Retiring Poor Is NOT as Bad as You Think! (single, deceased, father)
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it doesn't matter what you do but you need to somehow separate yourself from the pack.
you need to standout from the crowd or you are just another resume that gets filed away.
at the least you need to network very very hard.
the best way to get a job is to be brought in through someone else. i see it daily where i work.
we have doubled the company in 4 years and are hiring on an on going basis.
those who call cold are rarely picked. but those who know someone are given a serious look . many times that someone comes from a customer who recommends them.
In today's world, it's not about getting a job. It's about job security, benefits, and advancement. Do you have any insight about or know any employers who offer those?
security ? nope . i have not known that in my career either. but everything else , sure do . work for a firm myself where a good outside salesman can crack 200k a year.
security ? nope . i have not known that in my career either. but everything else , sure do . work for a firm myself where a good outside salesman can crack 200k a year.
My grant-writing son could easily crack close to 200k if that's what he wanted to do. Good salesman have always been able to do that, and god love 'em it doesn't mean they're any more or less virtuous than the next fellow.
They're certainly more employable but whether your salesman or my son, very few employers today offer anything resembling benefits or security. Whereas, when I was a young buck they would, on top of commission. It's demeaning to today's young people to say they're lazy, unmotivated, etc. because they don't take a pledge of allegiance to their employer of the moment, when said employer doesn't give a hoot beyond this year's sales quota.
you can't say that as a blanket statement . employers have to stay competitive with what other employers do. employers here in long island are fighting over good employee prospects.
in my 40 years in the business i have never seen such demand for good employees.
why ? mostly because many can't pass drug testing ,background checks or credit checks. these things were rare decades ago , today they are common pre-screening .
the great recession allowed employers to clean house and get rid of less than best of breed employees.
what seems to be left in our market are those less desirable folks who remain unemployed for a reason..
imany of our new engineers have been lured away shortly after starting by crazy amounts of money and benefits offered to them by competitors. .
not knowing i was retiring i got a call from a big national company telling me i can write my own pay check.
it is going to be a local job market thing rather than a blanket statement .
Last edited by mathjak107; 04-27-2015 at 04:16 AM..
"why ? mostly because many can't pass drug testing ,background checks or credit checks. these things were rare decades ago , today they are common pre-screening ."
I totally agree and would add, no drivers license, many lost due to not paying child support, very common today.
Mathjak, just this one time I have to agree with freemkt.
My son can write a grant application like nobody you've ever known. Wowsa. This skill gets him all kinds of headhunter and job offers, some with a great salary, but not one of those has ever offered anything resembling job security, much less a benefits/retirement package.
So he has opted to freelance and offer his services to creative arts groups. In the beginning, DH & I thought he was nuts but we've come around. If so-called "gainful" employment doesn't offer any gain beyond the promise of mega-bucks for a few years, what's in it for him?
I totally agree that younger people should take their skills into their own business, even if it means somewhat or even far less money. It's something you build over time and no one can take it away from you. I wish I had done more of that route instead of working for nonprofits. I was a grantwriter, too, in my arts management capacity. Working for others like that produced good things for them, much less for me.
Mathjak, just this one time I have to agree with freemkt.
My son can write a grant application like nobody you've ever known. Wowsa. This skill gets him all kinds of headhunter and job offers, some with a great salary, but not one of those has ever offered anything resembling job security, much less a benefits/retirement package.
So he has opted to freelance and offer his services to creative arts groups. In the beginning, DH & I thought he was nuts but we've come around. If so-called "gainful" employment doesn't offer any gain beyond the promise of mega-bucks for a few years, what's in it for him?
I have absolutely no quarrel with the choices your son has made. However, the mega-bucks earnings can buy the benefits/retirement package which is not provided directly. It is a contradiction in terms to call working for mega-bucks "so-called" gainful employment. It is absolutely gainful employment, employment that most people would die for.
Let's posit 10 years of employment at the mega-bucks level during which time one saves half of one's net earnings. Let's say the gross earnings are $250,000 per year (on the low side of "mega-bucks") and one lives on $100,000 per year (shouldn't be that hard), pays $50,000 per year in taxes and health insurance, then saves $100,000 per year. After 10 years that gives us a one million dollar retirement fund not even counting any growth. Not too shabby.
I find it a little bizarre to pooh-pooh making lots of money as if it were somehow undesirable or disadvantageous. What should we expect, mega-bucks earnings plus job security and a benefits/retirement package?
Um, I lived in the Bay Area. You can't find a decent place to live on $11/hr within 100 miles of where I was living. So, yes, I did have to move that far to find a large city where I could keep the same salary I had and still be able to rent a cheaper apartment. Otherwise, what was the point of moving?
There were no better paying jobs where I was working. There are different jobs in what I was doing that required me to start over at minimum wage. I had to move to an area where my business had a branch I could transfer to and keep my salary.
Have you commuted anywhere? I had friends that lived in San Mateo and commuted to Livermore. I knew a cop who lived in Manteca and commuted once a week to work his 4 day shift in San Jose. Even here in the NW, I commuted 6 hours a day to find a cheap place to live and still be able to access my job in Seattle. Now, that's commuting. And believe me, it's WAY overrated.
I was specifically referencing freemkt's excuse making, which were that he couldn't afford to move long distance to find a better paying job in his field (in forty years no less!) after somebody suggested he should moved to the state capital and hunted up a job where he could have used his pol sci degree.
As for the trials and tribulations of living and working in San Francisco or Seattle, how are they different from the trials and tribulation of living and working in NYC, Boston, or Washington DC? Long commutes to find affordable housing is one of the costs of working in these high COL metros. If a shorter commute is more important to you, then you can sacrifice salary and "cachet" and take a similar position in a smaller, less popular, and definitely cheaper metro like Buffalo, NY or Pittsburgh, PA or Louisville, KY or Omaha, NE.
"why ? mostly because many can't pass drug testing ,background checks or credit checks. these things were rare decades ago , today they are common pre-screening ."
I totally agree and would add, no drivers license, many lost due to not paying child support, very common today.
Many more have lost their drivers licenses to DUI/DWI, though.
If a shorter commute is more important to you, then you can sacrifice salary and "cachet" and take a similar position in a smaller, less popular, and definitely cheaper metro like Buffalo, NY or Pittsburgh, PA or Louisville, KY or Omaha, NE.
True. But as I stated before, I moved to an area outside the larger city where I worked so I could continue to receive my salary, but pay less for rent. Otherwise, if I were going to move so that I could have my salary and a rent that was close to what I had before, why move at all? And after a year of 30 hour commutes per week, I did quit and look for something here on the peninsula.
And you have to realize that while moving to smaller and less popular metros may keep renting costs down, they don't pay as close to the salary that you need to afford those rentals.
I agree it's a supply and demand problem, however, I just read yesterday that at a council meeting in Seattle, people were there begging for rent control. One person's rent had gone form $800 to $1650 in one jump, and that person wasn't the only one.
There has to be a middle ground between rents and/or housing costs, and wages.
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