Will I EVER make more than $25,000 a year?

[Nehalem58]

I have an excellent liberal arts degree. A B.A. and a Master's. Both technically in geography but more or less totally broad liberal arts. I also spent six years in the Army National Guard, where I learned a heck of a lot about leadership, teamwork, and commitment. I ALSO have a managment minor from a top business school in the nation.

But despite all this, I still can only seem to get interviews for jobs that pay only $25,000 a year. I know people from college who were COMPLETE morons and partied all the time and they are all making $40,000 straight out of college.

What did I or am I doing wrong, and will I ever make more than $25,000 a year?

My ROI for my college education is zero right now and killing me financially with student loans.

[Kitty]

where are you located?

[winneythepooh7]

What field do you want to work in? What types of jobs are you applying for? What sucks where I work, is I often get applicants with a lot of work experience in a different field, but because of the strict guidelines of the program, I can't hire them for certain positions because their experience isn't in this field with this population that I work with.

[SunDevil]

Get into defense contracting. If you want to be a manager, and can prove it from your experience in the past, I'm sure there are companies looking for entry level managers. Or you can go work for the government and have something resembling job security (but have to go to a lot of meetings).

Do you still have a security clearance? You should be able to find something out there.

Check out http://www.usajobs.com/
http://www.clearancejobs.com/

[wordsmith]

Depends on your field, where you're located, other specifics. For what I do, where I do it, that's kind of where you top out, unfortunately. To make more in this region, I'd need to switch career tracks.

The salaries people are offered are not indicative of how hard they worked in school, they're not indicative of how much or little of a screwoff they are, they're indicative of their ability to snag a job in a certain career track in a particularl area.

[PenforPrez]

The salaries people are offered are not indicative of how hard they worked in school, they're not indicative of how much or little of a screwoff they are, they're indicative of their ability to snag a job in a certain career track in a particularl area.

Sad but true. It is blind luck/entropy/destiny/fate/whatever you believe in. That's becoming more clear to me.

The two opportunities I'm hoping for now just showed up out of the blue, the state park job especially. Just got a letter in the mail one day, boom! That's how most of my serious job opportunities have come. When I least expected them.

Nobody likes to hear that; I certainly don't. We all like to think we have more control over it, but we really don't. It just happens.

I frequently ask myself if I'll ever get out of the McJob trap. Somedays, I think I'm right around the corner; somedays, I think I never will. But, with what I'm looking at right now, it's a question of "when," not "if." You just have to keep going. It's paying off for me right now.

Paul

[cheshrcarol]

Apply for a gov't job. In NY pretty much the lowest salary grade state job starts at 23-29k, and getting a foot in the door gives you the opportunity to move up into other stuff. Plus preference is given to people who have served in the military.

[yankeeyosh]

The salaries people are offered are not indicative of how hard they worked in school, they're not indicative of how much or little of a screwoff they are, they're indicative of their ability to snag a job in a certain career track in a particularl area.


Or these days, in many cases, how entitled they are or how much their parents are annoying the hiring manager at negotiation time.

[Nehalem58]

I'm liberal arts to the max...I can do pretty much anything, and thats the beauty of my situation. The problem is that despite being relativley qualified for numerous positions, I am not perfectly qualified for anything. I lack the "2-3" years of distinct direct experience in the narrow field that they are always looking for.

I want to be a manger, but work in communication type stuff. I am a stellar writer and have excellent interpersonal skills. I prefer marketing type stuff, but have run into the wall that since I never had a marketing internship and didnt major in it its tough to get an interview.

I guess I was not as smart as I thought I was back in college, as I never dreamed that it would be nearly impossible to find a job that pays $35,000 with my credentials.

[yankeeyosh]

I'm liberal arts to the max...I can do pretty much anything, and thats the beauty of my situation. The problem is that despite being relativley qualified for numerous positions, I am not perfectly qualified for anything. I lack the "2-3" years of distinct direct experience in the narrow field that they are always looking for.


Well, nowadays, 2-3 years really isn't much of anything...people get those jobs with zero experience, and don't even realize it. It's a total crapshoot these days.

[lonestar]

I was reading a great article about job searching yesterday...here's the gist:

Internet searches for jobs (monster.com, ect.) have AT BEST a 14% success rate...

Answering newspaper ads has AT BEST a 21% success rate

Mailing your resume to every company you can think of with perfectly tailored cover letters, ect. has AT BEST a 31% success rate.

Informational interviewing, attending trade conferences, getting to know the people who are hiring and trying to get them to know you has AT BEST a 55% success rate.

Asking your relatives or friends or aqaintances to help you with a job has a 69% success rate.

Succsefully marketing yourself to every company you can think of, whether they are hiring or not, by doing industry research, company research, finding out in what areas they will need people and what roles they needed filled, and then marketing yourself to fill those needs has a 79-81% success rate. That's as good as it gets...

[wordsmith]

Internet searches are all but worthless...I know, I'll get ten million people saying, "But I found my job on craigslist or monster.com! Great. And if I close my eyes and throw darts in the general vicinity of a dartboard blind, I might hit the board once in a while, too.

Making personal connections with the people doing the hiring (either by milking connections/networking and getting an "in" or by going to job fairs and the like and be a person handing out resumes with a smile and handshake, rather than PDF format on a computer screen to somebody who's never met you) is much, much, much, much more fruitful. In my experience.

[yankeeyosh]

I was reading a great article about job searching yesterday...here's the gist:

Internet searches for jobs (monster.com, ect.) have AT BEST a 14% success rate... Never really worked for me, although it helped get me my current job to some degree


Answering newspaper ads has AT BEST a 21% success rate
I got my second pension job that way


Mailing your resume to every company you can think of with perfectly tailored cover letters, ect. has AT BEST a 31% success rate.

I got my first pension job and my nightmare job in Connie that way.



Informational interviewing, attending trade conferences, getting to know the people who are hiring and trying to get them to know you has AT BEST a 55% success rate. Never.


Asking your relatives or friends or aqaintances to help you with a job has a 69% success rate.
This might be the secret to Gen 'Y' getting instant success in the workforce. Never worked for me...although I got my temp job after grad school this way...and someone who I interviewed with previously vouched for me, and that's probably how I got my current job.


Succsefully marketing yourself to every company you can think of, whether they are hiring or not, by doing industry research, company research, finding out in what areas they will need people and what roles they needed filled, and then marketing yourself to fill those needs has a 79-81% success rate. That's as good as it gets... This might also be a big-time reason for early success in the workplace. I am not a marketing person. Nix that.

[Nehalem58]

The problem is being a liberal arts guy I can go into ANY industry. And after my disastrous attempt with the tourism industry, it can really be a waste of time to spend all that time and energy networking and informational interviewing all for just one industry (networking and informational interviewing the top people in tourism got me absolutley nowhere). You can network all you want, but if you dont have the experience they are looking for, and somebody else does, they won't hire you.

[hotdog36]

I know people from college who were COMPLETE morons and partied all the time and they are all making $40,000 straight out of college.

Looking back, I feel that partying and really getting to know fellow students is how you really make the connections that will help you when you eventually look for a job. You don't make the connections through hitting the books and studying constantly. I heard that the people who partied and got drunk with George W. Bush every night at Yale are all senior positions in the government now, due to them making the right connections.

Grades only matter if you're planning on doing more school right after your undergrad, but they don't really matter as much as you might think if you're planning on working right after graduation.

[CityGal]

Marketing and all those other fun communication jobs are the hardest to get into (or so 'they' say) and pay VERY little. I've been trying to get into marketing and advertising myself but it seems they want people with like a million years of experience to pay them crap. Although I find this very strange because some people get into these fields without having much background in it. Have you tried starting off with a regular administrative position first. That is usually how you can 'get in'.

[spokes]

i think you will make more. i have some post-secondary edumacation, however nowhere near what you have and after a bunch of years I make what I think is pretty good cash. I can actually say that I am making much more than i ever expected to make.

[winneythepooh7]

Looking back, I feel that partying and really getting to know fellow students is how you really make the connections that will help you when you eventually look for a job. You don't make the connections through hitting the books and studying constantly. I heard that the people who partied and got drunk with George W. Bush every night at Yale are all senior positions in the government now, due to them making the right connections.

Grades only matter if you're planning on doing more school right after your undergrad, but they don't really matter as much as you might think if you're planning on working right after graduation.


I so agree with this, as a more grown-up now sorority girl. Plus a lot of times, personality plays a big part in being hired for the job. The fact that people can be "real" and have done "human things" is often a real selling point.

[Kitty]

Apply for a gov't job. In NY pretty much the lowest salary grade state job starts at 23-29k, and getting a foot in the door gives you the opportunity to move up into other stuff. Plus preference is given to people who have served in the military.

Yeah, this also goes for educational institutions. The lowest salary range here is like 35-45k.

[Skyblade]

I agree that personal connections are probably one of the best ways to get a position. Don't ever be afraid to ask someone for help getting your foot in the door. While I applied for the position I am in now by looking at an ad in the newspaper, I also asked a guy I knew from my church who worked for the company if he could put in a good word for me. He went all the way and even wrote me a referral (granted he got a $1,000 bonus since they ended up hiring me), but it never hurts.

P.S. I am in marketing too and consider myself a copywriter.

[LakeJay]

I so agree with this, as a more grown-up now sorority girl. Plus a lot of times, personality plays a big part in being hired for the job. The fact that people can be "real" and have done "human things" is often a real selling point.

Personality definitely is a key. My school was already a reputable school when I was going there but after I left they decided to up the academic requirements (SATs/GPAs) even more. They also put more emphasis on academics and took a little away from extracurricular activities, etc. My college roommate works for big financial services company that basically has a pipeline to our alma mater. A year or two ago my friend asked how the candidates were and his co-worker said that they were pretty smart but they lacked people skills and any semblance of a personality. Although on paper they looked like viable candidates for a position, it was the intangibles of other comparable candidates that put them over the top. When you're in a team environment, these are things you really need. No matter how much you know your s***, if you don't know how to deal with people it's always frowned upon around here.

[wordsmith]

I agree that personal connections are probably one of the best ways to get a position. Don't ever be afraid to ask someone for help getting your foot in the door.

Yup. I got extended my current job because it was in my small hometown, and those hiring knew me personally.

The job I'm currently in the application process for, I know the department director personally, found out about the position from the horse's mouth, so to speak. It puts you so much more ahead of people who come in in a cattle call.

[winneythepooh7]

Personality definitely is a key. My school was already a reputable school when I was going there but after I left they decided to up the academic requirements (SATs/GPAs) even more. They also put more emphasis on academics and took a little away from extracurricular activities, etc. My college roommate works for big financial services company that basically has a pipeline to our alma mater. A year or two ago my friend asked how the candidates were and his co-worker said that they were pretty smart but they lacked people skills and any semblance of a personality. Although on paper they looked like viable candidates for a position, it was the intangibles of other comparable candidates that put them over the top. When you're in a team environment, these are things you really need. No matter how much you know your s***, if you don't know how to deal with people it's always frowned upon around here.

I always look at this stuff. A lot of my participants will refuse to work with certain people if they come off as having an air or attitude about them........like they know more or are better or something. Because in human services especially, you could have a PhD, but really, if you have never been in the client's shoes, you don't really know more about what the client is going through. 99.9% of the time, my clients are looking for someone who can just listen to them and not try to tell them why their life is the way it is. That stuff is better saved for behind the scenes. And even then, as a Social Worker, I hate working with people who think they know it all. It seems like a lot of people the more education or "experience" they get in my field, often forget these things, and why they went into the profession to begin with..............sorry for going off topic a bit.........but I think this holds true for any field really.

[WorkInProgress]

I so agree with this, as a more grown-up now sorority girl. Plus a lot of times, personality plays a big part in being hired for the job. The fact that people can be "real" and have done "human things" is often a real selling point.

As another grown up sorority girl, I agree.

[WorkInProgress]

This might be the secret to Gen 'Y' getting instant success in the workforce. Never worked for me...although I got my temp job after grad school this way...and someone who I interviewed with previously vouched for me, and that's probably how I got my current job.
I know you're great at finding generational patterns and that's your thing, but I really think that the "personal network of friends, acquaintances and family" have been the way a whole lot people have always found their jobs. Perhaps not why they got them, but they reason they found them. Somebody working for a company who needs a guy (or girl) for a job "knows a guy" (or girl).

(It would be very, very interesting to do a study on personal networks. Or read up on the several that have already been done.)

[lonestar]

I think that's the biggest factor. The people I know who have high paying jobs right now:

A) knew the employer - was the friend of the family/friend/relative ect.
B) interned with the employer - the employer already knew the quality of work, ect.
C) was recommended by another person well established in that field.

By far the most is A...I have so many friends that went to work for a "friend the family"...shit I had the same options I just wanted to try it out on my own (that and because those jobs aren't all that they are cracked up to be and in my experience working for a family friend sucks). I had a job for my senior year of college with this company owned by one of my dad's clients...the guy is really nice in social situations, but was a total asshole at work. I saw him go through 9 secretaries in the year that I worked there because he used to just ride them until they quit...he was awful to work for. Now that I am on my own, I may not love my job but at least I have never had another boss like him...

[Nehalem58]

Yes, your personality and people skills are VERY important. This is something that I have a natural talent for, I am very likeable and have stellar people-social-interpersonal skills. I am not afraid of interviews like so many people because I always do well at them and almost always find a way to put the interviewer at ease...there is a certain talent in being able to "talk honestly" with an interviewer but also keep selling yourself. If you go in there and talk like you are nervious, stuffy, or sound like a tape recorder they wont hire you. If you go in there and talk to them like you just met them off the street and are genuinely interested in what they have to say and what they do...they will love you for it.

Thats one of the good things about the job market today I think, is that if you do have a good personality and are good with dealing with people, you can get hired over someone who has better qualifications. From all the interviews I went to during the past month, I could tell that they had a hard time finding employees that were good with dealing with others and working in teamwork environments in small confined spaces.

As an grown up frat guy, I totally see how networking with people at parties is so important. All those beer drinking pot heads who played video games all during college are now making twice as much as I am a year...I should have given them more credit, I had no idea THEY were the people that could potentially help me find a job after graduation.

Yes, most of the people I know who got big time jobs after college knew someone very well in the company they got the job for. I know this dorky political science guy who was at the frat house with me and he was buddy buddy with one of our older alumni and the alumni got this kid a $55,000 a year job working for a marketing company downtown, straight out of college...and the job consists of answering e-mail and playing on AIM all day. Or my ex-girlfriend was upper middle class and her parents had "family connections" that got her an $80,000 a year job while she was still IN college. Granted she worked all the time, but she had ADD with hyper so it worked for her.

I unfortunatley come from parents with blue collar upbringing that turned into white collar middle middle class during their careers. My aunts and uncles that work for the state have helped me as much as they can, government work is not so much "who you know." My other unlce works the night shift at a canning factory, and my two other uncles made it big in business, but both just recently got shafted by their companies. I also dont really like them and it would be embarassing and humiliating to ask them to help me find a job. My one unlce barely awknolwedges my presence when I see him once a year at Christmas. So I was not blessed with "family connections." My parents are also pretty incompetant when it comes to networking that could get me a job. My mom is a nurse which I dont want to do and my dad does agricultural stuff for the state, which is nothing what I want to do. Also, asking them to help me find a job is below my honor, as they look down on me enough the way it is since I dont have a good job after college. And I don't want or need their help. Its best, as one guy wrote earlier, to find a job out on your own, with nothing that connects you to your parents.

[yankeeyosh]

I know you're great at finding generational patterns and that's your thing, but I really think that the "personal network of friends, acquaintances and family" have been the way a whole lot people have always found their jobs. Perhaps not why they got them, but they reason they found them. Somebody working for a company who needs a guy (or girl) for a job "knows a guy" (or girl).

(It would be very, very interesting to do a study on personal networks. Or read up on the several that have already been done.)

I agree, but I am talking more about at this point of one's career...twenty years ago, networking wasn't as important. So since we've caught on quicker than previous generations at this point, we have the "advantage".

[yankeeyosh]

Personality definitely is a key. My school was already a reputable school when I was going there but after I left they decided to up the academic requirements (SATs/GPAs) even more. They also put more emphasis on academics and took a little away from extracurricular activities, etc. My college roommate works for big financial services company that basically has a pipeline to our alma mater. A year or two ago my friend asked how the candidates were and his co-worker said that they were pretty smart but they lacked people skills and any semblance of a personality. Although on paper they looked like viable candidates for a position, it was the intangibles of other comparable candidates that put them over the top. When you're in a team environment, these are things you really need. No matter how much you know your s***, if you don't know how to deal with people it's always frowned upon around here.

Agreed (with one exception). You're a couple of years older than me, so I suspect that my age group was the first to experience the rise in standards...which is not surprising. There are a ton of people in this generation who have excellent personalities though...and they are the ones who have an excellent shot at getting the "good" jobs right off the bat. On the other hand, you have an enormous group who were overparented and/or were overworked in high school through AP's and a gajillion extracurriculars (which contrary to what you said, are stressed a LOT more these days)...and didn't have a chance to develop meaningful social skills. And that will backfire in the future.

[NewMrs.]

I agree with the people above who have said that networking was always important. I have several relatives from my parents' generation who got their jobs by networking.


I noticed that there have been several comments on this board to the effect of, "those individuals with good people skills are having an easier time getting jobs than those who do not have good people skills but are better qualified." I honestly think that if you do have the outgoing personality and the better people skills, than you ARE the most qualified candidate for a majority of fields. I myself am a bit of an introvert. I have been struggling since college to be more of an extrovert, and I believe that it is a talent and a skill to be outgoing and relate well to other people. I am still working on developing this skill. I attended a college that had a very heavy emphasis on its business and economics programs, and I earned a business minor, and my school heavily emphasized that one's ability to be outgoing and foster relationships was VERY important in one's career success, even in fields such accounting. I know that networking is a pain in the butt, and I get stressed at the thought of it, but in the past few months my husband and I have had several friends and co-workers leave jobs at which they were unhappy and find new jobs, and in all of these instances, they found their new jobs through their personal connections. Only one of these people had well-connected parents or relatives (most of them have parents who are dirt-poor), so you can't attribute their networking success to this. I don't like networking myself, I feel strongly that I will have to do it in order to ultimately find a job that I love.

[yankeeyosh]

I agree with the people above who have said that networking was always important. I have several relatives from my parents' generation who got their jobs by networking.


I noticed that there have been several comments on this board to the effect of, "those individuals with good people skills are having an easier time getting jobs than those who do not have good people skills but are better qualified." I honestly think that if you do have the outgoing personality and the better people skills, than you ARE the most qualified candidate for a majority of fields. I myself am a bit of an introvert. I have been struggling since college to be more of an extrovert, and I believe that it is a talent and a skill to be outgoing and relate well to other people. I am still working on developing this skill. I attended a college that had a very heavy emphasis on its business and economics programs, and I earned a business minor, and my school heavily emphasized that one's ability to be outgoing and foster relationships was VERY important in one's career success, even in fields such accounting. I know that networking is a pain in the butt, and I get stressed at the thought of it, but in the past few months my husband and I have had several friends and co-workers leave jobs at which they were unhappy and find new jobs, and in all of these instances, they found their new jobs through their personal connections. Only one of these people had well-connected parents or relatives (most of them have parents who are dirt-poor), so you can't attribute their networking success to this. I don't like networking myself, I feel strongly that I will have to do it in order to ultimately find a job that I love.

Precisely. A company nowadays might hire someone with no experience than someone with five years' experience for a high-level position, if the former is a better schmoozer. Merit...paying dues...are out in a lot of cases.

[NewMrs.]

Precisely. A company nowadays might hire someone with no experience than someone with five years' experience for a high-level position, if the former is a better schmoozer. Merit...paying dues...are out in a lot of cases.


I thought we were talking about people with no or not enough job experience who are upset because they didn't feel that they could get jobs on par with their education and or GPA. I was merely stating that just because somebody got good grades in college, doesn't make this person more qualified for a job than somebody who is good at networking.

In some cases the ability to sell (starting with yourself) takes more importance than actual technical knowledge, and this isn't always a bad thing. If you don't know the answer to a technical question, you can always say, "Let me think about that and get back to you," and then look up the answer.

I'm getting sick of reading all the excuses people have for why they can't work on their networking abilities. I don't like networking either, but its important and always has been important, and people who refuse to do and instead make excuses about why it won't work for them need to grow up.

[yankeeyosh]

I thought we were talking about people with no or not enough job experience who are upset because they didn't feel that they could get jobs on par with their education and or GPA. I was merely stating that just because somebody got good grades in college, doesn't make this person more qualified for a job than somebody who is good at networking.

In some cases the ability to sell (starting with yourself) takes more importance than actual technical knowledge, and this isn't always a bad thing. If you don't know the answer to a technical question, you can always say, "Let me think about that and get back to you," and then look up the answer.


Oh right, that too :)

But yeah, selling yourself in the 21st century is as important, if not more important than having brains. It's a marketing market out there.

[lonestar]

Well back in the 1970s where degreed people made up about 10-15% of the population, marketing yourself wasn't really neccesary...if you had a diploma, sometimes just showing up and applying was all it took. Unfortunately, now that degreed people hovers between 27-30% of the population, of course marketing skills become neccesary. You know yourself better than anyone else. If you can't sell you, employers see that as weakness...and here's why:

it's not just "sales jobs" that require selling..selling is a part of everyday life...case in point: if you work in a not-for-profit and have a great idea on how to improve performance, but cannot confidently convey your ideas to your superiors/peers/co-workers, it will never surface. If you work in a news-room and have a great idea for a story but cannot sell it to your editor, all the writing, thinking, and research in the world won't matter. I think employers want to know that their employees have the confidence to be able to effectively make an argument, provide suggestions, present ideas, ect.

[AshleyJordan]

This is definitely true. I've spent my entire career in the nonprofit sector, and I have definitely had to use marketing skills just as much as my friends in pr and other corporate fields, especially since I do fundraising! Also, as the sector becomes more businesslike, this trend will only continue.

[Dude]

It seems to me that being able to make a strong argument in order to sell an idea and having strong social skills are two different things. A person can easily be able to do one and not the other. For example, I don't consider myself as someone with strong social skills, but I am very good in making an argument and convincing people that my ideas make sense.

[yankeeyosh]

Well back in the 1970s where degreed people made up about 10-15% of the population, marketing yourself wasn't really neccesary...if you had a diploma, sometimes just showing up and applying was all it took. Unfortunately, now that degreed people hovers between 27-30% of the population, of course marketing skills become neccesary. You know yourself better than anyone else. If you can't sell you, employers see that as weakness...and here's why:

Yeah...everyone's leaving college these days with a million internships under their belt, a million extracurriculars, etc. How does anyone stand out nowadays? Good marketing skills. And I think this generation has mastered that quicker than anyone else.

[Nehalem58]

You stand out by being smart long before anyone else is smart...you decide on a major early--a major that will produce you an easily definable job that you can search for interships for. If you have more experience, it makes all the difference in the world. The problem is, so many people like me didn't really know what we wanted to do until senior year of college and by then it was pretty much too late. I ended up with a top dollar high end liberal arts degree which is great for life...I get so much more out of life now from having it. But my degree...in social cultural geography...does not lead to easily definable specific jobs that are located in many companies that also pay well like engineering jobs ect. I never had an intership because there weren't any! At least none that I could think of, as I could not find any relevant jobs for my major, other than bizarr non-profit social work reserach (which I didn't get an interview for anyway). Its hard when you are liberal arts. If you major in marketing, its simple. You want a marketing related job. You find marketing related internships. They exist, and in many numbers for all kinds of companies. Liberal arts, not really. Like history, what kind of practical job are you gonna get with that? So dont major in history then. Thats a good point, but then again, what if you REALLY like history, as I REALLY liked geography, it was my "passion" after all. I am not good with numbers and math and solving mathy word problems. I can write a 100 master's thesis that passes top academic peer review in my sleep. But that dosnt really get you jobs. Not easily definable ones anyway. So thats where we end up back at the $25,000 a year mark.