What is wrong with teaching? Why do your parents advise against it

Forget Fulbright. Trump has destroyed it.

Anonymous wrote:Do a post office job. Some outstanding writers did that for a living

Trump wants to privatize the postal service by gutting the service. It is a hell hole now, nothing like it was before.

Do a post office job. Some outstanding writers did that for a living

Anonymous wrote:Hi OP! I didn't see your post last year, but I am now with your update. I'd like to throw a new one out there and recommend hospitality. Are you open to moving? Look at all of the major hotel chains - Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt, etc., and look for manager training roles. If you can't find that, start as a front desk agent at the nicest hotel you can find and in the right environment you will quickly be moved into management. This gives you exposure to all areas of hotel operations. If you find a resort area you like apply there, often housing is included or greatly discounted to live there.

I was going to suggest something very similar for OP. Look into the tourism industry - group tour operators such as Intrepid, G Adventures, Natural Habitat, etc. that operate in the US. See if you may be interested in being a tour leader or working in operations. I am a literature major from a top liberals arts college, also from a low-income family, pivoted to tourism, and love my career. Though I’m not a higher earner, the trade-off is worth it.

Hi OP! I didn't see your post last year, but I am now with your update. I'd like to throw a new one out there and recommend hospitality. Are you open to moving? Look at all of the major hotel chains - Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt, etc., and look for manager training roles. If you can't find that, start as a front desk agent at the nicest hotel you can find and in the right environment you will quickly be moved into management. This gives you exposure to all areas of hotel operations. If you find a resort area you like apply there, often housing is included or greatly discounted to live there.

OP here. The last thing for now is that I think I was bad at tolerating the tedious quantitative parts of my research job, or faking enthusiasm in my software sales internship at Amazon, because of my recently diagnosed ADHD + another (more niche) learning disorder. I know tolerating grunt work is a key part of any entry level job, but I'm really bad at it when it involves something I don't particularly care for.

Hi,

OP here. I hope it's okay that I'm posting on here again after a year. I graduated from college two months ago and am still unemployed. I received a return offer from Amazon but turned it down last year because I think I'd really hate working in software sales (I despised my summer internship by the end).

I currently have two part-time jobs (one in food service, the other as a manager of the community garden at my college), but I'm not sure what my next immediate steps are from here. I think my goal for right now is to get any sort of job (open to both office jobs and waitress/bartening jobs) for the next two years while applying to MFA programs in Creative Writing.

I'm not too picky on whatever job I'll take between now and when I apply to grad school, but I do want to make sure it's not something soul-sucking like tech sales at a FAANG and that it pays enough for me to live on my own (since I can't rely on my parents for financial support). The thing is, my work experience is so widely varied (social science research, tech sales, camp counselor, food service, gardening) that a lot of places seem hesitant to hire me.

I've applied to over 70 places now, and I've received a few interviews (all thanks to referrals + networking with people I know), but they haven't really gone anywhere. At all three of the entry-level office jobs I've applied to, they've expressed some version of "Well, you have really scattered work experience. Why do you want to work here specifically?" And I think I'm not exactly convincing in how I tie all of my work experience together...

If anyone has any advice for me, that would be great. Or -- and I know I'm at risk of getting doxxed saying this -- if anyone would be open to doing a resume review (I can give an anonymous email for now in the comments) for me, along with some advice paired towards what type of jobs I should be applying for (which I've been really struggling with lately), I would appreciate that as well.

Thanks!

OP - you've just got to try things until you find a good fit. One thing that no one really tells you early in life that the specific job title you do for a living is less important in the end than if you like the environment where you're working and who you're working with.

There will be tedium in almost any job, unfortunately. You have to build some tolerance for that (or marry rich).

But figure out - do you like being at a computer all day? do you want to be talking to people or working on your own? do you like working mostly independently or do you like working closely with a team?

what sort of blocks of time do you like working in? could you see yourself doing intense one-hour therapy sessions? do you think you have the stamina to be in court - or a classroom - all day? do you like having long chunks of time to work in with more solitude?

do you want to travel for work? do you want to be out of your office for part of every day? do you even want to go to an office?

does being mission driven matter to you? do you have an idea of how much money you'd like to be earning? where you'd like to live?

think about these sorts of things - i promise they all matter more than if you do sales or law or teaching or whatever.

TFA or Peace Corps or something like that is a good way to get some experience - and see a part of the country or world you might not otherwise. Good for building a network of people who've also done what you'd be doing. But maybe not so good when it comes to figuring out what your step after that is.

You have lots of options. You'd be freaking surprised how many bad writers there are out there - if you can write and edit, you will always be able to find some kind of work, if nothing else.

Very few people chose a specific path and then got to where they wanted to go. There's a lot of, I found this random job out of college and that led to this other thing, then this other thing, now I'm an expert in this thing that I never even knew about before.

In some ways it's great - and terrible - not to have a clear idea of what you want to do. It means the whole world is open to you, but also it's hard to know where to go first. Let yourself go experience some stuff, figure out what you like, need, and can live with, and see where these things take you. It's great you did AWS - and didn't like it! See if you can pin down what about this doesn[t work for you, and use that info to help guide your next decision.

How are your analytical skills, deductive reasoning, and ability to take information and put it in a graph and read a graph and determine information from it?

OP, I don't know very much about clinical psychology, but it sounds like you are turning away from it after one internship experience that was pretty boring?

Aren't entry level internships going to be a lot of grunt work though? I get that you were crunching a lot of data, but is there a path where you pay your dues doing that for a while, but then get into parts that actually interest you?

Consider executive search. There is a sales component. Mostly it is understanding employer wants. And then figuring out and finding executives with skills that match!

Starting out, it is always research, identifying candidates, but highly people-oriented to solve business problems.

Relatedly, there is recruiting where you are employed by the employer.

I’m sorry to say this but this is life so take advantage of what you’ve already been offered. If you can do a masters for free why wouldn’t you? Or hustle at your AWS internship and fight for an offer upon graduation. Just because you start where you don’t really like doesn’t mean you have to stay there. Many of us work jobs we don’t necessarily like or live but our jobs allow us to live. You already have that example in your parents, they sound like they might not be a fan of teaching but yet they do it and raised you working those jobs.

Fortunately, hopefully, you have good grades, writing and interview skills. In this next semester spend real time with your career services office and apply widely to see if something fits and if offers come.

You don’t have to like or love your first job but you should make the best of it and network to the next one.

One grad school option is MLIS - Masters in Library and Information Science. There's a lot to that field beyond traditional librarianship; well worth checking out.

Try to score return offer at Amazon, if you dislike sales try HR and pivot to executive coaching at some point.
Or get phd for a therapist career.