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Posted on 04/22/2012 12:31:28 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The college class of 2012 is in for a rude welcome to the world of work.
A weak labor market already has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don't fully use their skills and knowledge.
Young adults with bachelor's degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs — waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example — and that's confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans....
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
If I get offered $35K for a deadend job, I say “no but thank you” and move on to the next interview.
Are you kidding me? You did not say no??
Well, being that the job market seems to be so difficult for you in your field requiring you to have 2 years experience and you state no thank you, I would woop your behind! Yeah, sorry the mother in me kicks in! I missed if you did internship at all while in college?
Sorry, nvm! You’ll figure this out, just don’t wait too long to actually say yes. You may not get the number you are looking for. You should not expect a certain level of pay just out of college. Does college tell you that? Is that their selling point? UGH
Sorry again Black_Shark, I don’t mean to be snipping at you! I’m just envisioning what I would do to my son if he ever told me that. Ever heard the saying I brought you into this world and I can take you out? Yeah, that’s me! hahaha
A friend of mine got his PhD in philosophy. He ended living in a hovel in Harlem and driving a cab, with a side job as a lexicographer. Eventually, when he grew tired of that lifestyle and was pushing forty, he went to Columbia Law School. These days, he's quite affluent.
Maybe Target is hiring.
It's hard to conceive of working as a data analyst without being at least an amateur programmer.
I would learn Python next. The language encompasses a lot of good programming philosophy. It has tons of libraries available. It is well supported by its large user community. Ruby wouldn't be a bad idea as well.
You want a tool that will let you apply your own algorithms and ideas to the data you are analyzing, that will clean up and organize the data and summarize it as you wish. Once you start using such a tool, you will find that you will learn it relatively painlessly, the motivation coming from the tool's usefulness.
A good place to research questions in this area is Hacker News. E.g., google best data analysis language site:ycombinator.com.
Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt to be proficient in SQL as well. And, if you can choose which DBMS, go with PostgreSQL. It’s free and very powerful. Most business data is either already in a DBMS or could benefit from being placed in one by a knowledgeable analyst.
Learn Apache Wicket, once you go Wicket, you'll never even think about Struts again....although, like COBOL, there are still a lot of legacy apps running on it.
Lately, I have been looking and Google Apps, Google Sites and Google Apps Script (which is basically JavaScript with some Google-specific APIs), at first I was skeptical, but you can do some pretty cool stuff with it.
That's another, learn JavaScript, and if you are doing front-end stuff, learn about JavaScript libraries, like JQuery.
I have to use struts for my job, it isn’t always what you want to do. I also have to build a hibernate app and I have no choice in the matter. I am the type that learns from necessity, if my job required skill A then I would obtain skill A. I also try to anticipate, if I think skill B would be useful on my job I will learn it on my own.
My point was about his high expectations, not questions posed during job interviews.
I’m sorry I didn’t fully explain. By deadend job I mean sales at Norhwestern Mutual NOT a contract-to-hire job or job in my field. And by refuse, I refuse in favor of a masters in Econ with a masters minor in stats.
I would never turn down a job in my chosen field or one with promising networking opportunities.
That’s my fault for not specifying.
Sales? UGH, no way, no how! I didn’t realize it was unrelated. Good choice on your part then. :)
> My point was about his high expectations, not questions posed during job interviews.
I suppose I should have been more explicit: it seems that the basic respect for having graduated with a degree in the field *IS* a high expectation.
I would say that a young person needs to get used to the eccentricities that go on during job interviews. No need to accept the job but why not just answer all questions to the best of your ability and then walk out, swearing never to work for THAT person. Learning how to deal with job interviews is just as important as actually doing the job.
I was once asked during a job interview to do an algebra problem! I did it but knew the guy was a bit of a jerk. (The job had nothing to do with algebra or even math, lol!)
haha, thank you.
How many high school students are offered $35,000/yr to start with zero experience?
Incidentally -- it may bear thinking about. If you take one of those jobs, it starts counting towards "experience".
Only you know your goals best, but there is a lot of good advice up and down this thread: based on people's actually having been in the working world.
Are you committed to only one geographical area, or are you free to move? Are you open only to full-time permanent, or would you consider contracting?
Lotsa possibilities.
Cheers!
I’m open to move anywhere. I have mentioned, multiple times, that the job was insurance sales. Compete dead end job with worthless exp. I’d take. 20k job in data analysis but not insurance sales.
I’m a horrible salesman
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