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I think what he/she is trying to say is that if you have say 8 years of experience working a a bus driver while you slowly go to school to be a scientist all of your experience will be in bus driving. You will be 26 basicly starting with 0 experience in your chose field. Companies dont like that, they like 25 year olds with masters degrees and 5 years of experience who had internships at 19.
There are some serious disconnects and fed govt is not filling the gap like they used to. I have heard that for every federal opening there are thousands of applicants becuase they are the only jobs worth having for most people (unless you can get a well into the 6 figure private sector job and pad your own retirement without living on ramen).
It does not matter if you struggled though and got a masters in physics if you did not do it by the time you are 23 with 3 internships your SOL. BTW internships are just as brtual and cut throat as the regular job market.
Yes, that was what I was trying to say. Perhaps you took some courses on your own to learn a new skill, but you have zero work experience with that skill. This might be for a different position at your current place of employment or for changing careers. Or what happened to me several times, when I wanted to make a slight detour and try something out that was related to my past experience, but I would still be a novice at it. Employers rarely give employees an opportunity to try something else. Years ago, there used to be "management trainee" positions where a new graduate would rotate through different departments for a few months to a year.
Yes, that was what I was trying to say. Perhaps you took some courses on your own to learn a new skill, but you have zero work experience with that skill.
perhaps that's what we've been saying about college grads from the first page and the entire idea that a college grad is under employed...
they are taking classes and graduating without any experience with that "skill"
I am recommending people that do have proper jobs to save save save because you never know...
I agree with you on that. Having a good-sized cash cushion absolutely increases your strategic flexibility.
Personally, I would add to your "save save save" by saying "invest in human capital - increase your skillset -- find a way to make yourself indispensable if possible -- find a way to generate more profit for your employer than it costs to keep you on the payroll."
perhaps that's what we've been saying about college grads from the first page and the entire idea that a college grad is under employed...
they are taking classes and graduating without any experience with that "skill"
You're missing the point of college.
It's simply to give you exposure and practice at a wide range of topics so that you become a better worker and citizen. That's why students are generally required to take courses outside their major like writing and current events.
Simply going to college and doing the same thing for 4 years is not good either.
May parents went to college for math and became computer programmers upon graduation 40 years ago. They were successful at it even though they did not have a degree/experience in computer science. The reason they were good at it was because college taught them the baseline skills to become successful.
It's simply to give you exposure and practice at a wide range of topics so that you become a better worker and citizen. That's why students are generally required to take courses outside their major like writing and current events.
and I can travel the world for less than the cost of college, working my way through it and gaining more practical skills than someone in a dorm room playing WOW
what's your point? If people aren't going to use college as a tool other than to be "exposed" to the world, they aren't going to get far in a 10x10 dorm room
I think what he/she is trying to say is that if you have say 8 years of experience working a a bus driver while you slowly go to school to be a scientist all of your experience will be in bus driving. You will be 26 basicly starting with 0 experience in your chose field. Companies dont like that, they like 25 year olds with masters degrees and 5 years of experience who had internships at 19.
There are some serious disconnects and fed govt is not filling the gap like they used to. I have heard that for every federal opening there are thousands of applicants becuase they are the only jobs worth having for most people (unless you can get a well into the 6 figure private sector job and pad your own retirement without living on ramen).
It does not matter if you struggled though and got a masters in physics if you did not do it by the time you are 23 with 3 internships your SOL. BTW internships are just as brtual and cut throat as the regular job market.
This happens all the time with career changers. It's not a new phenomena. I went through the same thing trying to change from financial operations to financial project management. It took me 10 years to work through that transition.
Yes, that was what I was trying to say. Perhaps you took some courses on your own to learn a new skill, but you have zero work experience with that skill. This might be for a different position at your current place of employment or for changing careers. Or what happened to me several times, when I wanted to make a slight detour and try something out that was related to my past experience, but I would still be a novice at it. Employers rarely give employees an opportunity to try something else. Years ago, there used to be "management trainee" positions where a new graduate would rotate through different departments for a few months to a year.
If you work for a company like for instance NASA driving a bus and you can actually "inter office transfer" to working on shuttle components as a mechanical engineer or doing physics with the degree that you have been picking away on for years and years that would be amazing. But I am guessing there are sufficient walls between a NASA scientists and the tour park bus drivers such that you cant just fill out a form to move over.
Every institution I know of makes it brutally hard on people to upgrade your station in life if you are not a Rhodes scholar coming out with a PhD at 26 and 4 internships. I question if the USA is truly a land of opportunity anymore, unfortunately I don't think anywhere is anymore.
I agree with you on that. Having a good-sized cash cushion absolutely increases your strategic flexibility.
Personally, I would add to your "save save save" by saying "invest in human capital - increase your skillset -- find a way to make yourself indispensable if possible -- find a way to generate more profit for your employer than it costs to keep you on the payroll."
It is typically impossible to continually perform to that level year after year, even if a company is a real mess there will eventually be diminishing returns and that's when people need long Gevity protection. That's why govt jobs are so coveted because everyone knows that performance cant rise and rise and rise for ever and ever. There are going to be years where things are slow, the economy is sluggish and I frankly don't want to have an employer that makes me worry about being insolvent at the very first sign of slow down. Slow downs happen and I don't want to loose it all over a slow down.
Investing in skill sets for yourself continuously is gold though.
I am having to endure client companies trying to cut down to the bone, constantly rewriting contracts, cutting people, etc. It gets old after a while.
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