HR lady, she is in her late 30s and this is the first actual HR job she was able to get. Her resume included teaching ESL, working at 2 different temp agencies dealing with people on a daily basis helping them get jobs.
Also a side note, I am not sure why the people on this thread think being forklift certified is something special. It literally takes 15 minutes to get certified and they give them to people who can't even drive a car.
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A note I ment to add to my last mesage but I'll put here instead... if you don't want to quit your job currently, schedule for 3-5 days of vacation. Taking one day off for yourself to destress and then the other 2 going to staffing agencies and just talking to them to figure out what they recomend, you might even be able to get a job at one of the agencies and work there for awhile.
PaD id - 346,240,298
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Dude if you're applying in Athens, that's just going to be difficult as shit. With UGA right there you're competing against every recent grad that wants to stay in town on top of students who will take low wages for experience.
If you're willing to relocate, I remember the Atlanta/Alpharetta/Marietta job market feeling pretty strong. Also, what is your degree in and what do you want to do?
In your situation, I would probably recommend dodging going into a new field just to get into an office and look for corporate and technical positions with companies similar to what you do now. They will see your current work experience as relevant, and if you have some degree of technical expertise in useful systems (such as maintenance, computer technology, or (especially) statistics and bookkeeping skills you can probably get a lot farther, faster than if you changed fields altogether.
This is a very generalized statement, though. Markets are different everywhere and while this is pretty much the case where I am realities could be very different where you are.
Nintendo Network ID - PirateLuigi 3DS: 3136-6586-7691
G&T Grass Type Pokemon Gym Leader, In-Game Name: Dan
Yeah, that's terrible. i just wanted you to know what you were likely to be walking into if you chose to pursue the call center, so you could make the assessment for yourself.
What do you have a degree in?