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Decide my career for me!
KingGraham
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Registered User regular
That was only half a joke.
Basically, I graduated with a degree in English. I'm not going to be a teacher, and doing generic office work grinds away at my soul after a while. I have a good work record with positions doing some light multimedia development and plenty of retail management during college. So the question is:
What is a trade or certification course(s) that I can complete in the shortest amount of time that will qualify me to get a job that will have steady hours, and make at least $25,000 a year (preferably $30k)?
There's no particular field I really want to go in to. I'd rather just learn a trade, or a set of computer/software skills and apply them to a day job than pursue a grand career with lots of advancement potential and long hours. What can I say? I'm not all that interested in the work world. I just sort of want a job that will stay a job, and not try to encroach on my personal life/ambitions more than necessary.
It's sort of an time investment and effort to reward ratio. Low on the effort and time commitment to training, high(ish) on the reward. Though my salary requirements are pretty moderate.
Any suggestions? Personal experience? Random ideas?
Basically, I graduated with a degree in English. I'm not going to be a teacher, and doing generic office work grinds away at my soul after a while. I have a good work record with positions doing some light multimedia development and plenty of retail management during college. So the question is:
What is a trade or certification course(s) that I can complete in the shortest amount of time that will qualify me to get a job that will have steady hours, and make at least $25,000 a year (preferably $30k)?
There's no particular field I really want to go in to. I'd rather just learn a trade, or a set of computer/software skills and apply them to a day job than pursue a grand career with lots of advancement potential and long hours. What can I say? I'm not all that interested in the work world. I just sort of want a job that will stay a job, and not try to encroach on my personal life/ambitions more than necessary.
It's sort of an time investment and effort to reward ratio. Low on the effort and time commitment to training, high(ish) on the reward. Though my salary requirements are pretty moderate.
Any suggestions? Personal experience? Random ideas?
KingGraham on
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Posts
And, how many times have you had this conversation?
"So, what's your major?"
"English."
"Ooooooooooh! Ya gonna be a teacher?"
"No."
"WTF then?"
You won't need any sort of degree or certification for it, just to be able to show that you're not a total idiot and have basic computer skills. That's not to say that there aren't any to get that would be helpful, but you could start interviewing right now without them and possibly land something right away.
I'm not sure how well it fits in with your "high on the reward" side of things. Obviously you're not looking for monetary reward, so I guess you mean as in helping other people, feeling like you're helping accomplish something good, etc. Some people get that warm and fuzzy "I'm helping people" feeling from it. Most get that "Everyone is stupid and should die. I hate them all." feeling from it.
I know this isn't what you're looking for, but look at non-profits. You can get a foot in the door easily and the nature of the work allows for often more "hands on" and skill-based positions. I know that a number of property management jobs around here require a lot of hands-on work in the residences in question, and would be an easy way to both professionally step forward and gain trade-based experience.
I think I meant a sort of subjective sense that the reward (primarily monetary and as much job satisfaction as I can muster) was worth more than the money/time I put in to training and certifications.
I appreciate the responses though. Some things to start with anyway. Thanks, and don't let your kids graduate with an English degree!
It would be a full-time job just keeping track of how many times that exact exchange has happened.
You haven't set your bar too high and I am wondering why you don't want to go into teaching? There is a pretty reasonable chance (certainly more than at any point in the past decade) that the wages of teachers will be substantially increased in the near to mid future.
I don't know where you live, but any journeyman/certification type niche in the tech field will get you close to or at your salary goal.
I would advise you to get into something that has room for growth because I have a feeling that you will discover that 30k a year buys absolutely jack-shit in this society.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
After I got sick of looking for jobs related to my degree and sick of stocking beer in the places where people I went to school with went to shop, I started looking around to see what I could do to move myself up the payscale ladder.
I picked up my A+ certification, which is pretty easy to do. If you can build a computer you can pass the test. I walked into a local computer store after I passed the second test and got a job on the spot. They didn't pay any attention to the certification. They were impressed that I showed up in nice clothes and that I had no problem digging into the guts of a computer and replacing components. Soon I was making decentish ($11/hr) money and was assigned the industrial level jobs where I would go in and overhaul Okidata printers and run around running Cat5 through ceiling panels and crawl spaces. Got a bump in pay doing that. And, while I was doing it I had a few offers from places looking to set up their own internal IT department.
I never took up any of those jobs because I ended up getting hired at a small newspaper out in the middle of nowhere, Alaska where I have complete control over production and a start in one of the most competitive industries out there. The thing was, I knew that I had to do something to better my situation, and so I did what I could, but I never stopped looking for the job that I wanted while I was working at the job I needed.
So, do what you've got to do, but don't let that stop you from still looking for something that you want to do.
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Just a warning, the paralegal field is very competitive at the moment, or at least from what I noticed in my futile search for a job in said field (Poli Science major here). I'm sure my lack of office experience hurt me, but none the less I was finding very little in terms entry level paralegal positions. Most firms were looking for 3-5 years experience, and it's a shame since they pay seems to be pretty decent, even if from what I hear the hours can be hell.
This this this.
Non profits tend to have higher turnover and lower pay than what someone in a similar position in a for profit situation would have, but this means they are much more likely to hire someone with little to no experience and put them in a position of responsibility.
I don't know your situation, but my first recommendation to anyone who has graduated college and has no idea what to do next is almost always Americorps. It'll pay enough to keep you alive and help you net some serious job skills. And national service always always looks good.
They will train you in just about anything you can think of, and you will have a guaranteed income for 4+ years.
Also, guns. Go here for more info.
I want to lime this because it is very true. I've been with my company for eight months and this is my first "real" job. In this time frame the company has consistently knocked me up the ladder whenever an opportunity presented itself. First week back from training and they had me working on my own (big!) project. From there I have bounced around a lot, but due to the high turnover, low bar for getting in the door and amazing on-the-job experience I keep finding myself surprised at my success.
I don't think any of this would have been possible at a for-profit company. Due to being lower on the payscale, there's a lot of turnover. This is a good thing for people like us as it provides immediate opportunity and advancement if you get noticed.
In all, the experience and job titles that I have held here are going to make me look amazing to for-profits once (if?) I decide to make that move. While I make a little under 30k currently (and am very comfortable) I'll be looking at quite the jump if I go for-profit.
EDIT: Getting in the door is much easier, as well.
I'll second this, I was really disappointed that I couldn't help you out there. I got my start in the litigation support area, which is universally populated by douchebags, but it got me the contacts that got me my job.
the Air Force or the Army (especialy if you can get a commision) really is the way to go if you can't find work elsewhere. The Airforce has tons of jobs that will leave you with a valuable skill.e
Think about it.
Air Force is actually an extremely good idea. The Army will send you off to far off places, which is not good if you have a significant other, or are planning too. The Air Force on the other hand, at least in Canada, there are a lot of opportunities other than just flying planes and things, and they will take good care of you and make sure you stick with your family. Also usually you won't have to leave the country if that isn't your thing, and it guarantees you a good career for as long as you want it.
I took the first semester of a teacher certification course and hated it. I actually liked being in class with the kids, but I hated the college classes I had to pay for. And the standardized tests I had to pay for. And my school repeatedly lied about class requirements and changed them on a whim to make sure people had to spend more money taking more worthless education classes.
And my bar is not too high because my wife is making pretty solid money. More money than I'll probably ever make. My only goal is to make enough to pay our rent (or mortgage). The rest can come from her. We're both quite comfortable with this arrangement.
Jesus...no. I appreciate the thought, but I have absolutely no interest in military service.
A lot of these ideas are pretty good, but the main problem is that none of this stuff is even available in my area. I've applied to non-profits before, so that suggestion was pretty spot on. Haven't ever gotten an interview, and now I haven't seen any job listings from non-profits in about six months. The only tech support job I can find around here is a nights/weekends position, which would mean I would literally never see my wife again. So that's out.
Well, thanks for the help. At the very least you guys have given me a few more things to think about. Coming up on one year of unemployment! I'm sure I can manage to make it to two years with a little help from this absolutely shitty job market that I can't move out of.
What is your geographical area?
If you're far from a major city you're fairly boned for most 9-5 jobs, as is. They exist, but generally with small communities and this job market they're not going to turn over very quickly.
My advise is to simply send out resumes. I spent 9 months sending out 20ish resumes a week for any job that in the least tickled my fancy. It's a lot better to say "I'm not interested" than it is to not have the ability to say anything at all. Really, if you're looking for a job it should be full-time, and your days should be generally spent in pursuit of employment.
Patience is the biggest factor right now. If you're fine playing the unemployment card for awhile more you just need to wait for responses, which you will only get if you're sending applications out to everyone.
If I sent out 20 resumes a week I would probably have applied to every job in the area after about two weeks--that includes jobs that I can't possibly qualify for, like Registered Nurse positions and stuff. At the moment I'm averaging around 2 resumes a week because there just is not anything that I'm qualified for. Everything is either retail (which I get passed over for because I graduated college, but I still apply over and over again) or specialized mortgage industry shit that I can't qualify for. There's almost nothing in the way of just generic office work. A few years ago things were different, but the job market is about 25% of what it was two years ago in this area.
Supposedly this area isn't being hit as hard as some, but you sure as shit could have fooled me.
Is there some way of finding jobs that I'm just not familiar with? I've had nothing but success with job hunting in the past, never hunting for more than a month before landing something pretty solid. This time though, it's just endless. No one is hiring, and people that are hiring want far more or far less experience than I have.
If you can't commute in you're pickings will be very slim. I'd start calling old co-workers, friends and trying to pull connections, which have a much greater success rate than blind-firing resumes.