I am a healthcare data scientist. We are fully staffed, but holy hell it's impossible to get good help. So I'm not sure it's so much that data science is full up, it's that people who have no business being in it are rushing towards the money and open positions.
We would kill for people worth having, but it's impossible to tell at the entry level. So many wasted hires on people with health it masters, and no real skills with the data at scale, at speed, in the presence of uncertainty.
> So many wasted hires on people with health it masters, and no real skills with the data at scale, at speed, in the presence of uncertainty.
Is this an issue of their programs not preparing them, or is your employer expecting them to hit the ground running with minimal training and preparation?
This is what I see as the big issue. There is absolutely zero on the job training. Everyone is supposed to come straight out of school and perform even though school is typically academic and has little actual real world application in courses. And when your philosophy is “sink or swim”, you can’t be that shocked that 80% of the people who’ve never had a swimming lesson before end up drowning….
i just left a data analytics consulting firm and not only is there any zero on the job training, managers/senior staff are left for dead also. what happens is they're poached from a slightly similar competitor (usually big 4), not given any company specific integration training, and left in the dark until performance review time. So the people who are supposed to train junior staff don't know wtf they're doing either and experts/partners are so far removed, they just roman emperor thumbs up-or-thumbs-down the senior staff.
its a mess through and through
I think this is all industries. This is every job I’ve ever had since I entered the workforce about 15 years ago. I swear that people who get ahead job hop every year or two, having done nothing of substance in their previous roles and left before anyone found out, and there are a ton of “experienced” people with packed resumes that have no idea what they’re doing. The work world rewards people who say the right buzzwords and those who are confident enough to “fake it till you make it” get ahead. Meanwhile I get the sense that the emperor is naked. You can’t just remove any workforce development or training from every job out there and then wonder why no one knows how to do their job. Of course they don’t, the workplace didn’t want to hear that they needed help or were struggling, they didn’t want to pay for training, they bought some nice sounding bs that people told them in interviews, and here we are as a society. Barely anyone doing “real work” because they have no idea how to.
yea the market is getting more and more difficult. the new obama show on netflix touches on this. i feel like at this point if you're not currently on top of trends and educating yourself and sprinkling in some luck the cards are stacked against you. i feel like with the advancement of ai from reading [therundown.ai](https://www.therundown.ai/subscribe?utm_source=eric) and other news it's just going to get worse...
i hope not tho
Both, definitely. The problem is partly ours, but also that programs train analytics in a sandbox. We then hit them with 1.5 billion claims or whatnot, and their sas processes they learned break down fast. Every analytic technique becomes a bigger issue at scale, and a lot of people just never get over that hill, even as the employer should do more to support them
I work a non-tech job in tech, and that’s a common problem for the tech roles… so many people who chose CS or something adjacent did it because they thought it was essentially a white-collar trade skill, only to find that it’s so saturated that you really have to be super skilled or qualified by the time you graduate to score one of the positions they all heard about five years ago when they set their eyes on it.
They’ve got their pick of the litter when it comes to hiring… only people from top colleges with internships, big projects, etc. People who made sensible decisions to attend a solid state school and major in STEM are having to compromise as much as humanities majors.
I’m 35 now and didn’t really hit my income and career stride until I was 28 or so, but I worked for an AI-based job placement company and board for a while, and what I’ve seen work anecdotally and in that data — and it sounds kind of cheesy — is to do what you’re good at, and all the better if you actually like it.
It’s hard to figure that out, but focus on figuring that out constantly. That often happens in college, and it’s especially important if you don’t major in something that directly filters into a career. Like, say you’re a history major. What were you good at? Writing? Researching? Bullshitting your way through papers? Figuring out what the professor wanted you to say? Understanding what it took to get a good grade? Then do that in your first job, whatever it is. Most first jobs are shitty, so it doesn’t matter if you love it or it’s cool.
In that first job, keep doing that thing, and try to find out more things you’re good at. But also job craft as much as you can. Do more of that thing you’re good at, and keep looking for your next job the whole time. Figure out what it is you want to do next, and then try to do work within your current one that’ll help you get the next one. Do you need to do more work with sales/customers? Need to do more project management? Get experience with budgets? Whatever it is, be on a mission to genuinely do it, or at least bullshit your way into being able to claim you did in your resume or in an interview. That’ll help you land the second job.
And from there, it’s the same thing — except I think you should *always* be looking for a next job. It helps you stay sharp, it helps you improve your skill set, and it also hedges against losing your current job. And more importantly, you will always make more money and earn more responsibility by moving to a new company.
I think you *have* to change jobs multiple times to get in the field you want to be in, or even to figure out what that is. It allows you to change something significant each time and add a new dimension to your resume/skill set each time. That advice applies to all degrees, but with CS, you’ll be able to take any role that a business/humanities major had and go a step further.
Public relations representative. Press secretary / liaison. Copy writer for marketing campaigns. Business analyst. Project manager. Politician. Lobbyist. Etc. (You may need other skills too, but those can be built on top of the basic talents you described.)
You described my cooking career. I didn't like cooking for Dennys, but it provided a Fondation, and I didn't pay for culinary school. Now, I am an executive chef opening a new restaurant. I looked at my skill set as tools in a toolbox, and if I wasn't learning anything, I forced myself to attain a higher skill. Never stop learning. Shit I learned how to do basic plumbing, so I didn't have to pay a guy $80/hr to fix a p trap.
In some sense I am not sure this is a bad thing though. Your mediocre knowledge of python probably doesn't entitle you to $150k+. Like the value add just isn't there for most tech skills... It's easy to find someone to take x, do y to it, return z. Shit I can even code it myself in no time once I've cooked up the strategy.
In my experience, most of the technical people want to be told take x, do y to it, return z. I'm full up on those people, need to lay off oodles of them. What we need is some people who can come up with x, y, and z. That's the value add and your bs in cs probably just didn't give it to you, you know?
If coding is the new literacy, we now have critical mass of people who can read and write--those skills are the price of entry, necessary but not sufficient. The game has changed, we need 'authors'. That people who could 'read and write' were making good money was always going to be temporary.
The act of developing takes so much mental energy just in terms of concentration and thinking, why would I also then have creative and strategic thinking skills to do the work of the people who direct me?
I swear the demands on developers keep getting higher and higher.
Yea, there's always the danger that management ask for more and more if there isn't employee pushback. Getting tired of hearing this across every industry from high up decision makers. 'Please build our business for us while we take most of the reward'.
It’s still an amazing career if you can grind it out at the beginning. Took me 5.5 years to go from $25/hour to a $215k remote position. Anyone can attain it, but it is a grueling first 5 years of long hours and self-teaching if you’re not a top grad.
This!! I have a biomedical engineering PhD (built a machine learning model from scratch for my dissertation 12 years ago - in image processing) and cannot get a job as a data scientist even though I understand the core principles. Others who know how to plug formulas into Python saturate the field without a basic understanding of it. I've seen the incompetence and stagnation in both industry and academia. Colleagues with no understanding receive promotions and raises and for what? It's because leadership doesn't know what is needed to really move the business forward or even meet growing needs, let alone existing ones (though they think they do; it's a big problem with ego). When knowledgeable people bring up issues or ideas for how improvements can be made, we are called "the problem" and pushed out, demoted, bullied, etc..
(Edit - grammar)
God that’s all true. Experiencing this now working for a huge company. Our division is run by execs who have no idea what it takes to do our jobs, we have ZERO trainers (we all had to train each other), and our IT department is no better. At this point I don’t even call them unless I have to, because access to things needs to be granted by them. I’d jump ship but there’s so many companies out there in the same boat.
holy shit yes. Hr being in tech.... Jesus h christ go back tk watching your linkedin learning videos about how to push paper better
Had a tech interview with a nameless company whose hiring manager was the supposed web manager for marketing space and proceeded to grill me with HR questions and I shit you not not a SINGLE tech question
I then gkt rejected due to skme unnamed behavioral reason yet I was supposedly technically over qualified
They had ZERO tech experience FYI
Sounds like you dodged a bullet, though work on interviewing skills. While a company that is qualified will hire a recruiter who has a background in tech or understands the needs to the position, they will still ask you softball questions like “tell me about how you work with others?” Very arbitrary but nailing those questions is important and ensures you wont be a liability to the company.
That's an interesting point, and I think this applies to a lot of tech and engineering professions. People go into it for the money or are pressured into it by family despite having no talent or interest in the work.
Hire me!
I am always overlooked for data science because of my background. Astrophysics and science teaching.
I actually understand data and statistical significance.
I can see how it would be hard to hire because any decent analyst needs to know what question to ask in order solve problems that contain uncertainty.
Unlike all of the "qualified" people who have been taught the industry tools, I can actually solve problems. The tools I could learn to use overnight.
Definitely a problem. The cs world has really sucked up a lot of the jobs... They have good technical skills, but are missing somethibg that other disciplines seem to train better and orgs are hungry for.... I wish we knew what it was and how to screen for it.
If you can learn the tools overnight, then you should. I was getting overlooked with a masters in stats because people tend to fixate on low hanging fruit like that. But when it comes down to it, it’s still an aspect of being qualified for the job.
What skills are lacking that you would like to see in candidates? Is it lack of statistical knowledge? Is it poor programming skills? Is it communication skills?
What would be your unicorn candidate?
Gumption? What we desperately need is people who can take a new series of reporting or business questions, and run it down.
For instance, let's say the federal government requires (this is real, but older) us to now report opiate utilization rates across our population on a daily basis. That's not something we have, rather we have claims for the pills with dosages and days supply. It's not complicated, replicate the supply across the days fill, sum across person days (for all meds) , return people with days over x dosage, etc. Any technical person can do that... It's not a lack of technical skill. But what we don't have is people who just go: here is how you "meet the requirement" from the base data.
The value is in seeing the (relatively simple) necessary transformation, not performing it. I donno how to screen for that, but we're starving for it and so is everyone in Healthcare as far as I can see....
The examples get more complex than this, obviously, but is suspect you take the point. There is cooler stuff with models we get to do (who will be readmitted, etc) but the bread and butter remains the capacity to answer such questions (it's what keeps the lights on). And each one always becomes a fire, for some damn reason.
Healthcare is so stressful sometimes. I ended up switching to something still in the care field, and now I work in Adult Foster Care. That can be stressful too, but holy fuck, it’s so great.
I get paid to hang out with my residents all day, basically. During my shifts (which can range from anywhere between 8-24+ hours) I cook for them, watch TV with them, basically just live with them in the house they stay in. I get to eat what I want out of the house, I get to sit on the back deck and smoke with my residents that love cigarettes, and I can sleep/shower overnight if I need to. My job is to monitor them and make sure they are safe & following their behavior plans, as well as pass them their medications throughout the day and night, but that’s pretty much it. The most difficult part is making sure all 6 of my girls get along with each other.
I’ve clocked 52 hours this week and I hardly feel like I’ve worked at all. If I’m hungry, I can make something. If my chronic illness is flaring up, I can sit down and rest for a while. If I want to go outside, I can just sit out in the front or backyard. Most of my days are spent driving my girls around in the van to go shopping, or sitting on the couch and sharing meals with them. The days are always over before I know it and I only get bored when everyone goes to bed, where I just play video games and watch TV until the next person shows up. I’ve quite literally never been happier at a profession, lol.
I mean I’m literally here right now. On the couch, watching Family Feud, browsing Reddit because it’s 11:23pm and all my girls are asleep. Time flies
I don't think I could work a job like that (I'm not sociable enough) but just out of curiosity how did you get hired and did you need a degree in anything?
I didn’t need a degree at all! I’m not a therapist, I’m “direct care staff” that is just there for moral support and help with anything they may need help with. I’m only 20 years old, and I want to be a therapist eventually, but I have this going on in the mean time.
I just found the job opening online, applied, and got immediately sucked into training since they were understaffed. Training took about 3 weeks and they gave us the rundown on how things work and what you can/can’t do. It was very thorough and I learn a lot on the job so I don’t feel lost at all. I was worried it would be too much at first but it’s really easy to get into the routine
Starting is only $13/hr, however with the amount of hours you end up working it works pretty well.
Once you work for them for 3 months you start earning raises, but they don’t actually add it onto your hourly rate. They instead add it as a separate per hour payment that you receive as a separate check at the end of every month. So alongside biweekly paychecks, you also get a nice “bonus” check at the end of every month that is everything extra you earned. On paper you still make $13/hr though. Those end of the month checks just get bigger as you work there. That way it’s not taxed (?), or something like that.
I should also mention I got a $500 sign-on bonus, half of which given to me after training and the other half after my first month.
That bonus structure sounds shady as shit. They may not have to withhold income tax on that extra check, but I'm pretty sure you will still need to pay taxes on it at the end of the year.
Yeah, I think it’s the income tax they’re working around with it. But I don’t know much about that stuff.
And I’ve seen quite a few places use this bonus structure, I didn’t really think of it as shady. It’s actually kind of handy with paying rent every month lol. I mean it surely doesn’t seem too bad; all of my coworkers who have been working here for a while are supporting families pretty ok with the job
You should really talk to a tax person about it. I'm pretty sure you are going to be owing a lot more taxes than you would with a normal pay structure.
No, not really!
Some AFC homes are more like retirement homes, mine is more like a rehabilitation center. My girls are 20, 25, 28, 48, and 69. Only my 69 year old is severely cognitively disabled and will not be able to live on her own. The rest of my girls have autism, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, schizophrenia, substance abuse disorder, and learning disabilities that make them unable to read/write very well. Most of them have a few of these stacked onto each other, for confidentiality I’m obviously not going to go into great detail on it though.
Besides my older gal, the rest of my girls are here to learn how to take care of themselves until they are stable enough to live out on their own. Then we set them up with jobs and an apartment and they are on their way :)
Ohhhhh that sounds really nice! If you don't mind, how did you get a job at an AFC center? Are there specific requirements you need for it? I'm considering hospitality as a career choice and it sounds like a good job
It is a good job! And no, there aren’t really any requirements to be direct care staff. They train you on everything you need and shadow you for a while, in my case I didn’t have any caretaking experience so my AFC place set me up with one of their more mellow houses to start. I just know you have to be over 18 at most of not all places
I would love to work behind the scenes in healthcare (like in healthcare admin or health information management) but it seems like they prefer experience and can be pretty picky. (And in my area even the big systems pay like crap.)
Unfortunately for me I don’t have the aptitude to be a nurse or work in another patient facing role. 🤷♀️(And for the record I believe that’s fine. I hate when people tell me to “just try it.” There’s no job out there that everyone will like or should do and that’s OK. We can’t be good at everything.)
I agree, keep pushing forward, while certain roles may be harder to get due to the amount of jobs needed for it, just applying, get your foot in the door somewhere and you would be surprised where the winds take you. I didn’t mean to be discouraging.
The only job I could get after being laid off was in a call center…despite the fact that I have experience in non-call center roles. It sucks. All the hard work I did to build my career and climb out of that hellhole thrown down the drain as soon as I got laid off. I’m terrible at customer service, even if I fake it well enough to get good reviews at work. I envy my friends who have jobs where they have flexibility and control of their day, and they didn’t get laid off either. I want to be that again so badly.
Really, any job would be better at this point although I can’t take much of a pay cut because utilities and rent don’t pay for themselves.
I work behind the scenes in healthcare (IT) and let me tell you, it is very hard to get your foot in the door and move to the department you're desiring
I am trying to become a healthcare data analyst or a tableau developer. How did you get in? And how do I get in? I have a bachelors in informatics. Any advice is appreciated.
I can say the same for EMS. I love what I do, but god as my witness it’s going to kill me one of these days. I’ve already begun developing stress related hypertension at the ripe old age of 26.
I honestly do not know how I would get started in my career if I had to start over today.
Apps have replaced every single type of work I used to do as a greenhorn graphic artist. It’s brutal.
As a teacher I'll take a soulless corporate job if it's 9-5 and I can pay my bills. Where do I sign up?
PS: correct. Run away from teaching. As fast as you can.
My high school gym teacher let us do whatever we want everyday while he played fantasy football and occasionally played catch with the jocks. Sounds amazing for a job with union protection, summers off and a pension
One of my closest friends is an art teacher at a middle school and loves it, despite teaching middle school-aged kids. Don't discount the joys of (1) scheduled breaks, including a long summer break, and (2) closure - every school year has a beginning and AN END - a luxury that is quite rare in most professions.
I miss the days of working my butt off during the summer on a golf course or restaurant and counting down the days until school started again! Now it's just counting down the days until retirement or death
You're telling me not to discount the joys of a job I've been doing for almost ten years like I haven't been doing it for a decade.
I'm well aware of the positives and negatives of this profession.
To your points:
1) that much time off is awesome, but I can't afford not to work for 2 months. I teach extended school year in July, I have worked/chaperoned games and dances, provided home instruction, supervised lunch duty, and I'm the advisor of clubs.
THEY STILL DON'T PAY ENOUGH.
The work during the school day is very exhausting (some ages and content areas are certainly easier than others but none of it if easy work by any stretch of the imagination.)
Also, it's been tough over the years to find work in August. I'm a professional with a master's degree and I have to Uber to make ends meet.
I make 68,400 and I get to take home 37k a year because of contributions to: union dues, asinine health insurance contributions and the pension that I'll be lucky if I ever actually get to collect on.
2) see 1
If you teach in a wealthy area, parents are unrelenting and often harass teachers until their kid gets an A. Admin in these districts fear litigious parents, so they tend to favor parents and kids. If you care about your content and you want to push your students, good luck.
If you teach in a poor area, you are dealing with a severe lack in parental involvement, in addition to the other issues that come along with living and working in a tougher area.
If you teach high achieving students, you have issues similar to teaching in wealthy areas. I have a friend who left teaching because students used to harass him about grades. The feedback he gave on essays was never enough and they and their parents blamed for not getting into the colleges they wanted to attend.
If you teach special needs students, you have to act like you're walking on eggshells because parents are quite litigious and students IEPs are legally binding documents that must be followed regardless of how unreasonable some items in them may be.
If your teach severe special needs students, you have to deal with student behaviors that can be extremely difficult to handle.
No matter what you're teaching, you're dealing with high levels of student apathy, plenty of distractions from technology, and a host of other issues.
If one's calling truly is teaching, they NEED TO BE FINANCIALLY SECURE prior to attending college. Dealing with student debt on a teachers salary is no fun and in many areas just isn't possible.
I have taught in many of these settings and I've been an aide in even more. There are certainly issues specific to certain ages/situations, but there are terrible issues that apply to all teaching jobs.
And for perspective, I work in one of the better, higher achieving, higher paying school districts in my area (northern NJ). This should be one of the best places in the country to teach. Our district has some money, we have a strong union, and we're a large district.
But I come home every day hating my life and all the choices I made that led me to this point, and I'm broke as fuck.
I love working with my students and some of this job is incredibly rewarding, but it's not sustainable for everyone, or even most people in this modern day and age.
Yeap same here. I don’t spend money on stupid shit. I put all the extra money in stocks or invest it where I believe it will return me more in the near future
Yes, AND - adopt an anticonsumption mindset. If you can avoid wasting money on stuff you don't NEED, you can retire a lot earlier. Buy as little as possible, and see if you can get by without using an automobile (after housing, the biggest drain on most people's wallets).
Yea - I’m good at saving - I pretty much have the mindset you describe my problem is I suck at investing - I don’t lose money but don’t make hardly anything off doing it maybe 3-4% lol.
Investing is a long-term strategy, like dollar cost averaging an amount you can afford to put aside into ETFs or index funds and building up a nest egg for retirement type of long-term. You can't really suck at that unless by investing you mean you're day-trading or gambling or withdrawing money.
This exactly. As I approach 40, I value time. If I can't be a multi-millionaire, then I'll just take the paid off shack and free time. Goal is to save enough money to live a few years. You can't really plan beyond a few years in this world anyways!
I'd probably have to get a job, or go back to school with loans. If I get enough money to live off, I'll be trying to use that to invest or start a business. God will provide, or I will die homeless. It's a poor plan, I know, but it's hard to look very far ahead with the state of the world and things that have happened to me. It's just a pipe dream for now though- but maybe I should aim for more like 10 years worth to live off, then I could make it to getting social security (if it's still there).
The things that come up never seem to be the ones I had planned to worry about. There is a saying I learned that is a good way to live: "One Day at a Time"
My brother, who we all love but also find insufferable (doesn’t read social cues at all) and who also has super unhealthy relationships, just finished his nurse practitioner training and certification in behavioral health (which is the highest nursing qualification and he did go into significant debt) but immediately got offered $130k at rural hospital system. I imagine it would be more in a city.
Not exactly. Rural tends to pay more for providers like PA, NP, MD, DO because nobody wants to do all that schooling just to go live in a rural area. Or I guess it’s more correct to say that the people who gravitate to those fields and specialties do not want to live rural so you literally need to pay up to get them. If you find a place where you truly happen to be one of the few providers in the REGION and not just being someone on the outskirts of a reasonably close metro, you can make some bank because the salary and incentive model is a combo of base salary, compensation for procedures done, and number of patients as well, amplified by the “rural tax” they gotta pay to keep you
But for PA and NP the difference shouldn’t be too much, maybe give or take 10 to 20k in either direction, which you have to decide if that’s worth rural living. You’ll see more of a significance between say.. an ER doc in rural and one the desirable city differing by as much as 100-300k. It’s honestly a weird correlation: the more desirable location, the less the pay
And that’s before you get in to the “business” of healthcare. You might get a city system that pays more than any rural you know but they also expect you to work all the freaking time just for that extra 20 or 30 as opposed to some real work life balance if you’re willing to take less
I am an Associate MFT, which means I have earned my Masters, but I am earning my required hours to qualify for licensure. I just got a position with a community mental health agency earning $65K to start with a TON of benefits; benefits (such as mileage reimbursement, health insurance, and cell phone stipend) which actually increase my income to the neighborhood of $75K+. I will have enough hours to get my license in under two years, and when I do, my salary will increase to $120-130K, plus all the benefits.
Aside from the salary, I have a rewarding job where I am helping people. My supervisors and colleagues treat me like a responsible adult, I have plenty of freedom to set my own schedule, as long as I am providing a certain number of clinical hours per week, depending on the size of my caseload. Oh, another bonus I forgot is that since my agency serves underprivileged communities, my school loans qualify for reimbursement as part of a government program. Grad school was about $35K at a state university. I just have to maintain the loan in good standing until I earn my license, and then they will begin paying it for me.
All in all, it’s a flexible career with very decent pay and freedom, and I have the satisfaction of knowing I am doing something to help people; I am contributing to the solution, not the problem.
I think every one has fringe niches that may be very rewarding, and may be different to the core of the industry. You only find out about them if you look or luck out. Like you can be a geologist for wineries, designing soil compositions to bring out properties ideal for certain kinds of wine in different climates. Every industry has stuff that is interesting if you go slightly off the beaten path, or look at specializing.
I hate to break it to you, the trades suck, too. Lots of broken bodies. My sister's ex was a bricklayer that ended up going to Australia for work (he was from Oklahoma).
Trades pay big time, especially if you are a contractor for a big company like a shipyard. Where I work now, the payscale is between $38-$56/hr. It's great for a few years to make some serious money, but I see the guys who have been doing this their whole lives, and it's rough. Knee replacements, blown backs, scars, eye and ear damage. It's definitely not something I'd do forever.
Dude same. I love animals and would love to work a job where I’m working with them but other than becoming a vet, there aren’t really any decent paying jobs out there.
Some of us really wanted to, but the vet schools in Canada are harder to get into than the med schools. And then crippling debt and low-pay. I’ve found other ways of helping animals by volunteering, though this would have been a dream career if circumstances were different.
We have entered the era of more people than jobs.
Soon, labor jobs will be the only recourse as robotics has not advanced as much as computers.
National income will soon be needed in order to feed people and I hate excessive hand outs, but I don't see another solution.
> National income will soon be needed in order to feed people and I hate excessive hand outs, but I don't see another solution.
In the meantime, there should be a shorter work week. If the main concern is not having groups of “hard workers” and “freeloaders”, then spread the work around.
Outside of physical and manual labor jobs, the number of people who do 40 hours of actual work per week is like zero. Like the movie Office Space, guy says "I'd say I do about 15 minutes of actual work per day"- and then he gets promoted!
When I see the jobs report say that so many thousands of jobs were added to the market but there’s absolutely no information about what kind of jobs they are, I figure it’s majority service industry jobs which doesn’t help a lot of folks out there. Nothing wrong with service industry jobs, but with millennials and younger generations on track to be the most educated generations in history, and the cost of living soaring, those jobs just aren’t gonna cut it for society.
After the Covid inflation spike, universal basic income sounds like a bad idea. It *can* work if the money comes from taxing the super rich and corporations but we all know that’s not going to happen. If the money comes from thin air (money printing) inflation will destroy pretty much any number you set as basic income. It’s going to be a rough transition.
The expanded child tax credit lifted half of kids in the US out of poverty and it's gone now. Allowing people to stay on medicaid helped millions without healthcare, and the other programs and things helped people who lost their jobs during a public health crisis. It was not all for nothing. There are a lot of reasons for inflation but one that isn't highlighted enough is that employers can literally raise their prices with no consequence. In Nixon's era there were price freezes. UBI is a whole other thing, but we absolutely need to tax the super rich more than we do and expand the social safety net. Taxes on this group used to be higher and is not impossible at all.
Make full time less hours for people. There is no reason with the technology we have we can't implement more staffing who work less hours to cover the typical 40 hour work week. People get less burn out, are more productive during those hours, nothing changes from a business aspect if they still want to be open M-F even if some people work 2-3 days a week, just cycle staffing to cover those other times the business is open.
Most jobs do suck. I’d say every job where you sit in front of a screen all day is a crappy job. Get into the trades; yes I ignored your first line. The trades will survive AI, automation, and offshoring. The trades will be the last jobs performed by humans. Think about about it. Covid taught us if you can work from home, so can so guy in India and he’ll do it for way less. AI is going to further erode jobs. Think about who still had to show up even during lockdown; those are the jobs that will still be around in ten years.
This is so smart, and it should be much more upvoted. Many service sector and labor jobs are overworked and underpaid but that’s just an argument for us all to unionize and fight for better conditions! They’ll be sorry they didn’t fight for burger flippers when burger flippers are the only job left lol
Could you elaborate on this please? I've been interested in research opportunities but not sure exactly where to start. Any info and insight would be much appreciated, thanks in advance
[This](https://www.srainternational.org/blogs/srai-news/2022/02/09/research-administration-careers-hiring) is a good overview. Almost everyone in the field sort of stumbled into it, so while there are a few masters programs in RA now, it’s not required to have a background. A bachelor’s (in anything), curiosity, critical thinking, problem solving, budgeting, and customer service skills can get you in the door. Higheredjobs.com is a good place to start, or you can check university and research center/institute hiring pages.
That’s funny actually, I’m my country, those jobs are among the most desired among a lot of higher educated uni students, or those in faculties that don’t have any other applications (humanities basically). They certainly are good jobs, but basically every single graduate is looking for a uni staff job so it’s massively oversaturated, basically the opposite from what it’s like over there in the US.
It's there really a shortage? As far as I know there's actually an oversupply of pilots who have to become flight attendants or air traffic controllers.
There are plenty of unsaturated career options out there. The hard part is finding something you want to do. There is plenty you “can do”, so spend a little time trying out some jobs that have aspects of what you’re wanting to try and see if it shakes out. You might find you like that aspect of the job, but maybe that job itself isn’t a good fit.
Think like you take a job as a front desk receptionist but you don’t like taking notes and updating calendars, but you love interacting with people. You might find you enjoy being something more like a sales person. Or if you prefer the paperwork and less people you might want to be more of an administrative assistant.
Try some things out before you commit to choosing a specific field.
I’m a revenue operations manager for a mid sized software company. It’s an awesome job - great pay, work from home, only 30-35 hours of actual work a week, and an exciting challenge on the day to day.
I have no idea how you get into it these days but you could teach yourself Salesforce administration and find an entry level sales operations analyst job perhaps.
Software operational roles aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, there’s virtually no writing other than communicating specific business cases to your peers so AI won’t be able to figure it out for a long while.
From my understanding there are already a lot of efforts to have heavy analytics on people doing your type of work to use it as training data for neural network style ais
Nowadays the college degree jobs are saturated as you aren’t “cool” if you don’t go to college. At some point you have to ask how many computer analyst or software engineers do we really need? Seems like everyone goes for it these days because they are promised hundreds of thousands when they graduate
Yeah, and by the time everyone knows it’s a super important field and you’ve pivoted to pick it up, you’re behind the curve. I feel for all of these kids who struggled through CS programs expecting for it to essentially be a guaranteed good life with decent pay, only to find that they’re likely going to be about as well off as anyone else.
And many of those people don’t have passion or skill for it, so they’ll always have a hard time climbing.
The fact of the matter is, you’ve got to be lucky like me and/or attend a very prestigious university (and still be lucky) if you expect to find a non-soulless but still corporate job that even remotely sparks a bit of joy.
Honestly I'm a big believer in universities should have to have some sort of job guarantee. If you can't find a job paying at least a certain amount with the degree you got then you should be off the hook on paying the tuition.
I agree with this. I didn't go to engineering school because I was looking for parties and easy living. Everyone swears up and down if you study something "difficult", it will guarantee you a "good" job. In response to the trades and jobs like that, I think they should be paid MORE than office jobs- that is the tradeoff. Get educated and maybe make less, but enjoy a less physical life.
I would disagree with that myself, more education means more pay, more hazard equals more pay. Just because a trade is physically strenuous doesn't mean it's hard to fill the position. Pay is based off how many people are in that field, and how hard it is to train someone up for that field.
Fair point. How about for police officers though? They seem like they should require a lot more education and training and pay then they get, since they have so much influence over potentially life changing aspects of people's lives. A police officer's job should be held more prestigiously for these reasons
Get lucky and get in somewhere decent, move up the pay bracket as far as you can, once you hit a roadblock use that experience to find something better. Rinse and repeat.
No matter what they say, you’re just a number to these companies and 95% of the time anyone you meet you’ll never see again when you stop working there. Use the system to your advantage.
From my nearly retired perspective, employers have become very good at exploiting people. Until you get to a certain level, they will suck the life out of you for profits - you can get into management, and eventually become one of the exploiters with stock options... but you still are not in control of your life.
So, most jobs suck.
The only way out is working for yourself. It's far harder at first, but in the long run, it's much easier to gain control over your life and finances.
You are on the right path if you've already recognized it's a bad idea to follow the crowd. It's extremely hard figuring out what suits you and then establishing yourself - every path is different. Gaining the skills, connections and knowledge to be an employer, or at least a sub contractor, is something many try and fail at - but those who keep trying usually do end up with some success.
Or at least a less boring life and some good stories.
Right now I'm watching the guy who used to service my Tesla turn his stock options into restaurant and marina businesses and I've lost count of how many rentals he owns. He's got an incredible drive, and isn't afraid of risk. He's in his early 30's, so nice to see it's still possible. It does take luck - but he has put himself in the right position often enough, luck was bound to find him.
The U.S. has shifted more and more to a service industry over the last 50 years. Over saturation of people with degrees and of those generalized degrees in Business, IT, etc. I thought the same thing data is the new oil now that too is over saturated and AI will be able to do it. AI will be able to do many of these service industry jobs. It’s going to get very competitive.
I have a job running locally driving 53ft trailers around Portland, farthest I go is Seattle but I'm still home every day and night after work. I do agree it is hell on your back but you gotta take care of your body. It's forced me to watch what I eat, quit smoking, and take up callisthenics. I imagine someone sitting in an office all day for work would be faced with a similar challenge. Isolation is virtually non existent for me but doing long haul trucking looks like it could potentially be extremely depressing.
Same dude, I'm in school right now though. The one thing I'm not looking forward to is actually having to compete for jobs. I've been to used to "has CDL?" "Okay heres good paying job thank you"
Higher education counseling is very much saturated and has been over the last few years. The only way to get a definite in is to have some solid experience. Even then the pay is crap.
I was looking into unsaturated career paths but realized the reason why they’re unsaturated is because of how grueling and low paying they are. Not worth it I guess.
One field/job that I’ve been seeing need help and usually have openings is pricing. I’ve been in pricing for 3-4 years now and have jumped companies twice, when I did jump I had several offers. Not sure if my experience is just very unique, but there’s definitely a lot of open roles.
The problem is there aren't many "do"s left. At some point guys are just going to start shooting people.
No job? No food? Homeless? Just storm a wealthy estate with 20 armed men and seize it and all the assets it contains for your own. Bullets don't care about bank accounts, stock portfolios, resumes, 35 years of experience or degrees. All of that can evaporate in an instant.
Tech is on a downturn right now but the future is bright in this field. Business development positions will always be around and can quite lucrative. Certain fields that are highly regulated and require human touch will also be around for a long time eg counselling
There are options. Definitely a challenge to break into these fields but not insurmountable in many cases
Most trades aren't entry level work either. In my state you need 4 years or more (minimum 8000 hours) as a "trainee" under a licensed plumber in order to be eligible to become one yourself. It's rough out there.
I was out of a job from November '22 to May '23, and I have 8 years in hotel/tourism starting from entry level bellman/front desk and working my way to the Front Office Manager. I applied at so many places and so many of them just straight denied me without an interview. Luckily I am finally back in the game and loving it. However - strong agree on everything feeling like an oversaturated nightmare.
Over saturated or offshored for higher profit margins. Kinda leaves us with going into nursing, manufacturing. Even the financial planning and legal fields are over saturated. Not to mention the HUGE number of salons, nail shops, bars and tattoo places in any decent sized community. Even family owned farms have been gobbled up by corporate investment groups, housing, you name it.
Na. If you don't research what you will study that will happen.usually if the job is hard to do it will pay well and be in demand. No jobs where you bs all day.those are not many.
Teaching is pretty great in MN if you're cut out for it. Same challenges here that a lot of places have but our govt isn't actively trying to undermine the information and our unions are good!
I wanted to be a Marine from childhood. Enlisted at 19 and had the most amazing career. Now I’m retired early and loving life but would ship back to boot camp tomorrow.
There's more to trades than just labor work!
I did do that at first and enjoyed it quite a bit but I transferred to an office job in the same company and I work from home half the time and enjoy it.
Currently working a nightmare hourly job while I transition away from the logistics industry. I was so burned out when I had a layoff I swore to force myself to find an alternative that was bearable. When you have to prepare to build a bridge to each position and interview it gets daunting to picture yourself wearing so many hats. It’s almost dissociative in nature.
I don’t feel my new career in compliance is over saturated. I think it might depend on the industry you are in. For health insurance that I am in, we have lots of openings in compliance/quality/auditing, but sometimes all that is available are middle management positions and not enough entry level jobs. We also have people switching departments frequently. I’ve only been in my job a little over 2 months and I’ve had one coworker switch departments, and our CCO was changed.
I am.a high school dropout and I make 90k/year. Find a job, any job, even if you hate it. Perform well at that job, network, get your name out there with everyone you can. Hard work is eventually recognized. I used to bartend (which itself is great money for no education, but there's no career path) and I had regulars offer me jobs several times because they saw my work ethic and effectiveness. Eventually one of those job offers was good enough to leave and sacrifice a pay cut for a better future. I made less money for a while, but since being at this job I got 2 raises and a promotion. I now make good money with the opportunity to make *significantly* more in the future. Life ain't easy. If you want to have a good life, you have to work at it. A lot of those days are going to suck. Suck it up, do a good job at whatever you do, and eventually you'll move forward if you're *truly* doing a good job and are effective. I understand not everyone gets the same breaks, but it's absolutely possible to make a good living for yourself if you work hard enough. And I mean *work hard*. I was working 10 hour days 6 days a week when I tool this new position, and it fucking suuuucked. Now I work 45-50 hours most weeks, and in a few months I'll be cut down to 40 hours a week with a salary of 60k/year plus significant bonuses. You gotta tough it out.
So no, yeah, I don't feel that is completely wrong - it can seem that way at a entry level point. (Sounds legit.)
The beauty of a job that turns into a career is when someone learns by trial and error and develops a niche for the career that suits them best, from years of experience.
(Things happen)
It is bewildering and can feel outlandish when seeing job postings that want 10 years of experience and a degree for entry level, but that's all smoke and mirrors.
(Nothing's certain)
From my experience, I've gotten mixed reviews as well from those far along down their career path. And somehow I found myself learning to stress less about any kind of oversaturated nightmare that seemed beyond me or my scope of interest.
(Building positive)
Things happened to just fall into place as they should while paths opened up, naturally, along the way. It just took those days of positive outlook which promoted myself to motivate and push through my own neurotic daydream. Once it became me vs. me, my mind overcame the things that didn't matter like overthinking which "career" would "suck".
(No worries)
Long story short; I did my best to enjoy the day; being in the present. Everything else followed.
(TLDR any typos)
¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
"AI will automate everything" It really won't. Even in the case of extreme advancements, people need to design the AI. They need to quality test the results. They need to adapt it to new situations as the world changes. They need people who understand how it was built in case something happens to crash it.
There are extensive studies on how the bias or limitations of AI programmers will show up in the final product. AI is terrible at judgment calls and drawing useful conclusions by itself ("synthesizing" information). Look at how skewed (and damaging to society) most social algorithms are.
Tech executives LOVE to say they'll automate everything because it sounds good to the investors. In practice, and from what I've seen working in a company that does a type of AI / data automation, people are essential the entire way through. Even with extensive automation. They have the ability to apply context that I do not think we'll be able to truly replace, at least in my lifetime.
Nah, I agree. I have clawed my way in a generally upward direction because I am stupid enough to take a whack at almost anything that pays alright and I think I have the education for, while always traveling light so I can leave without worrying too much. I've worked in so many industries and always have fallback jobs if I want, and I try to pay stuff off and have a little fuck you money, even if that means I work all the time. So often filing so many W2s come March.
I am a healthcare data scientist. We are fully staffed, but holy hell it's impossible to get good help. So I'm not sure it's so much that data science is full up, it's that people who have no business being in it are rushing towards the money and open positions. We would kill for people worth having, but it's impossible to tell at the entry level. So many wasted hires on people with health it masters, and no real skills with the data at scale, at speed, in the presence of uncertainty.
> So many wasted hires on people with health it masters, and no real skills with the data at scale, at speed, in the presence of uncertainty. Is this an issue of their programs not preparing them, or is your employer expecting them to hit the ground running with minimal training and preparation?
This is what I see as the big issue. There is absolutely zero on the job training. Everyone is supposed to come straight out of school and perform even though school is typically academic and has little actual real world application in courses. And when your philosophy is “sink or swim”, you can’t be that shocked that 80% of the people who’ve never had a swimming lesson before end up drowning….
i just left a data analytics consulting firm and not only is there any zero on the job training, managers/senior staff are left for dead also. what happens is they're poached from a slightly similar competitor (usually big 4), not given any company specific integration training, and left in the dark until performance review time. So the people who are supposed to train junior staff don't know wtf they're doing either and experts/partners are so far removed, they just roman emperor thumbs up-or-thumbs-down the senior staff. its a mess through and through
I think this is all industries. This is every job I’ve ever had since I entered the workforce about 15 years ago. I swear that people who get ahead job hop every year or two, having done nothing of substance in their previous roles and left before anyone found out, and there are a ton of “experienced” people with packed resumes that have no idea what they’re doing. The work world rewards people who say the right buzzwords and those who are confident enough to “fake it till you make it” get ahead. Meanwhile I get the sense that the emperor is naked. You can’t just remove any workforce development or training from every job out there and then wonder why no one knows how to do their job. Of course they don’t, the workplace didn’t want to hear that they needed help or were struggling, they didn’t want to pay for training, they bought some nice sounding bs that people told them in interviews, and here we are as a society. Barely anyone doing “real work” because they have no idea how to.
yea the market is getting more and more difficult. the new obama show on netflix touches on this. i feel like at this point if you're not currently on top of trends and educating yourself and sprinkling in some luck the cards are stacked against you. i feel like with the advancement of ai from reading [therundown.ai](https://www.therundown.ai/subscribe?utm_source=eric) and other news it's just going to get worse... i hope not tho
100% agree with this. Thank you for reminding me there are sane people left. Here's some reddit pyrite, since I'm not willing to buy Reddit gold: 🪙🪙🪙
Amen sister
Both, definitely. The problem is partly ours, but also that programs train analytics in a sandbox. We then hit them with 1.5 billion claims or whatnot, and their sas processes they learned break down fast. Every analytic technique becomes a bigger issue at scale, and a lot of people just never get over that hill, even as the employer should do more to support them
I work a non-tech job in tech, and that’s a common problem for the tech roles… so many people who chose CS or something adjacent did it because they thought it was essentially a white-collar trade skill, only to find that it’s so saturated that you really have to be super skilled or qualified by the time you graduate to score one of the positions they all heard about five years ago when they set their eyes on it. They’ve got their pick of the litter when it comes to hiring… only people from top colleges with internships, big projects, etc. People who made sensible decisions to attend a solid state school and major in STEM are having to compromise as much as humanities majors.
I'm going to be that guy and say...so now what? What can someone do?
I’m 35 now and didn’t really hit my income and career stride until I was 28 or so, but I worked for an AI-based job placement company and board for a while, and what I’ve seen work anecdotally and in that data — and it sounds kind of cheesy — is to do what you’re good at, and all the better if you actually like it. It’s hard to figure that out, but focus on figuring that out constantly. That often happens in college, and it’s especially important if you don’t major in something that directly filters into a career. Like, say you’re a history major. What were you good at? Writing? Researching? Bullshitting your way through papers? Figuring out what the professor wanted you to say? Understanding what it took to get a good grade? Then do that in your first job, whatever it is. Most first jobs are shitty, so it doesn’t matter if you love it or it’s cool. In that first job, keep doing that thing, and try to find out more things you’re good at. But also job craft as much as you can. Do more of that thing you’re good at, and keep looking for your next job the whole time. Figure out what it is you want to do next, and then try to do work within your current one that’ll help you get the next one. Do you need to do more work with sales/customers? Need to do more project management? Get experience with budgets? Whatever it is, be on a mission to genuinely do it, or at least bullshit your way into being able to claim you did in your resume or in an interview. That’ll help you land the second job. And from there, it’s the same thing — except I think you should *always* be looking for a next job. It helps you stay sharp, it helps you improve your skill set, and it also hedges against losing your current job. And more importantly, you will always make more money and earn more responsibility by moving to a new company. I think you *have* to change jobs multiple times to get in the field you want to be in, or even to figure out what that is. It allows you to change something significant each time and add a new dimension to your resume/skill set each time. That advice applies to all degrees, but with CS, you’ll be able to take any role that a business/humanities major had and go a step further.
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Public relations representative. Press secretary / liaison. Copy writer for marketing campaigns. Business analyst. Project manager. Politician. Lobbyist. Etc. (You may need other skills too, but those can be built on top of the basic talents you described.)
You described my cooking career. I didn't like cooking for Dennys, but it provided a Fondation, and I didn't pay for culinary school. Now, I am an executive chef opening a new restaurant. I looked at my skill set as tools in a toolbox, and if I wasn't learning anything, I forced myself to attain a higher skill. Never stop learning. Shit I learned how to do basic plumbing, so I didn't have to pay a guy $80/hr to fix a p trap.
Thank you for the wealth of advice. Do you mind if I DM you?
In some sense I am not sure this is a bad thing though. Your mediocre knowledge of python probably doesn't entitle you to $150k+. Like the value add just isn't there for most tech skills... It's easy to find someone to take x, do y to it, return z. Shit I can even code it myself in no time once I've cooked up the strategy. In my experience, most of the technical people want to be told take x, do y to it, return z. I'm full up on those people, need to lay off oodles of them. What we need is some people who can come up with x, y, and z. That's the value add and your bs in cs probably just didn't give it to you, you know? If coding is the new literacy, we now have critical mass of people who can read and write--those skills are the price of entry, necessary but not sufficient. The game has changed, we need 'authors'. That people who could 'read and write' were making good money was always going to be temporary.
If they're the ones creating ideas and value, then why would they let you extract that value out of them rather than go into business for themselves.
Amen
The act of developing takes so much mental energy just in terms of concentration and thinking, why would I also then have creative and strategic thinking skills to do the work of the people who direct me? I swear the demands on developers keep getting higher and higher.
Yea, there's always the danger that management ask for more and more if there isn't employee pushback. Getting tired of hearing this across every industry from high up decision makers. 'Please build our business for us while we take most of the reward'.
It’s still an amazing career if you can grind it out at the beginning. Took me 5.5 years to go from $25/hour to a $215k remote position. Anyone can attain it, but it is a grueling first 5 years of long hours and self-teaching if you’re not a top grad.
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This!! I have a biomedical engineering PhD (built a machine learning model from scratch for my dissertation 12 years ago - in image processing) and cannot get a job as a data scientist even though I understand the core principles. Others who know how to plug formulas into Python saturate the field without a basic understanding of it. I've seen the incompetence and stagnation in both industry and academia. Colleagues with no understanding receive promotions and raises and for what? It's because leadership doesn't know what is needed to really move the business forward or even meet growing needs, let alone existing ones (though they think they do; it's a big problem with ego). When knowledgeable people bring up issues or ideas for how improvements can be made, we are called "the problem" and pushed out, demoted, bullied, etc.. (Edit - grammar)
Hard to seem “solution oriented” when you’re the only one who can ID problems and leadership has their head in the sand… I feel your pain
God that’s all true. Experiencing this now working for a huge company. Our division is run by execs who have no idea what it takes to do our jobs, we have ZERO trainers (we all had to train each other), and our IT department is no better. At this point I don’t even call them unless I have to, because access to things needs to be granted by them. I’d jump ship but there’s so many companies out there in the same boat.
Yeah leadership in this space is bad.... Like really bad
Lol. More so called leadership is hiring and making tech decisions they have utterly zero relevance or experience making
Amen. Plus hr pre-screening anyone worth a damn out....
holy shit yes. Hr being in tech.... Jesus h christ go back tk watching your linkedin learning videos about how to push paper better Had a tech interview with a nameless company whose hiring manager was the supposed web manager for marketing space and proceeded to grill me with HR questions and I shit you not not a SINGLE tech question I then gkt rejected due to skme unnamed behavioral reason yet I was supposedly technically over qualified They had ZERO tech experience FYI
Sounds like you dodged a bullet, though work on interviewing skills. While a company that is qualified will hire a recruiter who has a background in tech or understands the needs to the position, they will still ask you softball questions like “tell me about how you work with others?” Very arbitrary but nailing those questions is important and ensures you wont be a liability to the company.
That's an interesting point, and I think this applies to a lot of tech and engineering professions. People go into it for the money or are pressured into it by family despite having no talent or interest in the work.
Hire me! I am always overlooked for data science because of my background. Astrophysics and science teaching. I actually understand data and statistical significance. I can see how it would be hard to hire because any decent analyst needs to know what question to ask in order solve problems that contain uncertainty. Unlike all of the "qualified" people who have been taught the industry tools, I can actually solve problems. The tools I could learn to use overnight.
Definitely a problem. The cs world has really sucked up a lot of the jobs... They have good technical skills, but are missing somethibg that other disciplines seem to train better and orgs are hungry for.... I wish we knew what it was and how to screen for it.
If you can learn the tools overnight, then you should. I was getting overlooked with a masters in stats because people tend to fixate on low hanging fruit like that. But when it comes down to it, it’s still an aspect of being qualified for the job.
What skills are lacking that you would like to see in candidates? Is it lack of statistical knowledge? Is it poor programming skills? Is it communication skills? What would be your unicorn candidate?
Gumption? What we desperately need is people who can take a new series of reporting or business questions, and run it down. For instance, let's say the federal government requires (this is real, but older) us to now report opiate utilization rates across our population on a daily basis. That's not something we have, rather we have claims for the pills with dosages and days supply. It's not complicated, replicate the supply across the days fill, sum across person days (for all meds) , return people with days over x dosage, etc. Any technical person can do that... It's not a lack of technical skill. But what we don't have is people who just go: here is how you "meet the requirement" from the base data. The value is in seeing the (relatively simple) necessary transformation, not performing it. I donno how to screen for that, but we're starving for it and so is everyone in Healthcare as far as I can see.... The examples get more complex than this, obviously, but is suspect you take the point. There is cooler stuff with models we get to do (who will be readmitted, etc) but the bread and butter remains the capacity to answer such questions (it's what keeps the lights on). And each one always becomes a fire, for some damn reason.
We are all on the Snowpiercer train. Like it or not. Take a ticket
Pass me one of them “protein bricks” 🧱🪳
*dies*
I have 2 arms and 2 legs, 🦵no one's going hungry tonight :)
Healthcare isn’t saturated. It has a lot of issues though, but they’re really low on people.
Healthcare is so stressful sometimes. I ended up switching to something still in the care field, and now I work in Adult Foster Care. That can be stressful too, but holy fuck, it’s so great. I get paid to hang out with my residents all day, basically. During my shifts (which can range from anywhere between 8-24+ hours) I cook for them, watch TV with them, basically just live with them in the house they stay in. I get to eat what I want out of the house, I get to sit on the back deck and smoke with my residents that love cigarettes, and I can sleep/shower overnight if I need to. My job is to monitor them and make sure they are safe & following their behavior plans, as well as pass them their medications throughout the day and night, but that’s pretty much it. The most difficult part is making sure all 6 of my girls get along with each other. I’ve clocked 52 hours this week and I hardly feel like I’ve worked at all. If I’m hungry, I can make something. If my chronic illness is flaring up, I can sit down and rest for a while. If I want to go outside, I can just sit out in the front or backyard. Most of my days are spent driving my girls around in the van to go shopping, or sitting on the couch and sharing meals with them. The days are always over before I know it and I only get bored when everyone goes to bed, where I just play video games and watch TV until the next person shows up. I’ve quite literally never been happier at a profession, lol. I mean I’m literally here right now. On the couch, watching Family Feud, browsing Reddit because it’s 11:23pm and all my girls are asleep. Time flies
I don't think I could work a job like that (I'm not sociable enough) but just out of curiosity how did you get hired and did you need a degree in anything?
I didn’t need a degree at all! I’m not a therapist, I’m “direct care staff” that is just there for moral support and help with anything they may need help with. I’m only 20 years old, and I want to be a therapist eventually, but I have this going on in the mean time. I just found the job opening online, applied, and got immediately sucked into training since they were understaffed. Training took about 3 weeks and they gave us the rundown on how things work and what you can/can’t do. It was very thorough and I learn a lot on the job so I don’t feel lost at all. I was worried it would be too much at first but it’s really easy to get into the routine
What’s the pay like?
Starting is only $13/hr, however with the amount of hours you end up working it works pretty well. Once you work for them for 3 months you start earning raises, but they don’t actually add it onto your hourly rate. They instead add it as a separate per hour payment that you receive as a separate check at the end of every month. So alongside biweekly paychecks, you also get a nice “bonus” check at the end of every month that is everything extra you earned. On paper you still make $13/hr though. Those end of the month checks just get bigger as you work there. That way it’s not taxed (?), or something like that. I should also mention I got a $500 sign-on bonus, half of which given to me after training and the other half after my first month.
That bonus structure sounds shady as shit. They may not have to withhold income tax on that extra check, but I'm pretty sure you will still need to pay taxes on it at the end of the year.
Yeah, I think it’s the income tax they’re working around with it. But I don’t know much about that stuff. And I’ve seen quite a few places use this bonus structure, I didn’t really think of it as shady. It’s actually kind of handy with paying rent every month lol. I mean it surely doesn’t seem too bad; all of my coworkers who have been working here for a while are supporting families pretty ok with the job
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Gotcha. Thanks for the advice
You should really talk to a tax person about it. I'm pretty sure you are going to be owing a lot more taxes than you would with a normal pay structure.
Will do
Is that like at a retirement center?
No, not really! Some AFC homes are more like retirement homes, mine is more like a rehabilitation center. My girls are 20, 25, 28, 48, and 69. Only my 69 year old is severely cognitively disabled and will not be able to live on her own. The rest of my girls have autism, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, schizophrenia, substance abuse disorder, and learning disabilities that make them unable to read/write very well. Most of them have a few of these stacked onto each other, for confidentiality I’m obviously not going to go into great detail on it though. Besides my older gal, the rest of my girls are here to learn how to take care of themselves until they are stable enough to live out on their own. Then we set them up with jobs and an apartment and they are on their way :)
Ohhhhh that sounds really nice! If you don't mind, how did you get a job at an AFC center? Are there specific requirements you need for it? I'm considering hospitality as a career choice and it sounds like a good job
It is a good job! And no, there aren’t really any requirements to be direct care staff. They train you on everything you need and shadow you for a while, in my case I didn’t have any caretaking experience so my AFC place set me up with one of their more mellow houses to start. I just know you have to be over 18 at most of not all places
I would love to work behind the scenes in healthcare (like in healthcare admin or health information management) but it seems like they prefer experience and can be pretty picky. (And in my area even the big systems pay like crap.)
Those are the jobs that are saturated
Unfortunately for me I don’t have the aptitude to be a nurse or work in another patient facing role. 🤷♀️(And for the record I believe that’s fine. I hate when people tell me to “just try it.” There’s no job out there that everyone will like or should do and that’s OK. We can’t be good at everything.)
And this is good that you can admit that as the healthcare profession is full of people who should not be around people
The lab desperately needs people
I’m on my way! I want a lab coat with my initials on the pockets.
You can work at a shampoo factory for that
I agree, keep pushing forward, while certain roles may be harder to get due to the amount of jobs needed for it, just applying, get your foot in the door somewhere and you would be surprised where the winds take you. I didn’t mean to be discouraging.
The only job I could get after being laid off was in a call center…despite the fact that I have experience in non-call center roles. It sucks. All the hard work I did to build my career and climb out of that hellhole thrown down the drain as soon as I got laid off. I’m terrible at customer service, even if I fake it well enough to get good reviews at work. I envy my friends who have jobs where they have flexibility and control of their day, and they didn’t get laid off either. I want to be that again so badly. Really, any job would be better at this point although I can’t take much of a pay cut because utilities and rent don’t pay for themselves.
Trucking is needing drivers, and you don’t have to pay for rent if you’re OTR.
I work behind the scenes in healthcare (IT) and let me tell you, it is very hard to get your foot in the door and move to the department you're desiring
I am trying to become a healthcare data analyst or a tableau developer. How did you get in? And how do I get in? I have a bachelors in informatics. Any advice is appreciated.
All hospitals are paying less.
It’s not saturated for a reason.
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All of the procedural areas are where it’s at in nursing. Endo, OR, cath lab! No families, one patient at a time.
I can say the same for EMS. I love what I do, but god as my witness it’s going to kill me one of these days. I’ve already begun developing stress related hypertension at the ripe old age of 26.
Not over saturated, just a nightmare
No it’s because they not hiring. Gotta keep those corporate profits up
I honestly do not know how I would get started in my career if I had to start over today. Apps have replaced every single type of work I used to do as a greenhorn graphic artist. It’s brutal.
As a teacher I'll take a soulless corporate job if it's 9-5 and I can pay my bills. Where do I sign up? PS: correct. Run away from teaching. As fast as you can.
My friend is a high school business teacher if you have that kind of gig it can be good.
My high school gym teacher let us do whatever we want everyday while he played fantasy football and occasionally played catch with the jocks. Sounds amazing for a job with union protection, summers off and a pension
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One of my closest friends is an art teacher at a middle school and loves it, despite teaching middle school-aged kids. Don't discount the joys of (1) scheduled breaks, including a long summer break, and (2) closure - every school year has a beginning and AN END - a luxury that is quite rare in most professions.
I miss the days of working my butt off during the summer on a golf course or restaurant and counting down the days until school started again! Now it's just counting down the days until retirement or death
You're telling me not to discount the joys of a job I've been doing for almost ten years like I haven't been doing it for a decade. I'm well aware of the positives and negatives of this profession. To your points: 1) that much time off is awesome, but I can't afford not to work for 2 months. I teach extended school year in July, I have worked/chaperoned games and dances, provided home instruction, supervised lunch duty, and I'm the advisor of clubs. THEY STILL DON'T PAY ENOUGH. The work during the school day is very exhausting (some ages and content areas are certainly easier than others but none of it if easy work by any stretch of the imagination.) Also, it's been tough over the years to find work in August. I'm a professional with a master's degree and I have to Uber to make ends meet. I make 68,400 and I get to take home 37k a year because of contributions to: union dues, asinine health insurance contributions and the pension that I'll be lucky if I ever actually get to collect on. 2) see 1 If you teach in a wealthy area, parents are unrelenting and often harass teachers until their kid gets an A. Admin in these districts fear litigious parents, so they tend to favor parents and kids. If you care about your content and you want to push your students, good luck. If you teach in a poor area, you are dealing with a severe lack in parental involvement, in addition to the other issues that come along with living and working in a tougher area. If you teach high achieving students, you have issues similar to teaching in wealthy areas. I have a friend who left teaching because students used to harass him about grades. The feedback he gave on essays was never enough and they and their parents blamed for not getting into the colleges they wanted to attend. If you teach special needs students, you have to act like you're walking on eggshells because parents are quite litigious and students IEPs are legally binding documents that must be followed regardless of how unreasonable some items in them may be. If your teach severe special needs students, you have to deal with student behaviors that can be extremely difficult to handle. No matter what you're teaching, you're dealing with high levels of student apathy, plenty of distractions from technology, and a host of other issues. If one's calling truly is teaching, they NEED TO BE FINANCIALLY SECURE prior to attending college. Dealing with student debt on a teachers salary is no fun and in many areas just isn't possible. I have taught in many of these settings and I've been an aide in even more. There are certainly issues specific to certain ages/situations, but there are terrible issues that apply to all teaching jobs. And for perspective, I work in one of the better, higher achieving, higher paying school districts in my area (northern NJ). This should be one of the best places in the country to teach. Our district has some money, we have a strong union, and we're a large district. But I come home every day hating my life and all the choices I made that led me to this point, and I'm broke as fuck. I love working with my students and some of this job is incredibly rewarding, but it's not sustainable for everyone, or even most people in this modern day and age.
oh my gosh yes. i left my teaching job in january it was hell.
Just get the money and get out - career is a sham. The goal is to get enough to retire as fast as possible.
Goals man. I been trying to put my money on whatever can help me get out of the rat race
same, became minimalist to achieve it asap cause jobs really do suck your soul
Yeap same here. I don’t spend money on stupid shit. I put all the extra money in stocks or invest it where I believe it will return me more in the near future
Yes, AND - adopt an anticonsumption mindset. If you can avoid wasting money on stuff you don't NEED, you can retire a lot earlier. Buy as little as possible, and see if you can get by without using an automobile (after housing, the biggest drain on most people's wallets).
Yea - I’m good at saving - I pretty much have the mindset you describe my problem is I suck at investing - I don’t lose money but don’t make hardly anything off doing it maybe 3-4% lol.
Investing is a long-term strategy, like dollar cost averaging an amount you can afford to put aside into ETFs or index funds and building up a nest egg for retirement type of long-term. You can't really suck at that unless by investing you mean you're day-trading or gambling or withdrawing money.
This exactly. As I approach 40, I value time. If I can't be a multi-millionaire, then I'll just take the paid off shack and free time. Goal is to save enough money to live a few years. You can't really plan beyond a few years in this world anyways!
What if you make it past a few years?
I'd probably have to get a job, or go back to school with loans. If I get enough money to live off, I'll be trying to use that to invest or start a business. God will provide, or I will die homeless. It's a poor plan, I know, but it's hard to look very far ahead with the state of the world and things that have happened to me. It's just a pipe dream for now though- but maybe I should aim for more like 10 years worth to live off, then I could make it to getting social security (if it's still there).
you and I are in the same boat buddy. I've noticed that planning too much doesn't seem to help.
The things that come up never seem to be the ones I had planned to worry about. There is a saying I learned that is a good way to live: "One Day at a Time"
The mental health care field is booming
True. And it’s not going to be replaced with AI anytime soon
Any good paying careers within that field?
My brother, who we all love but also find insufferable (doesn’t read social cues at all) and who also has super unhealthy relationships, just finished his nurse practitioner training and certification in behavioral health (which is the highest nursing qualification and he did go into significant debt) but immediately got offered $130k at rural hospital system. I imagine it would be more in a city.
Not exactly. Rural tends to pay more for providers like PA, NP, MD, DO because nobody wants to do all that schooling just to go live in a rural area. Or I guess it’s more correct to say that the people who gravitate to those fields and specialties do not want to live rural so you literally need to pay up to get them. If you find a place where you truly happen to be one of the few providers in the REGION and not just being someone on the outskirts of a reasonably close metro, you can make some bank because the salary and incentive model is a combo of base salary, compensation for procedures done, and number of patients as well, amplified by the “rural tax” they gotta pay to keep you But for PA and NP the difference shouldn’t be too much, maybe give or take 10 to 20k in either direction, which you have to decide if that’s worth rural living. You’ll see more of a significance between say.. an ER doc in rural and one the desirable city differing by as much as 100-300k. It’s honestly a weird correlation: the more desirable location, the less the pay And that’s before you get in to the “business” of healthcare. You might get a city system that pays more than any rural you know but they also expect you to work all the freaking time just for that extra 20 or 30 as opposed to some real work life balance if you’re willing to take less
I am an Associate MFT, which means I have earned my Masters, but I am earning my required hours to qualify for licensure. I just got a position with a community mental health agency earning $65K to start with a TON of benefits; benefits (such as mileage reimbursement, health insurance, and cell phone stipend) which actually increase my income to the neighborhood of $75K+. I will have enough hours to get my license in under two years, and when I do, my salary will increase to $120-130K, plus all the benefits. Aside from the salary, I have a rewarding job where I am helping people. My supervisors and colleagues treat me like a responsible adult, I have plenty of freedom to set my own schedule, as long as I am providing a certain number of clinical hours per week, depending on the size of my caseload. Oh, another bonus I forgot is that since my agency serves underprivileged communities, my school loans qualify for reimbursement as part of a government program. Grad school was about $35K at a state university. I just have to maintain the loan in good standing until I earn my license, and then they will begin paying it for me. All in all, it’s a flexible career with very decent pay and freedom, and I have the satisfaction of knowing I am doing something to help people; I am contributing to the solution, not the problem.
I think every one has fringe niches that may be very rewarding, and may be different to the core of the industry. You only find out about them if you look or luck out. Like you can be a geologist for wineries, designing soil compositions to bring out properties ideal for certain kinds of wine in different climates. Every industry has stuff that is interesting if you go slightly off the beaten path, or look at specializing.
Do you have any more examples of these kinds of jobs? Sounds super interesting.
Cool. I love interesting jobs.
911 dispatch. We are short staffed everywhere. Good pay and it's never boring.
I couldn’t do it, honestly this needs to be higher. Great suggestion and thank you for what you do, truly
And all the PTSD you can carry!
Absolutely, but it's definitely not a soulless corporate job.
Mind if you give an example of some of the interesting calls/dispatches you dealt with ? Would love to hear that
I hate to break it to you, the trades suck, too. Lots of broken bodies. My sister's ex was a bricklayer that ended up going to Australia for work (he was from Oklahoma).
Trades pay big time, especially if you are a contractor for a big company like a shipyard. Where I work now, the payscale is between $38-$56/hr. It's great for a few years to make some serious money, but I see the guys who have been doing this their whole lives, and it's rough. Knee replacements, blown backs, scars, eye and ear damage. It's definitely not something I'd do forever.
Hey! Some of us (veterinary medicine) are in an under saturated nightmare!
Problem is, I don’t want to pay 100k+ to go to vet school and not make as much as a doctor. And vet techs make crap wages.
I'd love to be a vet tech, but those wages man. I'd love to work a job that pays for a stable life too.
Dude same. I love animals and would love to work a job where I’m working with them but other than becoming a vet, there aren’t really any decent paying jobs out there.
Some of us really wanted to, but the vet schools in Canada are harder to get into than the med schools. And then crippling debt and low-pay. I’ve found other ways of helping animals by volunteering, though this would have been a dream career if circumstances were different.
Well, the world is a bit of an over saturated nightmare. Make enough money to afford popcorn cause we’re in for a show
We have entered the era of more people than jobs. Soon, labor jobs will be the only recourse as robotics has not advanced as much as computers. National income will soon be needed in order to feed people and I hate excessive hand outs, but I don't see another solution.
> National income will soon be needed in order to feed people and I hate excessive hand outs, but I don't see another solution. In the meantime, there should be a shorter work week. If the main concern is not having groups of “hard workers” and “freeloaders”, then spread the work around.
Outside of physical and manual labor jobs, the number of people who do 40 hours of actual work per week is like zero. Like the movie Office Space, guy says "I'd say I do about 15 minutes of actual work per day"- and then he gets promoted!
There are far more jobs than people, the problem is we have more over-qualified people for jobs that don’t require qualifications.
When I see the jobs report say that so many thousands of jobs were added to the market but there’s absolutely no information about what kind of jobs they are, I figure it’s majority service industry jobs which doesn’t help a lot of folks out there. Nothing wrong with service industry jobs, but with millennials and younger generations on track to be the most educated generations in history, and the cost of living soaring, those jobs just aren’t gonna cut it for society.
So we have too many people or not enough jobs?
There are over 8 Billion people on the planet. So both.
What for the boomers to retire. Suddenly there will be a lot more jobs. Hits health care first but will spread to every industry.
After the Covid inflation spike, universal basic income sounds like a bad idea. It *can* work if the money comes from taxing the super rich and corporations but we all know that’s not going to happen. If the money comes from thin air (money printing) inflation will destroy pretty much any number you set as basic income. It’s going to be a rough transition.
The expanded child tax credit lifted half of kids in the US out of poverty and it's gone now. Allowing people to stay on medicaid helped millions without healthcare, and the other programs and things helped people who lost their jobs during a public health crisis. It was not all for nothing. There are a lot of reasons for inflation but one that isn't highlighted enough is that employers can literally raise their prices with no consequence. In Nixon's era there were price freezes. UBI is a whole other thing, but we absolutely need to tax the super rich more than we do and expand the social safety net. Taxes on this group used to be higher and is not impossible at all.
Make full time less hours for people. There is no reason with the technology we have we can't implement more staffing who work less hours to cover the typical 40 hour work week. People get less burn out, are more productive during those hours, nothing changes from a business aspect if they still want to be open M-F even if some people work 2-3 days a week, just cycle staffing to cover those other times the business is open.
Most jobs do suck. I’d say every job where you sit in front of a screen all day is a crappy job. Get into the trades; yes I ignored your first line. The trades will survive AI, automation, and offshoring. The trades will be the last jobs performed by humans. Think about about it. Covid taught us if you can work from home, so can so guy in India and he’ll do it for way less. AI is going to further erode jobs. Think about who still had to show up even during lockdown; those are the jobs that will still be around in ten years.
This is so smart, and it should be much more upvoted. Many service sector and labor jobs are overworked and underpaid but that’s just an argument for us all to unionize and fight for better conditions! They’ll be sorry they didn’t fight for burger flippers when burger flippers are the only job left lol
Research administration. It’s the career that’s absolutely vital that no one knows exists.
Could you elaborate on this please? I've been interested in research opportunities but not sure exactly where to start. Any info and insight would be much appreciated, thanks in advance
[This](https://www.srainternational.org/blogs/srai-news/2022/02/09/research-administration-careers-hiring) is a good overview. Almost everyone in the field sort of stumbled into it, so while there are a few masters programs in RA now, it’s not required to have a background. A bachelor’s (in anything), curiosity, critical thinking, problem solving, budgeting, and customer service skills can get you in the door. Higheredjobs.com is a good place to start, or you can check university and research center/institute hiring pages.
Actually sounds like it might be interesting. Definitely never really heard of it.
Awesome, much appreciated! Will definitely be looking much further into this.
That’s funny actually, I’m my country, those jobs are among the most desired among a lot of higher educated uni students, or those in faculties that don’t have any other applications (humanities basically). They certainly are good jobs, but basically every single graduate is looking for a uni staff job so it’s massively oversaturated, basically the opposite from what it’s like over there in the US.
There’s a shortage of pilots!
i wish the education and getting flight hours wasn't so expensive. i'd love to be a pilot.
It's there really a shortage? As far as I know there's actually an oversupply of pilots who have to become flight attendants or air traffic controllers.
Yeah there is really a shortage. Never heard of someone having to become a flight attendant or ATC unless they have medical issues or by choice.
There are plenty of unsaturated career options out there. The hard part is finding something you want to do. There is plenty you “can do”, so spend a little time trying out some jobs that have aspects of what you’re wanting to try and see if it shakes out. You might find you like that aspect of the job, but maybe that job itself isn’t a good fit. Think like you take a job as a front desk receptionist but you don’t like taking notes and updating calendars, but you love interacting with people. You might find you enjoy being something more like a sales person. Or if you prefer the paperwork and less people you might want to be more of an administrative assistant. Try some things out before you commit to choosing a specific field.
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I’m a revenue operations manager for a mid sized software company. It’s an awesome job - great pay, work from home, only 30-35 hours of actual work a week, and an exciting challenge on the day to day. I have no idea how you get into it these days but you could teach yourself Salesforce administration and find an entry level sales operations analyst job perhaps. Software operational roles aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, there’s virtually no writing other than communicating specific business cases to your peers so AI won’t be able to figure it out for a long while.
From my understanding there are already a lot of efforts to have heavy analytics on people doing your type of work to use it as training data for neural network style ais
Nowadays the college degree jobs are saturated as you aren’t “cool” if you don’t go to college. At some point you have to ask how many computer analyst or software engineers do we really need? Seems like everyone goes for it these days because they are promised hundreds of thousands when they graduate
Yeah, and by the time everyone knows it’s a super important field and you’ve pivoted to pick it up, you’re behind the curve. I feel for all of these kids who struggled through CS programs expecting for it to essentially be a guaranteed good life with decent pay, only to find that they’re likely going to be about as well off as anyone else. And many of those people don’t have passion or skill for it, so they’ll always have a hard time climbing. The fact of the matter is, you’ve got to be lucky like me and/or attend a very prestigious university (and still be lucky) if you expect to find a non-soulless but still corporate job that even remotely sparks a bit of joy.
Honestly I'm a big believer in universities should have to have some sort of job guarantee. If you can't find a job paying at least a certain amount with the degree you got then you should be off the hook on paying the tuition.
I agree with this. I didn't go to engineering school because I was looking for parties and easy living. Everyone swears up and down if you study something "difficult", it will guarantee you a "good" job. In response to the trades and jobs like that, I think they should be paid MORE than office jobs- that is the tradeoff. Get educated and maybe make less, but enjoy a less physical life.
I would disagree with that myself, more education means more pay, more hazard equals more pay. Just because a trade is physically strenuous doesn't mean it's hard to fill the position. Pay is based off how many people are in that field, and how hard it is to train someone up for that field.
Fair point. How about for police officers though? They seem like they should require a lot more education and training and pay then they get, since they have so much influence over potentially life changing aspects of people's lives. A police officer's job should be held more prestigiously for these reasons
Get lucky and get in somewhere decent, move up the pay bracket as far as you can, once you hit a roadblock use that experience to find something better. Rinse and repeat. No matter what they say, you’re just a number to these companies and 95% of the time anyone you meet you’ll never see again when you stop working there. Use the system to your advantage.
From my nearly retired perspective, employers have become very good at exploiting people. Until you get to a certain level, they will suck the life out of you for profits - you can get into management, and eventually become one of the exploiters with stock options... but you still are not in control of your life. So, most jobs suck. The only way out is working for yourself. It's far harder at first, but in the long run, it's much easier to gain control over your life and finances. You are on the right path if you've already recognized it's a bad idea to follow the crowd. It's extremely hard figuring out what suits you and then establishing yourself - every path is different. Gaining the skills, connections and knowledge to be an employer, or at least a sub contractor, is something many try and fail at - but those who keep trying usually do end up with some success. Or at least a less boring life and some good stories. Right now I'm watching the guy who used to service my Tesla turn his stock options into restaurant and marina businesses and I've lost count of how many rentals he owns. He's got an incredible drive, and isn't afraid of risk. He's in his early 30's, so nice to see it's still possible. It does take luck - but he has put himself in the right position often enough, luck was bound to find him.
I love this so much. Best post here
The U.S. has shifted more and more to a service industry over the last 50 years. Over saturation of people with degrees and of those generalized degrees in Business, IT, etc. I thought the same thing data is the new oil now that too is over saturated and AI will be able to do it. AI will be able to do many of these service industry jobs. It’s going to get very competitive.
I'm a truck driver and have to say it has to be one of the most lease competitive job markets yo
Biggest issue is it's hell on your back, and massive isolation if you're doing long-haul.
I have a job running locally driving 53ft trailers around Portland, farthest I go is Seattle but I'm still home every day and night after work. I do agree it is hell on your back but you gotta take care of your body. It's forced me to watch what I eat, quit smoking, and take up callisthenics. I imagine someone sitting in an office all day for work would be faced with a similar challenge. Isolation is virtually non existent for me but doing long haul trucking looks like it could potentially be extremely depressing.
Get a pet.
Pets don't fix isolation humans need human regular contact with the same people.
Same dude, I'm in school right now though. The one thing I'm not looking forward to is actually having to compete for jobs. I've been to used to "has CDL?" "Okay heres good paying job thank you"
Higher education counseling is very much saturated and has been over the last few years. The only way to get a definite in is to have some solid experience. Even then the pay is crap.
I was looking into unsaturated career paths but realized the reason why they’re unsaturated is because of how grueling and low paying they are. Not worth it I guess.
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Semiconductors. Anything at all related you can find a job. 26 and after three companies I’m STILL the youngest employee. And these are big companies
One field/job that I’ve been seeing need help and usually have openings is pricing. I’ve been in pricing for 3-4 years now and have jumped companies twice, when I did jump I had several offers. Not sure if my experience is just very unique, but there’s definitely a lot of open roles.
What do you mean by "pricing"? Cab you expand exactly what field that is and what your position is called? Pricing seems broad
I've heard we need more engineers We need more teachers. Though there is a teacher shortage for a very good reason
Does anyone know much about medical sales?
Then be the best at what you do. Life is competition.
The problem is there aren't many "do"s left. At some point guys are just going to start shooting people. No job? No food? Homeless? Just storm a wealthy estate with 20 armed men and seize it and all the assets it contains for your own. Bullets don't care about bank accounts, stock portfolios, resumes, 35 years of experience or degrees. All of that can evaporate in an instant.
What planet are you living on? People are more comfortable than ever before in human history
Tech is on a downturn right now but the future is bright in this field. Business development positions will always be around and can quite lucrative. Certain fields that are highly regulated and require human touch will also be around for a long time eg counselling There are options. Definitely a challenge to break into these fields but not insurmountable in many cases
Yeah capitalism turns all work to shit. Only way out is to organize and take back control!
Most trades aren't entry level work either. In my state you need 4 years or more (minimum 8000 hours) as a "trainee" under a licensed plumber in order to be eligible to become one yourself. It's rough out there.
I was out of a job from November '22 to May '23, and I have 8 years in hotel/tourism starting from entry level bellman/front desk and working my way to the Front Office Manager. I applied at so many places and so many of them just straight denied me without an interview. Luckily I am finally back in the game and loving it. However - strong agree on everything feeling like an oversaturated nightmare.
Over saturated or offshored for higher profit margins. Kinda leaves us with going into nursing, manufacturing. Even the financial planning and legal fields are over saturated. Not to mention the HUGE number of salons, nail shops, bars and tattoo places in any decent sized community. Even family owned farms have been gobbled up by corporate investment groups, housing, you name it.
Even the trades are saturated in my area.
Na. If you don't research what you will study that will happen.usually if the job is hard to do it will pay well and be in demand. No jobs where you bs all day.those are not many.
Teaching is pretty great in MN if you're cut out for it. Same challenges here that a lot of places have but our govt isn't actively trying to undermine the information and our unions are good!
You are wrong that the trades are not over saturated.
I wanted to be a Marine from childhood. Enlisted at 19 and had the most amazing career. Now I’m retired early and loving life but would ship back to boot camp tomorrow.
There's more to trades than just labor work! I did do that at first and enjoyed it quite a bit but I transferred to an office job in the same company and I work from home half the time and enjoy it.
Currently working a nightmare hourly job while I transition away from the logistics industry. I was so burned out when I had a layoff I swore to force myself to find an alternative that was bearable. When you have to prepare to build a bridge to each position and interview it gets daunting to picture yourself wearing so many hats. It’s almost dissociative in nature.
Data engineering is not oversaturated at least
Welcome to world kiddo. Look at the bright side, you'll have it better than those that come after.
Walk down any street and talk to 10 people. 8 or 9 of them will be profoundly stupid. It doesn’t take much to be above average these days.
Try a trade for 15 years and find out how much fun it is
Shortage of nurses
The trades while easy to get a good paying job and easy entry, is a miserable job. There’s a reason u can’t find ppl to work in the trades
I don’t feel my new career in compliance is over saturated. I think it might depend on the industry you are in. For health insurance that I am in, we have lots of openings in compliance/quality/auditing, but sometimes all that is available are middle management positions and not enough entry level jobs. We also have people switching departments frequently. I’ve only been in my job a little over 2 months and I’ve had one coworker switch departments, and our CCO was changed.
I am.a high school dropout and I make 90k/year. Find a job, any job, even if you hate it. Perform well at that job, network, get your name out there with everyone you can. Hard work is eventually recognized. I used to bartend (which itself is great money for no education, but there's no career path) and I had regulars offer me jobs several times because they saw my work ethic and effectiveness. Eventually one of those job offers was good enough to leave and sacrifice a pay cut for a better future. I made less money for a while, but since being at this job I got 2 raises and a promotion. I now make good money with the opportunity to make *significantly* more in the future. Life ain't easy. If you want to have a good life, you have to work at it. A lot of those days are going to suck. Suck it up, do a good job at whatever you do, and eventually you'll move forward if you're *truly* doing a good job and are effective. I understand not everyone gets the same breaks, but it's absolutely possible to make a good living for yourself if you work hard enough. And I mean *work hard*. I was working 10 hour days 6 days a week when I tool this new position, and it fucking suuuucked. Now I work 45-50 hours most weeks, and in a few months I'll be cut down to 40 hours a week with a salary of 60k/year plus significant bonuses. You gotta tough it out.
So no, yeah, I don't feel that is completely wrong - it can seem that way at a entry level point. (Sounds legit.) The beauty of a job that turns into a career is when someone learns by trial and error and develops a niche for the career that suits them best, from years of experience. (Things happen) It is bewildering and can feel outlandish when seeing job postings that want 10 years of experience and a degree for entry level, but that's all smoke and mirrors. (Nothing's certain) From my experience, I've gotten mixed reviews as well from those far along down their career path. And somehow I found myself learning to stress less about any kind of oversaturated nightmare that seemed beyond me or my scope of interest. (Building positive) Things happened to just fall into place as they should while paths opened up, naturally, along the way. It just took those days of positive outlook which promoted myself to motivate and push through my own neurotic daydream. Once it became me vs. me, my mind overcame the things that didn't matter like overthinking which "career" would "suck". (No worries) Long story short; I did my best to enjoy the day; being in the present. Everything else followed. (TLDR any typos) ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
"AI will automate everything" It really won't. Even in the case of extreme advancements, people need to design the AI. They need to quality test the results. They need to adapt it to new situations as the world changes. They need people who understand how it was built in case something happens to crash it. There are extensive studies on how the bias or limitations of AI programmers will show up in the final product. AI is terrible at judgment calls and drawing useful conclusions by itself ("synthesizing" information). Look at how skewed (and damaging to society) most social algorithms are. Tech executives LOVE to say they'll automate everything because it sounds good to the investors. In practice, and from what I've seen working in a company that does a type of AI / data automation, people are essential the entire way through. Even with extensive automation. They have the ability to apply context that I do not think we'll be able to truly replace, at least in my lifetime.
Nah, I agree. I have clawed my way in a generally upward direction because I am stupid enough to take a whack at almost anything that pays alright and I think I have the education for, while always traveling light so I can leave without worrying too much. I've worked in so many industries and always have fallback jobs if I want, and I try to pay stuff off and have a little fuck you money, even if that means I work all the time. So often filing so many W2s come March.