
A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job - Pasanpr
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/a-29-year-old-on-the-difficulties-of-landing-a-first-job/article4184375/?page=1
======
georgecmu
_At the age of 29, I've likely forever lost the following opportunities due to
cost and probable inability to make up for lost wages and career potential:_

Seriously? _Forever lost_ is a pretty strong statement. I don't see how any of
these opportunities are _forever lost_ just because he's 29 and hasn't had a
steady job until now. Millions (billions?) of people manage to get married,
have children, study, etc while in objectively far worse situations than this
kid ever will be. This article overflows with a sense of entitlement. Reminds
me of an editorial from a few years back, where a lawyer (professor?) in
Chicago claimed destitution at $400K/yr [1].

[1] [http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/09/in-which-mr-deling-
res...](http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/09/in-which-mr-deling-responds-to-
someone-who-might-be-professor-todd-henderson.html)

PS: Comment from an older thread that expresses my sentiments precisely:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3991666>

~~~
michaelochurch
Actually, I think he's screwed. As a 29-year-old with no work experience, he's
at a disadvantage against 22-year-olds with similar empty resumes. When good
jobs become available, he won't be able to compete.

The real problem is that the kinds of jobs that liberal arts education trains
people for are:

* academia and research, which have been contracting for 30 years.

* autonomous high-skill labor, which has also been getting rarer, and which would require further education on his part.

* executive jobs that have since been judged supernumerary and probably don't actually make economic sense.

People like him used to get "junior executive" jobs where they might have no
direct reports, but were clearly being groomed for something better. (Think
Pete Campbell in _Mad Men_.) Those jobs don't exist anymore and that's
probably a good thing, because they don't make sense, but that is exactly what
society prepped him for-- something that no longer exists.

He's now in the state where he can't get quality work experience because he
doesn't have quality work experience.

If I were unethical, I might start a business as a "reinvention consultant"
and give guys like him a fake work history (shell companies, references, ~3
months of training in the very few things he actually needs to know to be a
corporate executive) and a second chance. There will be a lot of demand for
that kind of service 5-10 years from now.

~~~
jholman
> _Actually, I think he's screwed. As a 29-year-old with no work
> experience..._

Screwed? Nonsense.

At 29 years old, I had zero work experience, other than a few research
assistant jobs in my 10-year slacker bachelor's degree (which did not result
in positive references). Oh, and 4 months at a Subway. The only thing even
vaguely positive about my economic history was that I did do a degree in
computing science... but I had deliberately made it as useless as possible,
because I was an idiot.

6 years later, I work at the best company in the world (I believe you're
familiar with the place, mchurch).

He (she?) may well be _disadvantaged_ by his age, that's fair. But then again,
he's already had lots of advantages, like being educated, living in Canada,
etc.

------
geerlingguy
"I wanted 65 hour weeks in a high pressure corporate environment. I wanted the
tailored suits, the chance at a high income, the BMW, the prestige, the
respect, and the power. I wanted to be someone. I wanted to be able to afford
to donate to charities that are important to me. I was considering children,
marriage, the house, all of it. It's not happening."

Do people really expect to get something like that by the time they're 30?
There are very few industries where that's the norm. Perhaps some of my peers
have totally unrealistic expectations! Too many movies, too much TV, and too
much time spent reading about other people's lives on Quora.

I don't have dreams about my current job that's a good 40-hour week (sometimes
45), lets me drive a used Toyota, and helps me pay a mortgage on a modest
home, have a wife and a child, and enjoy a meal out every now and then. I can
still save some money for retirement, even if it's just a tiny bit each month.
I enjoy my life, and hope for something better, but I work one day at a time
to achieve that dream, and I don't complain about it!

~~~
ebiester
"the chance at a high income"

That doesn't speak to entitlement to me, but rather just getting on the path
that, with hard work, can lead there.

The problem is that many are unable to even get their foot in the door. The
hope is eventually it will change with the boomers retiring and opening up
positions, but there is always the danger that this generation will be
skipped.

However, the same fear happened to Gen X, that GenX would be skipped over, but
after some major growing pains that generation too found their way in.

Perhaps instead, the problem is that those who graduate into a recession are
leapfrogged by those who graduate into a great market. There are other studies
that show the disparity in lifetime earnings based on this.

~~~
randomdata
I am roughly the same age as this person, and as kids we were told that all we
had to do was work hard in school and high incomes would come our way. And so
we, generally speaking, did – well over 50% of the Canadian population have
achieved an education level higher than high school, and is considered one of
the most educated nations.

Of course that idea is impossible. High earnings are not an absolute value,
only a value greater than a typical income. If we all received high incomes,
that income would just become typical, leaving a small group with an even
higher income to strive towards.

This person is making an average income, which is where you would expect the
average person growing up in our generation to be. We cannot all be above
average. It is a logical impossibility.

~~~
ebiester
Ah, but there's a problem here. I've seen it with a few of my friends.

They graduated college, and couldn't find anything. They took what was
available, typically call center jobs. Then, when entry level jobs came in
their desired field, they were passed over because their experience was in low
skilled positions.

Those leaving college are given a free pass since they aren't expected to have
experience. However, once you take that low skill position, it's much harder
to climb back up.

------
cantos
$36 000/year Canadian for a single 29 year old person with no debt is far from
poor. Especially considering he enjoys his job. If he uses the same entitled
tone in interviews its no wonder he has an issue.

~~~
kareemm
That depends on where you live.

Grossing $36k annually in Toronto or Vancouver doesn't go very far. Assume 27k
net = $2,250 per month. $800 for rent, $400 for student loan, $300 for food,
$300 savings, $200 entertainment, $250 for gas and insurance (assuming you own
a car) and you're at 0.

And don't even think about getting into the housing market. Maybe the condo
market with help from parents or 5-10y savings for a down payment...

~~~
cantos
Average student loan for an undergraduate degree is 27,000 [1] so on average
it would be payed off by that time.

I haven't lived in those cities but I would guess public transport is good
enough that owning a car is not a requirement, its more like entertainment
spending. (I know people who have lived in the GTA without needing a car. I
don't know exactly what their rent costs were, possibly a little over $800 but
not more than $1000).

Sure he will not be getting a home in the immediate future but unless
something terrible happens his salary will only go up . In 5 years, when he
probably will have a 2 person family judging by his eagerness for marriage, a
small home will be within reach.

[1] [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/the-
cru...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/the-crushing-
weight-of-student-debt/article625694/)

------
dubfan
Comments from this article's last appearance on HN:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3991173>

------
gms7777
Now, I'm much more recently out of school than this, but I can't take this guy
seriously at all. I had a pick of job offers after I graduated. Granted, I was
in an engineering discipline, so perhaps I had it easier, but practically
everyone I know from school even in other fields has managed to find decent
paying work. I understand that the job market isn't great, but he describes it
as if its completely impossible for a recent grad.

------
Evgeny
_I wanted 65 hour weeks in a high pressure corporate environment. I wanted the
tailored suits, the chance at a high income, the BMW, the prestige, the
respect, and the power. I wanted to be someone._

Reminds me of a saying _You don't need more money to be happy, you need to
want less stuff_ \- I saw it on HN, but forgot the author. Maybe the key is to
understand that the last sentence ( _I wanted to be someone_ ) doesn't have
anything to do with the other ones. You don't magically _become someone_ by
putting on a tailored suit or stuffing your body inside a BMW.

Not to forget that someone actually _wanting_ 65 hours of work per week will
hardly end up healthy, happy etc.

------
fijal
If you graduate in 2008 (at the age of 25 I presume) and you come with no
professional experience (internships, work during school etc.) you're kind of
asking for trouble. Also not that many people have the luxury to not work
until 25, consider yourself lucky.

------
contingencies
I would suggest that the writer needs to disconnect their self-worth and
identity from their temporary employment situation.

------
Tycho
Why the hell would you need to conduct in-depth research into 100+ companies?

~~~
michaelochurch
My guess is that this person is non-technical and applying for executive-track
jobs, since that's what "career job" means outside of technology. He has no
way to distinguish himself, is at an increasing disadvantage with age, and is
applying for junior-executive jobs that are now (due to the long-term
downsizing of corporate management) being mostly filled with more senior
people.

~~~
avenger123
I would likely agree that this is what is happening. The big missing piece in
all of this is the feedback loop. He has been doing the same process for a
long time with no results and instead of questioning his approach he is
playing the victim card.

He should step back and realize he can't compete at that level. I find that
people that sometimes work at small companies tend to take on roles that they
may not necessarily have been able to get otherwise. Once they are laid off,
they expect to have the same job at another company. What is sometimes lost is
that those companies may only hire for that role when the person has an MBA or
a particular designation, etc. The person feels they should get the job since
they have been doing it already.

Well, it just doesn't work that way. You can either keep smashing your head
against the wall or just maybe go find yourself something else to smash your
head against. In his case, instead of accepting that the jobs he is applying
for he is perhaps marginally a fit for, I suspect he continues to apply even
after seeing that he only meets perhaps 1 or 2 of the five criteria. Doing so
is just stupid.

This person's story is the classic and simple case of using old methods of
finding a job when these methods just don't work that well anymore. I find it
amusing that with all the education that this person has, he doesn't realize
that the old methods usually work in a very hot economy. A good classic that
is always updated is the What Color Is Your Parachute? book. The approaches
described in that book would likely get this person very good results once he
starts realizing that he should be a little less ambitious to start in terms
of what he is looking for and also change his attitude (ie. drop the victim
mentality - nobody owes him anything).

