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A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

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Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#81

Post by drcube »

pjmo wrote: post #30

I think what we are seeing over and over again as articles similar to this run in papers all over (HuffPo, NYT, WaPo) is this point: Most young people are bad at searching for jobs! Just like we're bad at dating, we're are bad at job searching. Obviously not everyone is bad, but a large majority of people who are unemployed or underemployed do not have a system in place that makes there job search efficient or effect…

How can this be true? When companies are hiring, do young people suddenly get better at finding work? Or is it more like the bottom X% of job seekers will be under- or unemployed, and sometimes X is 5%, sometimes it's 40%? A lot of people got jobs with these same tactics in previous eras, so there's something about "now" that's worse than before.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#82

Post by JPKab »

ChrisHugh wrote: post #79
Diederich wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2) Having children: Interesting how white, middle class people think having kids is the most expensive thing ever. It's not. ... Exactly. Our child's clothing, toys and books come from: 1. Yard sales 2. Helping hands 3. Friends and neighbors 4. Craigslist and Freecycle Guess what? We give 100% of those things away in time. We've taught our son the concept of not holding onto physical things. All of his things came…

How "white"? How odd. I didn't know attitudes and ideas had colors.

You got me there. I wish I could think of a word to describe the group of people who have been brainwashed into thinking that if they don't spend shitloads of money on stuff, and buy a big house in the burbs, that they are bad parents......

But you are right, saying it's a "white" thing is racist of me. There are people of all colors who get trapped into this bullshit, as well as people of all colors who are not fooled by it.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#83

Post by wheaties »

sp332 wrote: post #69
wheaties wrote: post #25

I feel his pain. We just got done interviewing someone who had studied "web page" design. It's sad because whatever he was taught for those 4 years (while getting a 3.96 GPA) amounted to a very limited skill set. His designs were half there but his ability to actually apply or use them to a problem weren't. This is a recurring theme in many applicants that walk through our doors. There's tons of degrees I've never he…

So he's an excellent learner and has a background in the field, and you're not willing to train him or let him learn on the job? "his ability to actually apply or use them to a problem weren't" probably describes 95% of college graduates.

A high GPA is not caused by a massive intelligence, it is caused by the ability to study effectively. Intelligence and GPA are often correlated but not always. Don't make that assumption.

There's a ton of people I know who did poorly in their coursework but their design skills and ability are bar none. I don't look at GPA as much of an indicator anymore. It shows potential, only.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#84

Post by gaius »

danking00 wrote: post #73
spacemanaki wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know for sure what real world use a Philosophy degree provides, but I'm pretty sure there are a couple of people working where I am now who majored in Philosophy, and there are definitely a few english majors. They are working as product managers, programmers, and operations/sys admin roles. My point was that, if you're going to indulge yourself by spending 4 years studying something like Philosophy or englis…

I chose to major in CS partly because of great job prospects. Had that not been the case I might have been a Physics and Philosophy major. My friends probably are an unusual sample of CS and Physics majors. However, they made choices which put them into this position. There might be some systemic privilege on their part, but they also helped themselves. Your last paragraph resonates with me. I cannot truly believe th…

How could we let this happen?

When I was at school, all the teachers told us, it doesn't matter what degree you do because you are "learning to learn" and employers don't care anyway, just that you have one.

Even 17-year-old me could see that this was obviously complete nonsense, but not everyone's such a cynic by that age...

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#85

Post by zackzackzack »

sp332 wrote: post #69
wheaties wrote: post #25

I feel his pain. We just got done interviewing someone who had studied "web page" design. It's sad because whatever he was taught for those 4 years (while getting a 3.96 GPA) amounted to a very limited skill set. His designs were half there but his ability to actually apply or use them to a problem weren't. This is a recurring theme in many applicants that walk through our doors. There's tons of degrees I've never he…

So he's an excellent learner and has a background in the field, and you're not willing to train him or let him learn on the job? "his ability to actually apply or use them to a problem weren't" probably describes 95% of college graduates.

X% of college graduates shouldn't have gone to college, where X is some non negative number. Depending on your views, that could be as high as 50% and as low as 1%.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#86

Post by zackzackzack »

sp332 wrote: post #69
wheaties wrote: post #25

I feel his pain. We just got done interviewing someone who had studied "web page" design. It's sad because whatever he was taught for those 4 years (while getting a 3.96 GPA) amounted to a very limited skill set. His designs were half there but his ability to actually apply or use them to a problem weren't. This is a recurring theme in many applicants that walk through our doors. There's tons of degrees I've never he…

So he's an excellent learner and has a background in the field, and you're not willing to train him or let him learn on the job? "his ability to actually apply or use them to a problem weren't" probably describes 95% of college graduates.

X% of college graduates shouldn't have gone to college, where X is some non negative number. Depending on your views, that could be as high as 50% and as low as 1%.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#87

Post by JPKab »

Diederich wrote: post #77
JPKab wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"At the age of 29, I've likely forever lost the following opportunities due to cost and probable inability to make up for lost wages and career potential: - Getting married. - Having children. - Studying any more, whether that means grad school, law school, or even just night classes at a random community college." So let's go through this step by step: 1) Getting married doesn't require money if you find the right w…

> 2) Having children: Interesting how white, middle class people think having kids is the most expensive thing ever. It's not. ... Exactly. Our child's clothing, toys and books come from: 1. Yard sales 2. Helping hands 3. Friends and neighbors 4. Craigslist and Freecycle Guess what? We give 100% of those things away in time. We've taught our son the concept of not holding onto physical things. All of his things came…

Diederich, it's interesting how you pointed out living in an expensive school district is your biggest child related expense. My wife and I did the same thing. We chose to live in a 1 bedroom high-rise, so obviously we sacrificed on space and "the yard." Instead we get a short (walkable or train) commute, nice parks, and have a adapted our apartment to imitate those of the Japanese (and other space efficient cultures) so that the 1 bedroom aspect isn't a problem. I love what you were saying about teaching your son to donate toys and other possessions. My son is 5, but we still need to work on that with him. Thanks for mentioning that, because it reminded me of how important it is that we follow your lead on that.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#88

Post by graeme »

danking00 wrote: post #73
spacemanaki wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know for sure what real world use a Philosophy degree provides, but I'm pretty sure there are a couple of people working where I am now who majored in Philosophy, and there are definitely a few english majors. They are working as product managers, programmers, and operations/sys admin roles. My point was that, if you're going to indulge yourself by spending 4 years studying something like Philosophy or englis…

I chose to major in CS partly because of great job prospects. Had that not been the case I might have been a Physics and Philosophy major. My friends probably are an unusual sample of CS and Physics majors. However, they made choices which put them into this position. There might be some systemic privilege on their part, but they also helped themselves. Your last paragraph resonates with me. I cannot truly believe th…

I'm a 26 year old liberal arts grad. Only about half of my friends have started a career. Many went for secon degrees.

It really is a common phenomenon.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#89

Post by simonsarris »

zeefo08 wrote: post #46
spacemanaki wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really wish someone could explain this to me. I'll try, although I don't have any special insights, I don't think it's mysterious. From goodside's comment: "I majored in CS." From yours: "CS and physics maajor". I probably don't have to tell you that there's tremendous demand for so-called STEM majors. I don't know about your friends' majors, but these are really both "isolated, non-representative examples". I th…

>I think there are plenty of people going through what this 29-yo is going through, and part of that might be because they have degrees in things like English, Art history, Philosophy This. I have friends who majored in the humanities and are now working retail and restaurants. I feel bad for my friend with an English degree stuck working at Barnes and Noble but I also understand the flipside, which is if you're a Ph…

As someone with both a CS and a Philosophy degree I can tell you that my ability to write effectively and communicate well in general seemed to make a massive difference in likability compared to some of my CS peers.

You have to remember that Philosophy is not just Aristotle-Nietzsche-Kant-Mill. There's entire other worlds contained within the subject. I think a Philosophy degree, especially if the philosophy studied involved lots of formal logic and methods of reasoning (game theoretic decision making, fallacies, philosophy of language, other subjects that approach cognitive science) would have immense value in any field.

I think such a degree would be valuable in sales, marketing, journalism, editing, etc. Pretty much any job where clear-minded communication and analytic skills are more important than mere training.

In fact, if you accept the caveat that you will get out of many degrees what (work) you put into them, I can't think of a better general degree to get than a Philosophy degree.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#90

Post by base698 »

danking00 wrote: post #73
spacemanaki wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know for sure what real world use a Philosophy degree provides, but I'm pretty sure there are a couple of people working where I am now who majored in Philosophy, and there are definitely a few english majors. They are working as product managers, programmers, and operations/sys admin roles. My point was that, if you're going to indulge yourself by spending 4 years studying something like Philosophy or englis…

I chose to major in CS partly because of great job prospects. Had that not been the case I might have been a Physics and Philosophy major. My friends probably are an unusual sample of CS and Physics majors. However, they made choices which put them into this position. There might be some systemic privilege on their part, but they also helped themselves. Your last paragraph resonates with me. I cannot truly believe th…

I'm not surprised there's a glut considering I've still run across people who've asked me what a computer programmer even does.
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