Career Advice / Encouragement

I'm being serious. Everyone should try not working. You can accomplish so much more with your life personally and make a bigger difference for the world. It's liberating. I was wrong about the Millennials. They got it right. Doing less for others and more for your own freedom actually works for everyone to the better.

However, if you are working, I found that staying put advanced my career and salary fast, and while my education was limited within the framework of my work, you do learn as you advance the ladder. I think it's best and you will have a chance to actually accomplish your mission, it does happen, and you can always say "we did it." which is rare these days, but self fulfilling.

 

My only advice is: don't waste your best years being an employee in someone else's dream. Plan to exit as soon as is safe. If you think big - and you should - no one else's corporate ladder is going to fulfil you longer than the 1-2 year honeymoon phase. If you think small, then small things will make you happy, and I genuinely wish I was less delusional about what I want to achieve. But f*** it, it's a hell of a ride.

 

I work in the medical field, as does my wife.

It's depressing in that we will both basically work our careers out for the next 40ish years with $.50 a year raises (if we're lucky...my raise hasn't appeared et this year) and no bonuses. I love what I do, but sometimes I feel like I should take a chance and start my own business or something (though I have no idea in what) so that I can take that risk, be rewarded by my work ethic, and excellent people skills, and potentially take a nice payroll jump.

 

For me it has been fairly simple; I'm never satisfied. I have not, nor will I ever be "happy" to work for anyone else. The corporate world is full of a bunch of ignorant people, in positions of power getting paid far more than they should because of luck, who they know, or what college they drunkenly fumbled their way through. You don't have to be cocky, but you need to always know your worth - and always work to improve your worth.

To avoid falling into a rut and limiting your overall earnings potential - never be content, and never stop trying to move up. The days of 20 years with the same company are a thing of the past, and they should be. Time and time again it has been proven that those who change jobs every 2-3 years, make far more than their counterparts with the same level of experience who ride it out with the company's long term.

Just think about it. When times were rough in 2008, and raises, bonuses and cost of living increases were put on freeze - did you ever get that money back when the market rebounded? Nope. Even the best of companies usually won't give you an 8-10% bump in pay every year during the best of times, but those that move jobs every 2-3 years usually see an increase of at least 25-30% if their skills remain relevant (varies by role obviously - in Tech fields this is a no-brainer).

Also, never be afraid to say no. Do not accept the first offer you receive from a company - even if you are unemployed and need the job. Even if they can't meet the salary range you want, negotiate other perks. For example, say you want $10,000 more but they simply can't because of the budget. Negotiate a more aggressive bonus structure and/or more vacation days. Never be afraid to ask for more! If you are truly the right one for the job - they will do everything reasonably in their power to make you happy. If they don't hear you out, you don't want to work for them anyway.

Finally, keep a savings of at least six months for your cost of living! I'd recommend even more savings, but if you are inventive and aggressive during your job search, that should be plenty. The savings gives you the ability to be more aggressive with your negotiations, or pickier with your choice of positions. When you are desperate, you have no power. The rich nearly always win, because they always have the power. Think of the success rate of poker players in head's up play, when one of the players has a 90% chip lead. Usually the small bank has no chance.

 

whatever you do, don't waste your time in a NGO. i work in one and altho the pace is (much) slower, there is absolutely no career ladder nor job security. you work on short contracts and depending on what country you get deployed to, people's work ethics are horrible. the only good thing is you get to travel and see different sides of developing countries.

 

I work in the engineering field and I've felt like that over the past few months. It's refreshing to hear what other people have to say because at times I feel like I want to just get up and leave my job. I get paid well, but there is just so much stress and I get tired of working all the extra hours and sacrificing my weekends. I know I been overloaded at work and no matter how much I try to plan to get all my **** done on time, there is always more being piled on that makes it really difficult to successfully meet every single deadline. I do a pretty good job of meeting most deadlines, but **** it's tiring having to stress about this all the time. Sometimes I wonder if the career I am in is even right for me. I certainly feel burned out. It sucks because I truly enjoy working with the people I am around (except one person) but man sometimes I don't know if I am satisfied with what I do. The job is definitely challenging and I get **** figured out, but sometimes i feel there isn't enough direction in what I do. For now I'll keep pushing forward, but I feel like looking elsewhere at times. I'm 28, I worked almost 3 years at my first job and now I am in my second job and I been here 3 years. We will see how much longer I can stick around.

 

I worked for a design-build firm for 6 years. Hit a rut, felt like I plateaued and just wasn't happy with the work I was doing. Applied to other companies and realized that I was just going to be dealing with the same frustrations, just somewhere else.

I moonlighted for 6 months, took on some projects on my own and once I had some capital (not much) I quit my job and haven't looked back since. I was 26. More strange I'm now working with ex bosses on projects and they see me as an equal not as a subordinate.

I'm doing projects I love, I work A LOT, but it doesn't feel like it. I dedicate 6 days a week to work, still take care of stuff into the night and spend Sundays game planning the week to a certain degree. I tried to convince myself that I wanted a "balanced" life like a lot of my friends but I just wasn't being honest with myself. I love the deals, love the chaos, the uncertainty and the thrill of success. That thrill is indescribable and addicting. My wife works with me now, she ran an HR Department for a small school. She went to work for HISD and hated every second of that corporate atmosphere.

Find out what makes you *happy* and be honest with yourself. Some folks like being taken care of, benefits and a bunch of vacation. Some really just love working and the thrill of a dynamic environment (smaller company, less certainty but more fulfilling for them). I've seen people quit and do amazing things. I've seen others quit and be on their own for a few years only to realize they preferred the company thing.

Different strokes.

 

It's natural to feel like you're in a rut when you're 30. 30s are most men's prime decade when mind, body, and income are as aligned in how good it gets. Afterwards, one or many others tend to slowly plateau.

Your rut maybe tied in personal meaning. For me, this is my 5.5 year as a traveling IT consultant. I feel like I've racked a ton of experience and miles but I've had my share of meltdowns from stress and loneliness from being on the road and doing a different project every 10 or so months. The weirder thing would be why I don't find a more stable job. What works for me are the people I work with at the firm, the free food, and sometimes the perks from traveling. The last two dulls month by month as the urge to settle grows, but for you, it sounds like you want the opposite...less stability, more risk and more exposure.

Start up IT is all about being cross functional. Big enterprise it is more about risk reduction through specialization and reliability. Do you see any parallels in your industry? Maybe it'd be a different culture with the same type of work to find a smaller nimbler company with the same role. Or maybe you use that role as a legitimate and official stepping stone for real and proven opportunities rather than a swnsible promise that ends up more as lip service (you're too good to leave us! But take our 2.5% raise rather than looking elsewhere...)

Smaller companies will work your ass off because they need people to fill in gaps and roles that traditionally were much more intense but have become diminished with automation, layoffs and offshoring. That's probably your opportunity to try new things out without feeling like you're pivoting too much. Keep in mind those smaller companies are hectic for a reason, but if it comes out of that fire into a mature stage, you'll definitely feel like you were a part of something and the coworkers you went to war with will probably maintain bonds even post company. It's a gamble but a good one if you have reserves to handle unexpected layoffs.

Plenty of online classes to help you if you want to pivot violently too.

It depends on your temperament. ::shrugs::

 

if it's of any consolation, judging from recent events, you, too, can become president if you try hard enough.

 

Just for the sake of bringing different perspective
I've barly seen many people who like their job, most want first and most to bring food to the table. I don't want to discourage you but you know HR theory of whomever trample to the top, is mostly the guy who could not being fired in first place, persistence pay dividants on the long term. For every successful story,a thousands of failures .over all you know your situation better than anyone else

 

Feels too weird to give career advice to someone who built their online persona around being a human resources professional. You should know better than me. But, a few years ago I was bored in finance but pursuing promotion. I saw an opportunity for a lateral move to strategy which seemed way sexier. I gave up on the promotion, took the lateral move, got much more interesting work (including, ironically, more finance than I ever did in finance), made myself a lot more valuable, and got my promotion a year and half later anyway. I moved again earlier this year and learning a new discipline. It has helped me a lot to move around and learn different things and not get stale. Changes your outlook on life. It doesn't have to be a whole new company (it helped me that I was a veteran in the company when I didn't know how to do a new job -- at least I knew the industry, the company politics, etc), you can move inside the company, maybe inside a department.

 

deleted

 

I suspect learning Business Analyst/Project Management roles in IT system implementation for ERPs, or developing a Business Intelligence skill-set for developing management and analytical reports, might open up some higher level opportunities or experiences for you.

 

Become an entrepreneur. Become big enough so where BigTexxx is shining your shoes and not the other way around.

 

English?

 

Basically a bean counter for corporations/enterprises that proactively seeks out areas for optimization or improvements by analyzing data and trends.

Personally, if I were to go that route - I'd focus more on the role of data scientist. Automation is going to drastically change the business world over the next few decades, and how to analyze and trend massive amounts of data is the future of business. This is what Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon, Uber and countless other technology companies are banking on.



NOTE: Microsoft has a free Data Science Degree program in conjunction with edx.org.

 

That's my life right now. I hate it. I got into sales, and have been in it for a while now. I'm trying to get out of it but just haven't been successful. I have a BBA and am thinking I'm basically stuck unless I get my masters.

 

I want to get paid to work 4 hrs a day and be a keyboard warrior on Clutchfans.

Have you ever played role reversal with a friend or loved one? Let them be the HR guru and you be in the other seat. Then switch it by letting them voice the frustrations you're feeling and you giving that role the advice.

We're sometimes harsher on ourselves than we would be with our friends or others.

 

Get into IT or middle management.