University Degree Doesn’t Help Career
by Michael HoltLink to article
The difficulties of being unemployed and over 45 are legion. There appears to be an enthusiastic desire to “remove” those difficulties by trying to teach us to be more like those under 45. Universities are a part of the problem: they invite us into college.
I returned to college honestly and innocently. When I talked with the university’s continuing studies personnel, they assured me that their graduates were employed readily. There was quite an impressive list of alumni: persons of stature in the local economy and society.
I wished to return to my career in computers, so my first choice was a program in information systems. The university had a good list of impressive classes taught by impressive faculty. I took all the right classes. It didn’t take long to discover that nothing of what I was offered in class was new to me. To a great extent, this wasn’t surprising, as I had spent 17 years working with computers, but it was a bit disappointing. I finished up with a degree in information systems.
I tried to get to know other students. I assumed that we had much in common: same age, same life experiences, same desire to improve our places in the economy, and the same dedication to improving our personal lives. What I didn’t know was that most of the students were seeking only credentials that would validate their current employment and to obtain a promotion. As far as I could determine, only one other person was trying to complete a degree in order to obtain a new job.
As graduation neared, I went to the university employment-assistance office. They had no idea how to talk with me. Facing someone who had experience was outside their comfort zone. All of the jobs on file were entry-level positions. I received no responses from resumes sent after graduation. I now have a $25,000 student loan debt and nothing to show for it.
A few years later, a human resources manager told me that it is ridiculous to expect that the degree would help me find employment. “At your age,” she said, a degree was for personal satisfaction, not for employment. She told me she was working on a graduate degree that she knew would not increase her income. Her final remark was this memorable sentence: “I suggest you face up to some hard realities and re-think your expectations.”
The university that promotes those degrees is a hidden aspect of the problem we face at this age. It would appear that “continuing studies” programs are for the image of the university more than they are for their students – particularly older students trying to regain suitable employment. Prospective students over 45 aren’t taken seriously in that they are seen as a market rather than as students. (Perhaps there is a Federal regulation that encourages recruitment of students over a certain age.) There is no effort to introduce them to employers who are seeking employees with experience. It is my belief that my undergraduate degree is geared more toward legitimizing the working adult — leading to promotion in employment already held — than it is to education in a complete sense. Of course, universities derive their income from persons who are actively in a program; what happens after graduation does not have an effect on the cash flow of the school.
My lesson from this is to avoid generating large debts that don’t have a promised payoff. I will never have any degree-related employment; the debt will be paid off with income derived from sources that have nothing to do with my university experience.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Your experience is not unique. There are thousands, if not hundred of thousands, of over 40s who went back to college only to find themselves deeply in debt and no further ahead.
Going back for a degree is a scam in the same way the re-training programs deluded laid off experienced workers into think another career awaited them.
My only advice is that you write an article in the op/ed section of your local paper and maybe prevent others from following in your footsteps.
The get a degree scam is the “Emperor’s New Clothes” of the 21st Century. The promised outcome doesn’t exist and few are willing to say so.
April 26th, 2007 at 9:03 am
The issues that your text presents are many and serious. But the immediate need is to get your career on track, given the inhuman realities we all face in midlife. Try the better junior colleges anywhere within your part of the state you live in. Their staff are very experienced in advising people whose careers are in transition and who are oriented toward practical, saleable skills. You may need to flex, but push hard in this direction before throwing in the towel.
I have found it necessary to discount advice dispensed by the larger universities. They serve their own agenda much more than anyone else’s. I believe it was Tom Dewey who once said he went back to the NY governorship from academia because he wanted to “get out of politics”. My own teaching experiment years ago sold me that academia won’t be leading our society into the house of tomorrow. Try the JC’s, and avoid the others.
April 26th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Yes, after a 24 yr. career and subsequent layoff, I went into one of those “retraining” programs. I couldn’t afford a “real” college/university. A few jobs, and a few years later, I realized my “training” was just a scam.
Maybe all of us should open our own “school/college, etc.” and train students for Wal-Mart jobs, while getting funding from the state!
April 26th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
You have my sympathy. Speaking as an adjunct professor, I believe that higher education can make one a better person, but it should not come at the cost of five-and six-figure student-loan debts. And there are no grounds for it costing so much. Thirty-five years ago any competent person could work his way through college and get out owing nothing. Today that isn’t even a pipe dream.
The cost of education has been going up faster than the rate of inflation for many years now. And there is no evidence — to put it mildly — that the the quality of education the students receive has improved at all. If it’s any consolation, the people who are doing the work of teaching aren’t getting the money which instead goes to adminstrators’ salaries, ever-more-opulent buildings and grounds, and expensive educational technologies which are at best a nice extra and at worst a crutch for teacher who don’t like interacting with students. In other words, it goes to anything but the actual human beings who are doing the work of teaching.
We have a prison-industrial complex which has very little to do with protecting us from violent crime, a military industrial complex which has very little to do with protecting us from terrorism, a medical-industrial complex which has very little to do with helping people live healthy lives — and a university-industrial complex which has very little to do with uplifting people’s hearts and minds.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
These may be of interest to you:
The Washington City Paper had a first-person account by a man who went back to university at the age of 40, graduated with honors(and a student loan debt that “likely will outlive me”), and is now sleeping in his car and working intermittantly as an office temp.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/cover/2006/cover0224.html
He also has a blog at wralfordblogspot.com.
April 27th, 2007 at 7:32 am
Many of us who have worked in product development have watched our products slide down the slope and become commodities. More disconcerting, however, is the fact that many of us product developers as individuals have also slid down that same slope. Our jobs and skills have perhaps become modular, now easily outsourced to the lowest bidder in a reverse-auction process. But commoditization is a natural business cycle. If understood, it can be leveraged to our advantage. When the basis of competition changes from performance to other attributes, the profit simply moves to other elements in the value chain. The question we each must ask ourselves is - will we choose to be a victim or a market disruptor?
April 27th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
I have the feeling that age discrimination is rife in the work world and the prevailing feeling is that if you’re not already ingrained at 45 and in a successful niche {despite all the blather about people making several career changes during their life time in magazine articles] you are considered a wash-up and not to be bothered with.
Patrick Hahn–Good post, I totally agree. Where’s all the money going? Its not going to what these things were designed for. I know when I was going to college 20 years ago, they were spending all our tuition bucks on lavish buildings and new multi-million dollar sports complex {the old one was more then adequate}, I doubt things have since changed.
May 4th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Let’s look at this from the perspective of the economics of the university. Schools make money by cycling raw materials through a process, not by creating a product. A university is going to thrive — and make money — because it has lots of students, not because it graduates anyone. Therefore, anything they say that gets us into the programs is acceptable.
Perhaps if we demanded that schools arrange interviews the schools would be more likely to do us any good.
I met a woman who reviews resumes for a recruiting company. She and the other reviewers routinely discard resumes which refer to going to college in the 60s and the 70s, claiming that those persons don’t have the computer skills. Forced interviews might be to our advantage.
May 6th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Re: “what happens after graduation does not have an effect on the cash flow of the school”
This is sort of true and not true at the same time–colleges and universities truly value the donations of successful alums. So in theory the schools have incentive to ensure their alums find good employment. But employers love young bright grads and the colleges love to supply them. But a few years post graduation, there is liitle interest or incentive to make sure the grads are making it out there.
There is actually a need for a workforce that is well-educated, well skilled technically, and creative. But in reality, people in the job market are like homeless pets in an animal shelter. The cute, young ones can be trained and are just so much fun; but the older ones might have quirks, bad behaviors, and expensive health problems.
I believe American society throws people away and that most of America is very content with this and thinks it’s just the way the world is and should be. (Too bad, take it or leave it. You should have found a better job in the first place. It’s your fault if this doesn’t suit you.) I just cannot believe that this is the best it can be–that your dead-end job at age 45 is the best you can aspire too, so just suck it up and stick it out for the next 22 years.
May 6th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Just suck it up and in 20 years you can retire!?!
How many times have I heard that?
May 8th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
YIKES! You got that right! I have 3 college degrees, including a graduate degree. I think the shift away from degrees as being important to making a living started a few years ago. I’m not working in any of the fields I have degrees in. I’ve been studying on my own for the last 10 years or so - looking at how money works. How economics work. Looking at new ways to create income. I read about UP in Forbes Magazine.
I value formal education, however, I think it may be that the world is changing so rapidly with technology and information that the traditional college degrees may need to be seriously re-vamped in the near future. Jr. Colleges and trade schools have filled in the gaps over the last 20+ years - now it’s time for something else to happen. Not sure what. But I DO notice from my studies that financial education & literacy is seriously lacking everywhere in the educational process.
Any ideas about that??
May 8th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
In 1975 got a degree in English and Classical Antiquity, then I got divorced. My first job was delivering truck parts to mechanics. Then I jumped way up the ladder and got a job as a service rep at the phone company, which was pure misery. Since then I’ve delivered light bulbs, office supplies, lasted three days at an insurance company, one day at a manufacturing plant …
Suffice it to say, there were many times I wished I’d gone to beautician’s or plumber’s school instead of college. At least I would’ve been able to earn a living wage.
Once, I was able to use my college degree at work. As a directory assistance operator — back when they were live — a caller asked for the number of the Odysseus Lounge. “Do you want me to spell that?” the caller asked. “No thanks, I have a degree in classics — I can spell it,” was my reply.
Mothers, don’t let your kids grow up to be college students.
May 8th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
I’m an RN and practiced as a Clinical Nurse Specialist for years. Got an MSW along the way, raising 2 small boys alone for 10 years. I really enjoyed what I did.
Got remarried, and re-located to St. Louis. WOW! Culture shock. They won’t let Nurse Specialists or Nurse Practitioners practice here, the way they do in the rest of the country. I worked for a Medical School here for a year+, then quit from boredom - seldom was referred anyone to work with - unlike my collaborative practice in IL, where I was busy all day long.
Tried to find an MD to work with in a collaborative practice as I had in IL - they all told me it was illegal. HUH?? Not in the rest of the country…. Finally called the U. of MO School of Nursing, and spoke with someone there. Ahhhh! The MO Board of Healing Arts (MD organization) had filed a lawsuit against a Nurse Practitioner for ‘pacticing medicine without a license’, who had a legitimate collaborative practice with an MD, seeing patients in rural areas who were under-served.
BINGO! I finally understood that all the MD’s in the area were afraid to work with me, because of that lawsuit. I had a solo practice for awhile, and did some per diem work at a local hospital. Finally gave it all up! I’m much happier now.
May 9th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Diane: You hit the nail on the head (no pun intended)! I graduated from one of the Seven Sisters colleges, only to find my degree and “alumnae networking” was useless in jobhunting. Sixteen years after graduation, I have never found a single full-time job through a school tie. Every job I ever had was found through a want ad, cold calling, a temp agency, or a contact at a previous position. Not once has an employer been impressed with my academic “pedigree.”
The goals of UP are admirable, but I can’t help but think that UP could turn into a modern-day American version of the Distressed Gentlefolk’s Aid Association, giving aid and comfort to the white-collar unemployed in a way that suggests that engaging in manual labor would be too demeaning, even if some fields (eg, plumbing) are much better paid.
In fact, a good number of professors in the UK today are now packing in their academic careers to work as plumbers (and trebling their incomes in the process). Thanks to post-9/11 immigration restrictions, cities like New York are now faced with the prospect of the worst skilled manual-labor shortage since WW2. Women in NYC may want to check out http://www.new-nyc.org for some ideas.
At the very least, you’ll have a job that can’t be outsourced to India….
May 11th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Great comments “disgruntledgrad”! In addition to reading & studying about money and how it works, I started my own company, and earn more now than I did when I worked full time in health care. And…I’m enrolled in a Real Estate investment course with the Robert Kiyosaki group in a couple of weeks.
Still learning, after all these years!
Nancy
May 12th, 2007 at 9:34 am
I believe the biggest single factor behind the declining value of college degrees is Corporate America’s thirst for cheap foreign labor.
I’m not just talking about outsourcing either. Over the course of the past two decades employers have used the H-1B visa and employment based green card programs to replace American workers with low wage foreign workers in a wide variety of white collar professions.
As a Human Resources representative, I see first hand how the H-1B visa and employment based green card programs actually work together to drive U.S. white collar workers from their jobs and even from their careers. To begin with, there is virtually nothing in the law that prevents employers from hiring H-1Bers for open positions even if qualified Americans are available and willing to do the work. Americans are routinely laid off and replaced with H-1Bers also. In these cases, Americans have practically no legal recourse available under current law. H-1B is also a dual intent visa, so an employer may sponsor an H-1Ber for an EB green card for legal permanent resident status. Companies routinely game the labor certification process for green card sponsorship to defraud even well qualified citizen job applicants in favor of low wage foreigners. They use fake job ads and/or bad faith interviews of American citizens to convince the federal government that they tried to find American workers first. These practices are common in high tech and even in some non-tech industries, but HR people are told to keep quiet about it or lose their jobs.
I would be in favor of a program that issues a small number of self-sponsoring green cards for truly innovative foreign nationals on a competitive basis. But very few of the H-1Bers or green card applicants that I have seen in 10+ years even come close to being truly innovative. Most are just practitioners with skills that actually quite common among the domestic workforce. The only thing special about these foreigners is that they will work for substantially less than Americans in order to have a chance to become legal permanent residents. Thus they are used by management to sweeten corporate balance sheets.
The ‘prevailing wage’ regulations are supposed to insure that foreign nationals are paid the same as their American counterparts in the same job functions, but these regulations are so riddled with loopholes that they are a bad joke.
Since my work allows me to have access to salary records, I can tell you that the labor cost savings for H-1Bers and green card applicants is substantially greater than the costs of filing the applications with the government.
Citizens should demand that both the H-1B and employment based green card programs be abolished in their current form.
May 15th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
I think Human resources rep has identified at least 1 major failing of coporate america, the attitude that it must do whatever it takes to get it for cheaper!
2-3 years ago IT whitecollar unemployment was skyrocketing, newly-laid off professionals were committing suicide, families were being stressed apart and the white house sat gloating that market forces are alive and well in coporate USA. Add on top of that the galling statements that everyone will benefit from offshore manpower–Americans should be flexible and open to new career opptys. That’s a crock of crap. Further, wasn’t it the argument that those politicos made that there were not enough American workers–we needed to go abroad to fill the empty spaces? There were upwards of 1 million idled or underemployed IT’ers in that period—WHY NOT HIRE THEM!?!?! Of course, the answer: they were more expensive than Sanjiv in Mumbai
Rescinding all ‘white collar’ visas is an admirable idea. In addition, consider: a) require employers who hire h1-b’s or offshore personnel to pay market rates plus a premium–a kind of import ta; b) eliminate the amount that a corporation can deduct vis a vis salaries or wages to H1-b and offshore personnel.
May 15th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
I guess misery loves company, but nevertheless I am relieved to know that I am not the only one who has racked up $22,000 of student loans for a (second) useless M.A. degree. Until recently, I blamed myself for believing all of the hype put out by the universities and professional associations re. an expanding job market in my new field. So now, five months after graduation I’m cobbling together part-time jobs (with no benefits). It kills me, after a lifetime of being financially independent,that I am now be depending on my ex-husband and father while my peers are making retirement plans!
I apologize if this is more of a personalized unloading rather than a useful insight to share with everyone. Hopefully future comments will be more upbeat….but don’t count it!
May 27th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Michael,
Wow! I could easily relate to what you said about going back to college. I’ll let my story below illustrate my point.
Alan
What Were You Thinking?
My story by Alan King (Darien, CT)
“Everybody is getting fired. I’m telling you thousands of people are losing their jobs. And you know who’s losing — who’s getting it pretty big? My gang! You know what they call a 50-year-old person in a large corporation? Fat!” That is how one middle-age white-collar worker described his situation on the Phil Donahue Show in 1993. Little did I realize that in three years at the age of forty-nine, I would be forced into early retirement too.
It was a beautiful spring morning in 1996 when I lost my second Sales Management position at another IT company within six months after starting my job. Despite being complimented by my boss on my sales, communication, writing and people skills only two weeks earlier, I found myself once again being replaced by a much younger, and less qualified person.
After a year of what seemed like endless letter writing, interviews and rejections, I began to notice something peculiar about the Corporate World and the companies I visited. It seemed that everywhere I went the majority of employees, including my interviewers, appeared much younger than myself. In fact, many looked not much older than my daughter. One day as I sat in the waiting room before my interview, it suddenly occurred to me. Despite looking much younger than my years, I realized that I was that 50-year-old person in a large corporation. “Fat!”
After a discouraging fruitless year of job searching, it became apparent to me that I needed to make a drastic career change, and it wasn’t long before I was heading-off to graduate school to fulfill a life-long dream. I ended up graduating at the top of my class with highest honors after earning both a Master of Arts degree in Creative Writing and Master of Fine Arts degree in English & Writing. By now, I was confident that the world of work would be a better place, and that it would embrace me as the university had done years before.
One day an acquaintance of mine who was a full-time researcher for her company told me about a new position opening for a writer, and encouraged me to apply. After reading the company’s job description on their website, I told her I thought I was overqualified. “Nonsense,” she replied, and insisted that I email her my resume ASAP. A month later, our paths crossed again, and I asked her about the position. “Oh,” she said, with an exasperated tone, “You’re overqualified!” By now, it was obvious to me that the term “overqualified” was the favorite euphemism of Corporate America and had become the code word for “You’re too old!”
Still, I was determined not to give-up and accepted an interview with a former senior executive recruiter of a top international job placement firm. He held my two-page resume in front of him with both hands as we sat across from each other around the circular table. After what seemed like an awful long time, he finally laid the resume down and looked-up. “You have very impressive academic credentials,” he said, with a warm smile. We talked for a while and he asked me what was I thinking when I decided to go to graduate school. His demeanor suggested that I had spent all those years in prison. He leaned back in his chair and sighed once again. And then he abruptly asked me, “How old are you?”
Although my first reaction was one of outrage that he would even consider this question, nevertheless, I responded without hesitation. “54″ I said confidently. Several more seconds elapsed and the silence seemed unbearably long.
“Oh!” He continued. Only this time his face appeared strained. Before I could say another word he shot back. “Well, you can forget about going back to corporate. . . you can forget about teaching. . . and you can forget about publishing too.”
Postscript: After unsuccessfully looking for a writing position on-and-off for six-years during a severe recession and following the aftermath of 9/11, like thousands of middle-age white-collar workers today faced with age discrimination, I accepted early retirement in 1996 at the age of forty-nine.
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June 26th, 2007 at 10:52 am
I am a single mother of 2 and it took me almost 10 years to get a degree in Information Systems. I agree with one of the former posters here . . . I wish I would have just gone to trade school for something that was a marketable skill.
I love working on computers and I am pretty much self-taught, but I wanted to be legit by getting a degree. I graduated in 2000 and have yet to work in my field. Two years ago a recruiter told me that my degree was obsolete . . . it was too old to be of value. Well, I felt like saying, why don’t you tell that to Sallie Mae to which I owe over $50K in student loans for this obsolete degree.
I still can’t seem to move my career any further than working as an administrative assistant at a local college. Believe it or not I am making $10K less than my ex who has no degree and is a tire salesman. Ain’t that a kick in the pants?
Thanks for the space to rant.
Dawn
June 30th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
I just finished two more degrees. I had an associates in General Studies , then got an Associates in Applied Science with almost none of the credits accepted from the first Associates degree. Then I just finished a Bachelors in Health Services Administration. All the while my employer, a major University Hosptial, was helping to pay 5,000 a year for the cost. Now, I am told I am not being promoted and spoken to by my new director in a very disrespectful way. She says what are you- when I tired to explain she spoke over me and said no, that is a educational credential not a job title. Well my only job title right now is Admininstrative Assistant: which they know. I told her I think I am a Health Information Analyst and Auditor- she made a face….. I don’t understand what they want from me other than to drop dead and get out of the dept. I have had stellar evals each year. All the sudden now that I am 50 and have a degree I get all this attitude by people who are well over 50. I had an interview with Blue Cross Blue Sheild for an auditing positon but they said I needed more coding experience. They said if I had at least one year of coding experience ( Billing) I would have been hired. But coding is something you can not be hired for without 3-5 years of experience! When I began my degree program that was not the case- but now you can’t get the job without the experience or the experience without the job……
July 18th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
What is a degree in English and Classical Antiquity, Diane?
When they see we have X years of experience, and the degree is new, we are immediately recognized as being older. We should stop putting dates on the degrees listed on resumes.
Something else we should do is networking only with those our age. We will not, as others have written, receiveany respect from those younger than we.
July 23rd, 2007 at 3:30 pm
I am also having a hard time finding a job within my field. I am only 28 and just graduated in January with a degree in Finance and minor in Economics. Yet I can not find a job. Only employment I could find was IN retail. It really sucks. There are jobs out there however there are so many people looking for work a whole lot of competition. I don’t know if I will ever find a good paying job, I am worried about my future career and Finances, I can not live with my parents for ever.
July 29th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Networking is a good idea, but if my experience is any teacher it won’t lead to success in such a youth-oriented world. Why don’t we network for the fun of it, and see if we can generate any great novels or new products or maybe just someone else to talk with?
August 9th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
The Degree Lie
The press, which is largely owned by the people who laid us off, tell us that Americans are not educated enough, there is a shortage of skilled help. They then get the help from places where there are fewer colleges and demand far less education for our replacements.
Here in Springfield Massachusetts we have 3 four year colleges and 1 Community College. In the metropolitan area we have at lest 4 additional 4 year colleges, as well as community colleges and junior colleges. Not enough colleges?
When I started taking programming courses, over 20 years ago, there were very few computer languages. The government decreed that it would only buy computers that used about 4 languages. There was a good reason for this. It was to ensure that people did not waste time learning to do the same thing in a different companies language.
Now the field is a Tower of Babel with about 50 languages that do essentially the same thing. Nor having experience at any one of them can be cause to be deemed “unqualified.” The expense of learning the language has been shifted from the owner of the computer to the person who wants the job. So Why not change languages every year? Some in India will be willing to learn it, possibly at his government’s expense. And in some cases the government that is paying to educate the person in it is receiving foreign aid from the United States.
In some cases the Americans coming out of school are idiot savants who think that the utilities they have gone in debt to learn will last forever like Hitler and his 1000 year Reich. I told one,” this spiffy new software and the machine that uses it will be obsolete junk within two years.” He was very angry with me.
The press just parrots the party line. The academics hope to get students. If they do not they will have to get jobs which do not exist in the private sector.
I myself am taking additional training in IT, seeing I have a very open schedule in which to take classes. There are no jobs anyway. But even the Great Depression ended eventually, so I figure the additional skills will be useful.
But the Great Depression did not end by sending everyone to school. It ended by government reorganization of the economy and job creation.
We will not get jobs just by focusing on our work, but by focusing on politics. That is how the problem started, and that is how it must be solved.
And if you have your mind focused on which major party hack is going to get to be president, you should get yourself a cup of pencils to sell on a street corner in the “global economy” because they helped put us in the street.
Since we are in the street anyway we might as well run of office and complain where it might do some good.
August 10th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Yes, the hourglass economy.
Those of us in the middle class, being squeezed out are constanly told education is the only answer. But what we end up with is a low-paying job, AND a student loan to pay off.
August 23rd, 2007 at 11:24 am
“My lesson from this is to avoid generating large debts that don’t have a promised payoff.”
Umm… well, yes. That’s a very good basis for all of life’s decisions. Frankly, given your age and experience, I’m astonished that it took you a $25,000 degree program to know that.
Sorry you didn’t get a job with your degree. But you know, a lot of recent graduates who are much younger than you also don’t have degrees. Universities are not job-training programs. Education is a supplement, not the basis of a career.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:09 am
I read many comments. There are no suggestions that will lead to any changes. If no one can develop any ideas to change the situation I see no value in this dicussion. Political action is essential, but it is very long-term and no of any value for finding a job so that student loans and mortgages can be paid.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
Well, Frank, I have a suggestion or two.
A few years ago, my hubby was making 6 figures doing IT work for a nice lil company here in Arizona. Then the recession hit us hard. Hubby tried to hold onto an IT job in California with dismal results, so he came home.
He continued to look for work almost daily, on the internet, cold calling, etc. Several times, he wasn’t considered for positions because he didn’t have any degrees. He still doesn’t have any degrees. At that time, I was a home maker, homeschooling our young son.
We took stock of our situation. We had debt, a child, and we needed money. To get the money, we had to be flexible. Our attitude was to do anything legal to get the money.
So, we went to work. I did clerical work, then bill collecting, then research interviewing. Hubby became a security guard, then entry level IT work, finally coming back to his career in IT.
In the meantime, we lowered our debt as much as possible and now, our son is in college.
We’ll never see 6 figure income again, unless we’re lucky. However, we’re comfortable and we’re getting by. No doubt, we’ll fall upon financial hard times again someday. Hopefully, we’ll be ready and make it through.
So there’s my suggestion. Be flexible and do whatever it takes. Avoid debt and credit as much as possible. If you’re comfortable and avoiding poverty, count your blessings.
November 18th, 2007 at 10:17 am
I found an interesting comment on Craigslist in Charlottesville VA. One sentence is important: “Try and create a resume that allows the person to estimate your age. This may be contrary to conventional wisdom, but at least you will be called by those who want you from the beginning. ” Why not have the age requirements in the job listing? That would save everyone some time.
I suggest we create a code. If the listing specifies that no age discrimination is to be practiced, we will assume that no one over 40 will be hired. I was told, years ago, that when the ads said “women and minorities are encouraged” or “minorities and women are encouraged” the first-listed group was the one being sought for the job.
This seeems a more rational way to handle the situation. If it’s not completely honest, at least it permits everyone to know what is expected.
May 28th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
It’s not just the over-40s who have problems. I checked this guy’s name on the web, and he’s real. He really got that degree.
http://tencartrain.com/?p=115