Stupid career advice given to young men

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Anti-American
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Post by Anti-American »

Engineering is definitely not for everyone.

Someone stated this on City Data:
Engineering is a bit 'overrated'. The college cirriculum for engineers is intense - It is certainly a very, very challenging degree to obtain. Post college - most carrer paths in engineering will require continuing eduaction requirments, credential mainteneace, and huge legal liabilities related to their work. Here is where the 'overrated' part comes in - most probably figure engineers pull in HUGE salaries. Most engineers do not pull in huge salaries - the pay is honestly quite average. It has also been my experience that most engineering firms are quite 'conservative' in business philosophy - meaning frugal fringe benefits.
SOURCE: http://www.city-data.com/forum/colleges ... z299LHYQWG

Engineer does seem overrated even if it's in demand.
Andrewww
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Post by Andrewww »

You guys gave some good advice, very detailed and to the point, problem is English is not my first language.

I don't think there's an easy way to make 6 figures. If you make 100,000+ per year gross then you're in the top 1% btw (those people who the occupy wall street movement was bashing).

There are however easier ways than others. I'd say anything banking related is easier (than engineering).

In the department I was working, senior analysts were making 80,000/year and you can become one of those before you hit 30. Go into accounting or finance, get hired in one of the local banks (I dunno about the US but in Canada they're always looking for people) when you hit 20, do about 2 years of shit jobs, apply for analyst (which is the most boring job you can imagine) after you graduate, and wait another 4-5 years since there are 3 or 4 ranks of analyst and you have to go through all of them before you hit senior. Some are 9-5 jobs (mostly back office), others are more stressful (if you go into investments and you wanna work through the CFA to become a financial analyst and make even more money).
However, I would rather be an entrepreneur.
ladislav
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Post by ladislav »

You guys gave some good advice, very detailed and to the point, problem is English is not my first language.
Neither it is mine. Did not stop me from building an ESL career.

As far as teaching ESL, what they want to see is a degree from the US/UK/ Nz/Oz/ CAN/S.A. and a passport from those countries. Only a tiny percentage of employers require that a person be a native born citizen with English sucked in with his mother's milk. I only saw 2-3 such b.astards over the years.
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ladislav
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Post by ladislav »

="Cornfed"ESL teaching should also be included if one wants to travel and also make some pretty good money ( if you work in
If you know any easy ways of getting in to such a lucrative racket, it would be good if you could post them. I'd be particularly interested in whether it is possible with just a puny CELTA + unrelated degree + experience in Asia. However, as advice to give to teenagers, it would seem to fall under the category of stupid postdictive advice above. By the time they get their degree in applied linguistics and MA TESOL or whatever the market will almost certainly be saturated, assuming it isn't already.
They were warning me about a saturated market in the 80ies. But the thing is it will not be. People will be needing English instruction forever and Arab countries particularly Saudi and Oman will hold jobs for a long time. Saudi has discovered another oil field recently. And people quit those jobs all the time. If they do not mind lower salaries, there are other countries where they can still go and work.

As far as where to find those jobs- just google ESL Middle East jobs and they will come up. Not many people want to go and live there, though. Also Japan will be needing teachers all the time and Taiwan as well.
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NorthAmericanguy
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Post by NorthAmericanguy »

Andrewww wrote: Employers complain that they can't find specialized workforce but:

1. They're not willing to train new people like university graduates.
2. They expect you to work for crappy wages while elderly people in the company get paid 3-4 times as much and are usually less productive.
3. Vacation time is seen as some sort of bonus.
4. They prefer pushing their employees to the limit with overtime instead of hiring new people.

Also some majors are just useless: philosophy, psychology (full of skanks who become escorts), history, social sciences etc.

The only areas that work are accounting & finance, IT, architecture and to some degree engineering. Also, any health related career is a sure way to become successful if you have patience.
I agree.^
NorthAmericanguy
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Post by NorthAmericanguy »

djfourmoney wrote:There are several jobs that don't require a 4 year degree, aren't expensive (Community College) and recession-proof.

These stories show up on the internet on a daily basis a simple Google search - http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MS ... -a-degree/

Elevator Repair/Installer is something NOBODY THINKS ABOUT, given all the elevators people use... There was a Modern Marvels talking about this and the guy that interviewed as a 3rd generation Elevator Repairman/Installer. As long as they continue to have taller and taller buildings, they always will need somebody to fix them when they break down.

Most companies hire a service, I used to work for a company that not only handled Elevators but general building maintenance, security and garage attendants.

My buddy David is a Nuclear Reactor Operator in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.

All these jobs are well paying. The paralysis comes from conventional thinking. Thinking you need a job that your parents or friends will approve of, believing you can't really make money on the internet (when the site your on now makes Winston money).

Its these types of jobs that are in great need around the world when you think about it...
Yep, the kind of work I do is something that nobody ever thinks about making a living in. I'm often asked, "Is this all you do?". There is no college you can go to learn the my trade, and I'm sure it's because of that I'm able to charge what I do.

In my field, if you own your own business when the market was good back in 2002 my colleagues were banking 100k a year, but since the economy tanked and so many businesses went under you can now only pull around 60k.


On a side note, there are also jobs/businesses that Americans pass over simply because it isn't prestigious. A janitorial business is the one that always stands out in my mind. So many people are in need of monthly cleaning service and it's easy to build up a route....


EDIT: BTW, I love Modern Marvels!
NorthAmericanguy
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Post by NorthAmericanguy »

Andrewww wrote: If you make 100,000+ per year gross then you're in the top 1%
Actually, 100k a year is not that much these days when the average wedding cost 64k and the median cost of a home is 250k.

Top 1% in my opinion STARTS at the athletes/celebs who make a few million a year, going up to people like Opera Winfrey and beyond.

http://www.census.gov/const/uspriceann.pdf
momopi
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Post by momopi »

Cornfed wrote:
momopi wrote:I recommend looking into energy, mining, & resource extraction industries. This could be anything from oil rigs to land fill gas (LFG) extraction, plus supporting industries. MRO (Maintenance, Repair, Operations), Kanban (just-in-time) implementation, Contractor background check services, Project Management, Risk/Safety Management, Process Improvement (Lean, Six Sigma) consultants, etc. The list is quite large and you should do your own research.
This is exactly the kind of advice I was talking about in the OP. People just can't seem to get off this track.
...and it pays. In Ft. Mac (Alberta, Canada), the guy pushing a broom at Athabasca oil sands extraction makes $80k/year. The proven reserves there is only second to Saudi Arabia.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/03/05 ... 21666.html

Now, before anyone start packing their luggage, let me point out that it gets down to -40C there. If you're young, single, and love snow sports, it's a great place to make $$. But if you can't handle the cold, then it's not for you. When I used to fly up there as a consultant in 2010, they paid $1000/day (actual working days only, does not include travel time) and my cut was 50%. I wore 4 layers of clothing and it was still *cold*.
NorthAmericanguy
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Re: Stupid career advice given to young men

Post by NorthAmericanguy »

Cornfed wrote:I've come across a lot of threads on various forums where young men ask what careers they should go into. For some reason the advice they are given is invariably stupid.

Specific stupid advice is usually given to the effect that they should go into some esoteric area of science or engineering currently in demand requiring a graduate degree. The advice is postdictive - telling them what would have been a good idea to get into ten years ago. In a fast moving (and fast collapsing) globalized economy such small niches don't stay understaffed for long, so following the advice would virtually guarantee the young men unemployment at the end of their education. And that is even if the economy doesn't completely collapse before then, which it will.

General stupid advice usually given is that they should find a productive, useful skill that helps people. Of course it would be a good idea to have skills likely to enable you to survive the coming meltdown, but surely in terms of a career there is ample evidence that trying to do anything useful is for chumps. For one thing only a very small percentage of jobs in Western economies produce anything of value. Most jobs are make-work projects and simply facilitate transfers of wealth, so trying to be productive will mean you are chasing a small and shrinking number of jobs. If you are only hired for being productive your employer will constantly be looking to replace you with more productive and/or less costly machines or foreign workers, whereas if you are hired for other reasons, say to meet a government quota, they won't be. Wages in the productive sector tend to be set by the economic value of the employee, which tends towards minimum wage over time, since even a slight surplus of available employees will create a work or starve situation. Wages in the non-productive sector are arbitrary, which in practice means they are higher these days. And so on.

I don't know why people insist of giving the coming generation stupid advice. Perhaps it is like being the victim of any other practical joke, where at first you are annoyed and then you start looking around for someone else to fool
.
Good topic Cornfed. And not to derail the topic, but I just want to add in regards to bad advice given to young men is how nobody steps up to warn young men that they shouldn't start a family too soon in life. Starting a family in your 20's should be out of the question! Period.

The bottom line is that getting married and having kids has a direct impact on your career/finances and if you really want to give yourself the best opportunity to make money you need to focus on making money FIRST, then later on start dating and have children.

I will never forget what my late grandfather told me (who was very successful and died with plenty of money); he told me to pursue making money first, and getting my finances in order, THEN play with the girls later on in life when I'm successful because he said if I do it the other way around that women would be too much of a distraction and they could cause me to loose sight of my life goals.

Another guy I knew who became a millionaire from real estate investing said he would have never been able to accomplish what he did if he got married and had kids. It had to do with the fact that he had to sacrifice for many years living frugally which no woman would have put up with and would have pushed him to find job instead of continuing along the path of true financial freedom. This guy is now in his early 50s and no longer has to work, drives a new Mercedes, and has a custom built home in the suburbs of Los Angles.
ladislav
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Re: Stupid career advice given to young men

Post by ladislav »

Also, it is possible that you will never be financially secure,
This is a very good point. This is what happened to me in the past. I tried my hand at several businesses that looked very promising and spent several years trying to develop them. I failed miserably and ended up deep in debt. There are guys who succeed and they are held as an example to others but for every successful one like that there are others who are smart and try and try and then wake up one day and they are poorer and older. And it is not their fault. Sometimes there are many unexpected events that can turn the tide against you. So, you need to hedge yourself against that.

My mom for example lost about a million in equity in 2008. She was very frugal and wise with money. She also had a big art exhibit in San Francisco but there were no sales. About a year of preparation and pretty good planning. I also had 2-3 projects that were promising and worked in theory but failed miserably.
and so following that advice would mean never breeding, which of course is happening in society at large. It seems a shame to go extinct .
There has to be some compromise and plan a, b and c. And we are in the race against time.
just because the Jews rig their financial system against you
No such problem in Saudi Arabia.
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ladislav
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Post by ladislav »

But by the time most teenaged guys can get into the industry there probably won't be any jobs. Look at the situation with mining in Australia now - market saturated, downturn, thousands laid off, mines being sold to foreign companies who hire their own nationals as workers, skanks being hired to drive dump trucks etc. Markets don't stay short of workers for long. The whole logic behind advising people to go into jobs that are useful and currently in demand makes no sense.
This is why they need to have one major profession and some other skill that can hedge them in such times. Something that they can fall back on and that is always in demand. Say, a BS in engineering but also some diploma in baking. Or a CELTA certificate.
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S_Parc
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Post by S_Parc »

There's a lot of career advise out there but if you want my opinion, here's my take.

If you're interested in engineering a/o business type of careers, you'll need to be able to sell yourself, to survive long term. Thus, having that BS in engineering (even when it's MIT, CalTech, or Carnegie-Mellon) or that MBA from NYC or Columbia, may not suffice in itself. Yes, you may find a first job, from your school's career center but that's where it ends. I live in MA and even here, numerous graduates from MIT and like schools, don't ALL succeed in big ways. Yes, many find jobs in some company, started by alumni, but a lot of careers go nowhere from there. Thus, don't get straight A's in high school, attend a top engineering program, and then work for $55K-$75K for life.

If you're basically book smart, I recommend pharmacy (PharmD) or medical school (MD). Those two health care areas guarantee, by virtue of your test testing skills ALONE, that you'll be employed and for most of your life. That's the power of being in highly licensed fields. If you're a notch below the aforementioned, look at PA, Nursing, or Physical Therapy.
momopi
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Post by momopi »

Cornfed wrote: Yes, men who got into the industry in the past are making good money right now. But by the time most teenaged guys can get into the industry there probably won't be any jobs. Look at the situation with mining in Australia now - market saturated, downturn, thousands laid off, mines being sold to foreign companies who hire their own nationals as workers, skanks being hired to drive dump trucks etc. Markets don't stay short of workers for long. The whole logic behind advising people to go into jobs that are useful and currently in demand makes no sense.
1. See color-coded list here (look at estimated start year and status columns):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_ ... _companies

2. For teenage guys in Australia with little or no work experience:
https://www.whpcanada.org.au/
https://www.whpcanada.org.au/choose_you ... ence.shtml
http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/working ... -overseas/

3. If you want jobs that pay good money, you go where the good paying jobs are. College kids from Taiwan go to Australia for good paying jobs (relative to their earnings in TW):
viewtopic.php?t=15695

Let me remind everyone again that the reason why certain jobs and locations pay good money is because it's hard work in hard environments.

Image
Last edited by momopi on October 14th, 2012, 12:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
ladislav
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Post by ladislav »

CELTA people will always find work only it may not be a cushy job in the UAE. They may have to end up in a small town in China or Korea or a desert outpost in Saudi where no one wants to go. Saudi has 27 million people and they are desperate for teachers and China will not stop learning English for decades to come. Then, as these guys get more experience and an MA. They will be able to move on to bigger and better things. So, as momopi says, there are jobs out there but they will be in shytholes which is not such a bad thing- good for character building. I spent most of my working career in such places interspersed with occasional cushy positions and it has been a life of adventure. So, I guess these unemployed guys will just have to learn to dream a different dream.
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Cornfed
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Post by Cornfed »

momopi wrote: 1. See color-coded list here (look at estimated start year and status columns):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_ ... _companies

2. For teenage guys in Australia with little or no work experience:
https://www.whpcanada.org.au/
https://www.whpcanada.org.au/choose_you ... ence.shtml
http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/working ... -overseas/
I'm not sure what the point of this is. Obviously there are always going to be jobs listed right up until the economy collapses. The issue is whether the average guy can reasonably expect to get one given the number of applicants and the hiring criteria, and if qualifications are required, whether the jobs will still exist once such qualifications are earned.
Let me remind everyone again that the reason why certain jobs and locations pay good money is because it's hard work in hard environments.
Workers are paid either based on their economic value or what the powers that be want them to have, period. Plenty of people in the world do extremely hard, unpleasant and dangerous work for peanuts, just as there are plenty of useless cunts paid a fortune to sit in air-conditioned offices doing online shopping and updating their facebook page.
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