
Recent Graduates Are Most Likely to Work in Sales, Making around $40K - pdog
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-18/recent-college-grad-chances-are-you-re-in-sales-making-38-000
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simonsarris
I'm not sure we should expect anything differently, if recent graduates are
less intelligent (as a cohort) than ever. [Difficult degree] enrollment is
_relatively_ flat because aptitude is flat, and grad jobs will reflect this.

I wrote a little about this framing it as a CS degree problem, but it seems
true for a lot more than just CS.

> Can we prove aptitude is flat? Kinda. In 1970s 1-in-2 college grads aced
> Wordsum test. Today 1-in-6 do.[2] Using that as a proxy for IQ of the median
> college grad, in the 70’s it was ~112, now its ~100.

> In other words we have more people going to college than ever, but the
> “average grad” is less intelligent than ever. Degrees are increasingly
> diluted yet expensive. You can pay more money than ever to show that you are
> of average intelligence.

From: [https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/why-is-computer-science-
enr...](https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/why-is-computer-science-enrollment-
so-low-dea064c2f7f0)

~~~
woopwoop
Wait, that's an amazing claim. 100 is the median IQ for the entire population.
So the claim is that the median college graduate has the same IQ as the median
person. How could that possibly be true?

~~~
karmicthreat
In the 70s 10% of people completed a 4 year degree and now it's 35%. So the
increased availability of a college education has dragged the meadian of the
cohort closer to the average IQ of everyone.

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seibelj
Good salesmen in high-commission industries like software, pharma, high-end
real estate, etc. will make _much_ more than a good engineer will over their
career. I had a buddy in sales who closed an enterprise software deal and made
$80k from that alone. He had a lot of deals cooking.

~~~
kcorbitt
I'm curious about this. What does it take to make a "good" salesperson by this
definition? Just grit and experience, or some innate and uncommon skill? I
know there are people who make millions working in sales, but I guess I'm just
wondering how common that actually is. Should a reasonably motivated and
intelligent salesperson early in their career expect to be making $200k+ a few
years in, or does that take a very unusual level of luck/skill/dedication to
turn it into a lucrative career?

~~~
brandonmenc
Every great salesperson I know is fearless in any social situation. They can
strike up a conversation with anyone, anywhere, anytime - effortlessly. You
can't teach that.

There are a host of other qualities, but this strikes me the most "inborn"
one.

~~~
richardbatty
You can teach that, or at least learn it, with cognitive behavioural therapy
for social anxiety and practice in progressively more difficult situations.

~~~
maxxxxx
I think there are limits. I compare it to athletics. With hard work I can
double my bench press but there are people who can bench even more without
ever training. If these people work hard in addition they can perform on a
level that's not achievable for most of us.

I think it's the same for sales or a lot of other professions. People with
talent can go much further.

~~~
dismantlethesun
I think this is true too, just that with sales unlike athletics, the field is
more inclusive (e.g. specialized knowledge in the product field may be more
important than absolute speech skills), and also higher populated leading to
there being more positions for people who are merely above average, rather
than superhuman.

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Animats
This is why we've probably passed "peak school". For many new graduates, ROI
for college is negative. About half of new college graduates end up working in
a job that doesn't require a college education.

(It's even worse in some third world countries on the way down. In Egypt,
unemployment of college graduates is higher than for non-college graduates.)

~~~
emmab
> In Egypt, unemployment of college graduates is higher than for non-college
> graduates.

If pay is also higher then college could still be +EV.

~~~
bookmarkacc
Thats not how EV works. It all depends what the increase in pay and
unemployment are.

~~~
poikniok
Which is exactly what the comment you are replying to said.

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josephjrobison
Is it just me or does it seem like $40k has been the default for far too long.
I believe (anecdotally) that it's been the average white-collar entry-level
salary since the late 90s/early 2000's.

Seems that the number isn't adjusted for inflation and should be closer to $45
or $50k in 2017+

~~~
faet
You also need to include other benefits as well. Benefits as a percent of
total compensation have increased heavily over the past 20-30 years. Now they
make up ~30% of an employees total compensation.

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB)

~~~
yummybits
> have increased heavily

for the 1%.

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EternalData
I feel like an apt title for a book about late-stage capitalism would be "A
Society of Salespeople".

With that said, I'm not exactly sure what type of career path somebody
studying, say, political science could embark on -- it seems to me that
there's a lot more demand for accreditation in certain fields than there is
demand for actual practitioners.

~~~
Animats
Napoleon once referred to England as an "island of shopkeepers".

Computers are getting better at sales. Amazon doesn't have salespeople.
Retailers barely have salespeople any more. Outside of real estate, cars, and
financial products, what B2C companies do?

~~~
seppin
> Amazon doesn't have salespeople.

AWS sure as hell does

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fnbr
It's crazy how accurate that is. I'm lucky enough to be working as a data
scientist, but almost all of my friends are either working in sales or in grad
school.

~~~
merpnderp
What is your degree in and what are their degrees in?

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runako
Interesting anecdote, but it's obviously skewed. For example: attorneys,
nurses, physicians, and accountants are all missing from the graph. From that
I intuit that either a) the data intentionally captures people in only their
first job or b) the data is just wildly incomplete.

Conservatively assuming this is intended to be a snapshot of first job
salaries, it's interesting to note that a $40k salary is in the top 50% of
jobs in the US [1]. And again, we expect most of these people to earn
increasingly more as they hit their earning stride (which will be after grad
school for many).

1- [https://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/10/30/heres-the-
average...](https://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/10/30/heres-the-average-
american-household-income-how-do.aspx)

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flukus
> Glassdoor sifted through the resumes for the job titles that appeared most
> frequently in the five years following graduation. Median pay was determined
> based on salary information self-reported to the site from May 2015 to this
> month.

I'm not sure if this is a good way to quantify it. It was always common for
people to get low end jobs after graduation. It's not the jobs they've done in
the last 5 years that are of interest, it's the ones they hold after 5 years.

