Career Advise I Would Have Told My Younger Self

When I got sick and had to stay at home, this gave me the time to think about income sources that can be done from home. What I found out is that it is hard to start a home based business and make it profitable. My advice to my younger self: ”Start thinking about a home based job or income while you are still working for a company”.

It just makes good sense to have an alternative source of income besides your job. A steady paycheck is important, but it is not your company’s duty to keep you employed even though things are getting financially bad for your company.

Nothing Is Permanent In Work and Life

For those living a relatively stress free and even a luxuriously and happy career and life, take note that conditions can change anytime. Your ideal life can come crashing down at any instant.

I myself experienced having to resign at the companies I worked for because I think it was not worthwhile for me to work in them anymore. The reasons were varied, but in some I resigned because I have outgrown the company.

Forced To Resign Because of a Sickness or Disability

In some, I was forced to resign because I became sick and can no longer work. This might be because I was in my forties. In your forties the sicknesses associated to old age starts to creep up.

My advice to my younger self: ”You must take care of your health especially starting in your forties. Avoid smoking or drinking heavily. Don’t abuse your body.”

For example, when I tried to Google the search keywords: “do old age sicknesses appear in your 40’s”. I saw articles that inform me that old age sicknesses can start as early as 40 years old.

There are people who become disabled because of a variety of reasons. There are people who become disabled because of a car accident. There are people who disabled because of a certain sickness. The reasons are varied.

Forced Resignation or Termination

There are many reasons why you can be forced to retire or are even terminated from your company. A new boss might not like you and makes your working life so miserable that you have no option but to retire or go crazy.

I company might be downsizing and saving money. A regular employee is more costly than a contractual employee who has no benefits. You may be terminated just because your company wants to save by not paying employee benefits anymore.

You might be given an assignment that is impossible for you to do. For example, a company may reassign you to a new location which is very far from your original location. I have met many people who have been forced to resign due to being forced to relocate to another place.

Forced To Resign Because of Age

This is an increasing occurrence in many company. It is called ”Ageism”. Many companies do not want to pay for the many costs associated with older workers. This includes higher pay, health benefits, pension plans and so on.

You might have devoted a large part of your life working for a company and is nearing retirement age. You might think you can coast along for the remainder of your working life but you are wrong.

Companies know that once employees have achieved a certain degree of tenure, they are not as cost efficient as younger workers who would do the same job for a cheaper pay. There is a famous case in which IBM, the technology giant, has been accused of systematically terminating older workers.

IBM is not an exception. There are many companies who are increasingly putting the pressure for older workers to retire. In many cases, companies try to pressure older workers to leave starting at the age of fifty.

My advice to my younger self: ”Don’t think you would have a stable career until your retirement age. Your career can be cut anytime, even when you are nearing retirement age. Your company won’t care if you are old. If they need to fire you, they will do it.”

On Choosing a Career Path

An Education is an Investment

Many people especially those who come from low income families think a college degree is the ticket to a high paying job and a good life. Then when they graduate they learn that a college degree is an “investment written in paper”.

What do I mean when I say: “investment written in paper?” By saying this I mean that your college degree could be worth a lot of money or might just be the price of a piece of paper which is worthless.

There are college degrees like medical degrees and engineering degrees which are worth money when achieved. There are degrees like business degrees whose worth is very dependent on the schools they are associated with.

This is the reason why there is such a term as ”Diploma Mills”. My advice to my younger self: “Pick a college degree and school which still has value. This is especially true with rising tuition costs and the lowering perception that a college degree is important to get a good job.”

Demand

When I chose a college education in electronics communication, I picked it because it was somewhat a new career field. One of my friends who also took the same college degree commented that there were still few people practicing this career.

I thought my friend made sense but I learned the truth when I graduated. It was indeed a new career field but there was no much demand for it. As a result, I struggled to find jobs associated with it.

I have met other people who were forced to take on jobs that were very different from the college education they took. I myself have found more and better paying jobs entirely different from the college education I took.

Often, I would meet college graduates who easily found jobs in the career fields they actually studied for. This is despite these career fields having more graduates than ever before. For example, there is always a good demand for civil engineers.

My advice to my younger self: “Study the future demand of the career field you are intending to study for. Ask yourself the question: Will there still be a huge demand for the career field I am studying for after I graduate?”

For example, nurses are always in demand for both local and international employment. In fact, licensed nurses have good salaries as compared to other professions. This is especially true if you are working in a developed country.

Looks Do Matter

There are professions where looks do matter when it comes to having a successful career. For example, models must be beautiful and handsome besides having beautifully shaped bodies. Their skin must be near perfect especially if they are modeling for beauty products.

There have been a move by fashion and advertising companies towards a more “average” look. However, this is more of a fad and is geared towards critics of these companies who want more inclusivity rather than a genuine industry change.

But you do not have to be a model to know that looks matter. For example, sales people tended to be tall and beautiful. I had the privilege of seeing an owner of a startup company assign the roles his new employees will be doing.

He segregated the employees into two groups: office workers and sales personnel. It was clear that he chose the most handsome and beautiful, not to mention tall employees as sales personnels.

I have worked at different companies and had the privilege of seeing how the top managers look like. Most of the top managers in the company I have worked for are much taller than the average person.

In fact if you Google the search keywords: “do managers tend to be taller”, you would come across many articles that prove that on average, managers tend to be taller and more successful than the average person.

Like it or not, but if you are a short person there is a strong tendency by many managers to look you over. I am not saying that this is the rule, but rather a fact of life in careers.

My advice to my younger self: ”Be clean and hygienic with yourself especially if you are working in an environment where being physically pleasing is a rule. Remember that companies are not after what you are trying to look like, they are after what clients think of your appearance.”

For example, I always find resistance from many of the managers in the companies I have worked for with people with tattoos. I have no tattoos myself but I have seen many of my coworkers with tattoos questioned by their managers as to why they have a particular tattoo.

Connections Do Matter

There is this popular expression: “It’s not what you know, but who you know that is important.” Could this expression be true? The answer is a resounding “Yes!”. For example, there are many unadvertised job vacancies out there that are filled by people with connections to the company.

Just take a look at many high government positions that are vacant. You do not see them advertised in the local newspaper or even online. How are the positions filled? By another government official but in a higher position.

For example, the president of a country may appoint a government position to a person who has no actual government management experience. They usually get this job because they have connections either social or political to the president of that country.

My advice to my younger self: “You cannot succeed on your own. You need other people to succeed. There would be people who will give you opportunities you have no knowledge of or dream about. The more good people you know, the better it is for you.”

Salaries

This is a thorny issue for many employees and many are sensitive about this subject. This is especially true if someone asks for an employee’s salary. In my experience, employees who have low salaries tend to be very embarrassed when the issue of salary is discussed.

White Collar vs. Blue Collar

It is now an open secret that there are blue collar jobs that pay more than the average white collar jobs. This is especially true in developed countries where the distribution of skills is more varied than in developing countries.

Blue Collar Workers in Developing Countries

I have experience living in both a developing and a developed country and I know the difference. In developing countries there are more people who have less access to higher education and employment opportunities.

This is the reason they take on blue collar jobs. As a result, there is a huge oversupply of workers who can do blue collar jobs instead of white collar jobs. Employers know this and just like any businessperson they take advantage of this opportunity.

They know that blue collar workers will accept low paying jobs and terrible work conditions because they have no choice. They know that they are easily replaceable and they would stick to their job as long as they can.

White Collar Workers in Developed Countries

In developed countries, there are many opportunities for finding white collar jobs and people have a tendency to select them over blue collar jobs because of the perceived prestige and better working conditions.

As a result, employers from developed countries have plentiful supply of white collar workers who would be willing enough to settle for an average pay in exchange for the perceived prestige and better working conditions.

Blue collar workers therefore become scarcer as compared to the demand. Therefore, the employers are forced to pay much better rates to blue collar workers as against their white collar workers who are easier to replace.

For example, in construction jobs physically grown adults can do the job but not younger teenagers. This is because of the very physical nature of the job. An office job on the other hand can be done by both a physically strong adult and also by a teenager when properly trained.

This is a short explanation of why blue collar workers can be paid higher than a white collar worker. My advice to my younger self: “A job may be easy to do but might also pay little. I should study how much a job pays rather than how easy a job can be done if I am after a good salary.”

A New Chair is not a Salary Increase

I had the privilege of seeing the office of a digital media company that employs a lot of computer programmers. They have nice office chairs and a game room where you can play billiards, shoot darts and play video games.

When I asked about their compensation program, they told me that annual salary increases are not always done by the company. The company also does not pay for overtime. This is considering that many of their employees work past eight o’clock in the evening on a regular basis.

What I have also known from the employees is that their chairs are always updated to a newer one every year and that the game room is always open for anyone working late. This got me thinking.

I were the owner of the company, I would rather give a salary increase than new chairs to my employees. I would also scrap the game room and pay overtime instead. But apparently in this company, most of the employees are happy getting new chairs and playing in the game room.

My advice to my younger self: “There are many non-monetary rewards a company can give you, while they are good, you should still insist on a monetary reward. At the end of the day its real money that actually pays your bills.”

Conclusion

There are still many advice I would give to my younger self but they would have to wait for another day. Most of these conclusions I sadly realized by myself with no one advising me. I could have gotten a better hold of my career and path in life if I had known these.

My advice to younger people would be to try to look into the future and try to see where your career is heading to. This can be best done by researching and by talking to older and more experienced people who have actually experienced what you would probably experience in the future.