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Education Pays: 2008 Unemployment, Pay, and Education Level

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Re: Education Pays: 2008 Unemployment, Pay, and Education Level

#11

Post by garply »

gaius wrote: post #7
pj wrote: post #3

Ooohh... It just dawned on me right now, why all the higher education hatin lately. Lots of young kids just graduated from college and they can't get jobs, so they're thinking, "Aw crap... I just went $100,000 in debt and I can't get a job. What the hell did I just waste 4 years in school for? School sucks. I was lied to. This wasn't worth anything. I'm screwed." My heart goes out to you. It's not your fault that the…

That is why it's such a problem graduating into a down economy. If you can't get a job in your field, when the economy turns around, say it's in a few years, you will actually be at a disadvantage compared to fresh graduates. Fresh grads get a lot of slack, especially at big firms, they get put onto "graduate training schemes" and "fast-track programmes" and so on. In many companies there are only two entry routes, g…

Why is this a problem? These people should just allocate their time to the new opportunities created by the downturn. I have several friends who are unemployed recent grads and they seem to be just sitting on their asses, sending out resumes, waiting for the economy to turn around. Why they aren't starting their own projects or seeking consulting work (I believe consulting / temping is somewhat counter-cyclical?) I can't quite figure out.

Seeking employment at a large company is only one investment strategy and perhaps not the best one right now given the fierce competition caused by the downturn.

Re: Education Pays: 2008 Unemployment, Pay, and Education Level

#12

Post by nostrademons »

gaius wrote: post #7
pj wrote: post #3

Ooohh... It just dawned on me right now, why all the higher education hatin lately. Lots of young kids just graduated from college and they can't get jobs, so they're thinking, "Aw crap... I just went $100,000 in debt and I can't get a job. What the hell did I just waste 4 years in school for? School sucks. I was lied to. This wasn't worth anything. I'm screwed." My heart goes out to you. It's not your fault that the…

That is why it's such a problem graduating into a down economy. If you can't get a job in your field, when the economy turns around, say it's in a few years, you will actually be at a disadvantage compared to fresh graduates. Fresh grads get a lot of slack, especially at big firms, they get put onto "graduate training schemes" and "fast-track programmes" and so on. In many companies there are only two entry routes, g…

It depends. I've found that there are certain "career resets" you can push to get a fresh start on your career. Grad school. Law/business school. Founding a startup. Nobody cares if you waited tables or bagged groceries for 2-3 years if you manage to get into Harvard Law afterwards.

In my case, I graduated and took a job at what I thought was a startup but turned out to be a slow-growing small business. As Marc Andreesen says, "these are great places to go if you don't want your career to go anywhere either." So I quit and founded a startup. It failed, but I learned enough hot skills to prove to my interviewers that I hadn't spent the last year and a half dicking around. Then I got into Google, and once you have Google on your resume, nobody cares that you spent two years working on JSF webapps for a company nobody's ever heard of.

Re: Education Pays: 2008 Unemployment, Pay, and Education Level

#13

Post by diego »

gaius wrote: post #7
pj wrote: post #3

Ooohh... It just dawned on me right now, why all the higher education hatin lately. Lots of young kids just graduated from college and they can't get jobs, so they're thinking, "Aw crap... I just went $100,000 in debt and I can't get a job. What the hell did I just waste 4 years in school for? School sucks. I was lied to. This wasn't worth anything. I'm screwed." My heart goes out to you. It's not your fault that the…

That is why it's such a problem graduating into a down economy. If you can't get a job in your field, when the economy turns around, say it's in a few years, you will actually be at a disadvantage compared to fresh graduates. Fresh grads get a lot of slack, especially at big firms, they get put onto "graduate training schemes" and "fast-track programmes" and so on. In many companies there are only two entry routes, g…

Luckily in the software industry that's an easy problem to solve. Get a job that pays the bills. Create a website/webapp in your free time and call it a business of which you are now the CEO. Learn and apply all the relevant tools and techniques.

Assuming it never generates enough revenue to get past the "hobby" stage, a few years from now you it will still have value in your resume. Someone who worked on their own project for years is always an attractive candidate for a programming job (at least to us).

Re: Education Pays: 2008 Unemployment, Pay, and Education Level

#14

Post by gaius »

Retric wrote: post #10
gaius wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes exactly. It's easy to learn a new language or API. But it's not easy to learn CS on your own. It's not like you can just sit down and read Knuth from cover to cover. And it's not easy to learn domain knowledge on your own either, you have to be around practitioners.

You can just sit down and read Knuth from cover to cover. The problem is most people that don't get a CS degree also avoid reading Knuth on their own. I think one of the large gaps between those groups on average is those without a CS degree think theory is useless. When you are forced to learn the theory you end up using it constantly. However, when you see a theory without the associated experience it seems useless…

You go to Knuth when you have already learnt the vocabulary, tho'. If you can't frame your problem in the language everyone else in your field uses, reference materials and search engines are of very limited use. You might not even be able to discuss it with your colleagues except by them basically taking over the problem and studying it from scratch themselves.

Re: Education Pays: 2008 Unemployment, Pay, and Education Level

#15

Post by nostrademons »

garply wrote: post #11
gaius wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is why it's such a problem graduating into a down economy. If you can't get a job in your field, when the economy turns around, say it's in a few years, you will actually be at a disadvantage compared to fresh graduates. Fresh grads get a lot of slack, especially at big firms, they get put onto "graduate training schemes" and "fast-track programmes" and so on. In many companies there are only two entry routes, g…

Why is this a problem? These people should just allocate their time to the new opportunities created by the downturn. I have several friends who are unemployed recent grads and they seem to be just sitting on their asses, sending out resumes, waiting for the economy to turn around. Why they aren't starting their own projects or seeking consulting work (I believe consulting / temping is somewhat counter-cyclical?) I c…

Consulting/temping is very much pro-cyclical. The consultants and temps are the first to go when the economy goes down, and the last to be hired back.

Playing devil's advocate here (your suggestion is exactly what I'd do, and it's worked fairly well for me), but...

One reason they don't may be that it's almost never rational to start a new project over sending out a resume. The resume offers the possibility of immediate monetary payoff for relatively little work, and while the chances are low (particularly in this economy), they're certainly higher than the chances that your new project will succeed. The latter has no immediate monetary payoff, requires lots of work, and has risks that are so varied that you don't even have a framework for evaluating them.

It's only when you put a lot of these risks together in sort of a "career portfolio" that it makes sense to take them. Any individual project will probably fail, but together they give you the skills and experience that will a.) get you hired and b.) let you succeed more often with these independent projects.

Alas, in my experience most people don't take such a long-term view of their careers...

Re: Education Pays: 2008 Unemployment, Pay, and Education Level

#16

Post by gaius »

garply wrote: post #11
gaius wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is why it's such a problem graduating into a down economy. If you can't get a job in your field, when the economy turns around, say it's in a few years, you will actually be at a disadvantage compared to fresh graduates. Fresh grads get a lot of slack, especially at big firms, they get put onto "graduate training schemes" and "fast-track programmes" and so on. In many companies there are only two entry routes, g…

Why is this a problem? These people should just allocate their time to the new opportunities created by the downturn. I have several friends who are unemployed recent grads and they seem to be just sitting on their asses, sending out resumes, waiting for the economy to turn around. Why they aren't starting their own projects or seeking consulting work (I believe consulting / temping is somewhat counter-cyclical?) I c…

How many people hire consultants with no experiences? What would they consult on?

Anyway, personal projects are better than nothing but they aren't a substitute for commercial experience, which is about a lot more than just coding. It comes down to not knowing what you don't know. Employed programmers deal all the time with people saying "can we do X" where X is something you'd never considered and might require some research to figure out, and the actual code is simple when you come to write it. People working alone can't help but approach from the angle of "I can do Y, so that's what I'll do".

Re: Education Pays: 2008 Unemployment, Pay, and Education Level

#17

Post by nostrademons »

I'm kinda wondering what the variance is on these numbers. I'd imagine that the doctoral numbers have quite a few tenured professors and industrial researchers making six figures, but the median is shifted downwards by a large number of postdocs making $30-40K.

If having a masters basically guarantees you a salary of $60K, but getting a doctorate means you have a 50% chance of making $30K and a 50% chance of making $100K, I think a lot of people would rather get the masters...

Re: Education Pays: 2008 Unemployment, Pay, and Education Level

#18

Post by quizbiz »

nostrademons wrote: post #17

I'm kinda wondering what the variance is on these numbers. I'd imagine that the doctoral numbers have quite a few tenured professors and industrial researchers making six figures, but the median is shifted downwards by a large number of postdocs making $30-40K. If having a masters basically guarantees you a salary of $60K, but getting a doctorate means you have a 50% chance of making $30K and a 50% chance of making $…

I think the 30K v. 100K goes into the difference between a career of academia or of business.

Re: Education Pays: 2008 Unemployment, Pay, and Education Level

#19

Post by gaius »

nostrademons wrote: post #12
gaius wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is why it's such a problem graduating into a down economy. If you can't get a job in your field, when the economy turns around, say it's in a few years, you will actually be at a disadvantage compared to fresh graduates. Fresh grads get a lot of slack, especially at big firms, they get put onto "graduate training schemes" and "fast-track programmes" and so on. In many companies there are only two entry routes, g…

It depends. I've found that there are certain "career resets" you can push to get a fresh start on your career. Grad school. Law/business school. Founding a startup. Nobody cares if you waited tables or bagged groceries for 2-3 years if you manage to get into Harvard Law afterwards. In my case, I graduated and took a job at what I thought was a startup but turned out to be a slow-growing small business. As Marc Andre…

I totally agree, but those are the "nuclear option" if you will. $100,000 in debt, and spending as much again on an MBA is not to be undertaken lightly.

I appreciate my great good fortune to be graduating into the early years of the dotcom boom... But when the NASDAQ imploded I had 3 solid years experience framed on my CV in terms of "I have done X using technologies A, B and C accomplishing result Y". That's what matters a few years out of college and without it it would be very difficult to "catch up" or even to get a foot in the door.

Re: Education Pays: 2008 Unemployment, Pay, and Education Level

#20

Post by gaius »

diego wrote: post #13
gaius wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is why it's such a problem graduating into a down economy. If you can't get a job in your field, when the economy turns around, say it's in a few years, you will actually be at a disadvantage compared to fresh graduates. Fresh grads get a lot of slack, especially at big firms, they get put onto "graduate training schemes" and "fast-track programmes" and so on. In many companies there are only two entry routes, g…

Luckily in the software industry that's an easy problem to solve. Get a job that pays the bills. Create a website/webapp in your free time and call it a business of which you are now the CEO. Learn and apply all the relevant tools and techniques. Assuming it never generates enough revenue to get past the "hobby" stage, a few years from now you it will still have value in your resume. Someone who worked on their own p…

I wouldn't call it "easy". To actually learn anything from it you would have to be 99% of the way towards really launching a business.
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