How did you start doing the job you're doing now?
Did you always know you wanted to do that job or do you have dreams of doing something else? How did you guys find your career?
I'm almost 30 years old and I still don't have a career. Sure I have a lot of work experience but ive never really truly been able to find my career. I only stayed at jobs for 1-2 year's before moving on. I've got a BA in Public administration and criminal justice and been out of school for 3 years. The current job I'm at now has a lot of room for growth but it's not something I want to make a career out of. I'm just not sure how I'd be able to find my career. How do you know what you're doing now is what you want to do for the rest of your life? How did you find your current career and do you enjoy it? How did you “fall in” to your career? How did you decide what you wanted to do for a career? Passion? Pleasure? Money? Degree? Influences? Happen chance? What profession do you have and would you recommend it? How did you get the job you have today, and what advice do you have for people who are trying to start their career? I walked into the recruitment office for the Navy and did the paper work took the asvab. Chose to go undesignated seaman route. Spent two years being a ship bitch busting my ass off to get some sway and now I finally have a rate and am a Religious Programs Specialist, a Chaplains body guard and helper My advice for if you want to join the military, know what you like to do, a lot of people in the undesignated seaman program didn't know what they wanted to do and were stuck being miserable doing something they hated. Me I loved it, it was hard work and now my new job is even more rewarding and amazing. Also be in good shape, right mindset and all that jazz. Feel free to pm me if you have questions about the Navy
Currently working for the state road department. The job itself isn't great but the education and perks they provide you are unbeatable. But it is easy to get with little to no education and a cdl that can be easily acquired and the State will help you. What's great about it is the education if your trying to proceed in college with no loans. They will cover almost all of your college cost except maybe a few books. Applying online is easy and you can send your application to tons of jobs constantly opening. Perfect job for someone trying to get through school on their own without loans.
Graduated with an EE degree in 2009. The major company I had interned with just laid off 2/3 of their design team and the area was flooded with out of work engineers. I applied for a technician job at a warehouse for a major company but wasn't even called back. I reapplied for seasonal work and started unloading trailers for them. I have been promoted 6 times since then and now work a cushy desk job at their corporate head quarters. I just bought a house and support a family of four on my single income. I guess the point of my story is be willing to do whatever you can to get your foot in the door if your options are limited. I am the person my friends go to for career advice and I tell anyone if they want to work in performing arts (acting, music), fine arts, or things like professional athletes need to think about where they would like to work if that doesn't pan out and they should be prepared to live below their means for potentially a long period of time to pursue an outcome that is uncertain. I encourage people to pursue what they want but some people seem to presume they'll get successful in those fields. Maybe they are just too confident in their abilities :/
After graduation I had no idea what I was going to do and my grandma get pressuring me to go to school. I remember being intrigued by that presentation and looked up a few school. Went to school for 2 years and learned how to use AutoCAD and Revit and got my Associate's in Science Degree. I worked as a delivery driver and worked up to catering manager till about a year after I graduated and landed myself a drafting position at an Architectural firm. It has it ups and downs but I mostly enjoy it. The way I see it is I get to sit at a computer for 8 hrs and draw. My favorite is modeling building in Revit, which my firm is mostly switching to, but that is only about 20% of the work.
Chose a Finance degree because I didn’t know what I wanted to do and figured it would be nice to wear a suit and earn lots of money. Ended up doing mindless back-office stuff for banks (glorified data entry and admin) whilst getting paid very little money. Decided I would hate my life if this was all there was to it, so I looked for any job that would earn over 6 figures within five years of work. Got about 800 rejections over 18 months until I finally landed a job in management consulting. In hindsight, I’m glad I got into consulting. It’s exactly the opposite of the back-office stuff that bored me – lots of variety with different projects, lots of thinking, working on exciting and innovative stuff with huge companies, and much better salary prospects.
I always enjoyed school, reading, and learning. As a teenager I babysat a lot. Small children liked me, and I liked them. I worked in Summer Camp as a teenager too. Teaching was a natural fit. I've been in my field, ECE, over 25 years and I still enjoy going to work every day... lucky me.
I was in Chicago looking for a job in radar tech, but needed to pay bills so any job would do. Saw a now hiring sign at a shop. Walked in and was hired on the spot. Im rather tall and was told my wingspan could hold up a large sign for installation. Fell in love with the work, the history, constant challenges and solutions. I stuck with it, abandoned my schooling, and have done scenic work for Harry Potter at Universal, Disney parade floats, and worked on top stadiums. Love the travel and being outside. I get to see so many cool things on a daily basis.
It was only after my grandfather passed that I learned he too was a sign guy in his younger years. His father before him as well.
My dad has always insisted on careers that we could do without starving; he once had to give up his original career (archaeology) for computer science, because the country where we lived wouldn't have had any work for him. I grew up with that mindset, and I liked science and computers anyway. So as we went through the list, I narrowed it down to three possible options, and eventually one. I got a bachelor of science in computer information systems, and got an entry-level position at a health insurance company right out of college. I made the jump to their IT department after a year inside, and I've been doing reports, small programs, and BI ever since.
Through trial/error/luck: Wanted to work in advertising. I learned that ad agencies spend a lot of time kissing ass. I got fired. I worked in catering for a while. I got a job placing those stupid "Win a Free iPad" ads, then a job managing search ads on Google for yet another shady company. Got laid off 2x during the recession. I didn't think I'd like search marketing, but I love it and I'm really good at it. Little bits of experience added up into a career.
My dream job was game development, but it wasn't worth it with the long hours, low pay, and low job security, so when I got a job offer that let me use my programming skills and paid a lot, with reasonable hours, I was happy to overlook the fact that the work was boring.
Had some sort of videogame console since I can remember and knew that I wanted to make games just like the ones I played. I never wanted to do anything else. Tried my hand at programming in highschool, I hated it, so I took up art which eventually lead to me being a 3D Artist at a small gaming company.
I never said no to something I thought I could make money at. Ive sold knives, insurance, concert tickets, vacuum cleaners, ponchos I got for 5cents at concerts when it was raining, mutual funds, roofing, rocks, dirt, lining up contracts for parking lot painting and many other things. from this I eventually got offered a job at a record label and most recently I was offered a job as Executive VP of sales at a company that is going to go public with a screaming IPO. What career path did you end up choosing? Are you happy with your choice?
What is your favorite aspect of your job? What's your job? What's your favorite and least favorite thing about it?
Meat Dpt for a grocery store - learned how to deal with a diverse set of individuals/personalities and had responsibility, but not too much to overwhelm a HS/College student. They usually worked with a person around their schedule and asked how many hours they'd like to work each week, under 40, that wouldn't be exhausting. Worked with people of the same age for the most part and it was a job I could easily leave once ready, which was understood by management. Pays well for a HS/College job ($10-12 per hour). Easy work.
Jewelry saleswoman at a Jewelry store. I made $9/hour plus commission with pretty much no prior experience besides working at a clothing store. It was super easy once I got to know about the different types of jewelry, and I was making $12-$15/hour at the end of the day after commission. I also had a job once where I delivered equipment to classrooms like projectors since the school couldn't afford equipment for every classroom. It involved running around for about 20 minutes in between classes delivering all the equipment, then hanging around with my coworkers or doing homework for the hour or so while the classes were in session. I only made $8/hour, but I remember I was in great shape and totally content with my life.
I was a labourer on a construction site. The company was building a large subdivision. It was awesome because I worked with my best friend and my major responsibility was to clean up garbage. I also got to drive around in a huge backhoe. We took plenty of naps and called many "safety meetings," where everyone left much more stoned then they were before the meetings. Smoking weed at work is great, but the days that we brought a little whiskey or beers were the best. Getting krunk and walking around construction sites is the best.
I work at a vans retail store as a sales advisor and I really like the discount that we get for things. But I hate how everything is run. I only get to work 5 hours a week and we barley make enough money to be open as a store. On top of all that most of my coworkers are some of the most stuck up people
My least favourite is always toilets. They suck. People are so messy at times. And there’s nothing worse than a broken toilet when you’re trying to clean it, the seats moving side to side, or the blockage smelling bad, or like at the moment, the toilet we have at work which is quite literally spewing water everywhere and it stinks of sewage.
I'm 21. I haven't worked many places, but every place I have worked at has been horribly managed, horrible pay, horrible hours, just generally horrible. I need a job. I don't need to be making huge money, but not minimum wage would be great. I just want a job that doesn't make me want to kill myself. So, where have you worked that you liked? Did you think you would like it, or were you pleasantly surprised?
I used to work for an auction company with my dad. He and I would travel all over the Puget Sound appraising and picking up merchandise. We were always finding really interesting things. I got to drive all sorts of cars and heavy machinery. My bosses were really chill guys who would also publicly call out rude customers. I rarely had a bad day at that job. Plus, lifting furniture 4-5 days a week made me pretty buff. Theater projectionist. I used to bring my laptop to work and watch movies for 12 hours and get paid. Eventually, I started moving my entire room to my workplace. I brought my stereo and free weights and just did what I would do at home, at work and get paid for it. Every now and then, I would have to thread the movie into the projector and start the movie but that only took 2 minutes. Thursday nights were fun because we would swap out old movies with new movies so there would be breakdowns and build ups.
I loved it because it was challenging, and I never knew what was coming next. The people I talked to were always grateful, because they got to talk to a real live engineer who fixed their problem, and not some dude reading a script half way around the world. I hardly ever had to travel, unlike the project engineers in my department. Those guys, in turn, were thankful that they never had to be distracted by calls from customers.
For 1.5 yrs in 2011-12, I worked in a small computer shop run by a friend. I was the main hardware tech and I made less than $1000/mo, but god I LOVED that job. I got to do what I loved and I was salaried so I came & went as I pleased, and some days I didn't even go in at all cause I just plain didn't feel like it. It's really too bad that the place was so horribly mismanaged that they couldn't afford to pay me anymore, cause I'd still be there otherwise.
Spending time with my team, they are amazing people and I thoroughly enjoy spending time with them. It might be weird to say that of subordinates but they are way more fun than my CEO and COO.
That's been the case with pretty much everything. Played D1 football, and graduated in December. I sure as shit don't miss hot days at practice, and getting broke off all day, but I do miss hanging with the guys. Literally being in the lockeroom and talking shit to each other was the highlight of every day.
Working from home to do nothing but get distracted by my personal laptop, phone, tablet, refrigerator, stove, washing machine, dyer, dishwasher, toilet, weights.
I'm almost 30 years old and I still don't have a career. Sure I have a lot of work experience but ive never really truly been able to find my career. I only stayed at jobs for 1-2 year's before moving on. I've got a BA in Public administration and criminal justice and been out of school for 3 years. The current job I'm at now has a lot of room for growth but it's not something I want to make a career out of. I'm just not sure how I'd be able to find my career. How do you know what you're doing now is what you want to do for the rest of your life? How did you find your current career and do you enjoy it? How did you “fall in” to your career? How did you decide what you wanted to do for a career? Passion? Pleasure? Money? Degree? Influences? Happen chance? What profession do you have and would you recommend it? How did you get the job you have today, and what advice do you have for people who are trying to start their career? I walked into the recruitment office for the Navy and did the paper work took the asvab. Chose to go undesignated seaman route. Spent two years being a ship bitch busting my ass off to get some sway and now I finally have a rate and am a Religious Programs Specialist, a Chaplains body guard and helper My advice for if you want to join the military, know what you like to do, a lot of people in the undesignated seaman program didn't know what they wanted to do and were stuck being miserable doing something they hated. Me I loved it, it was hard work and now my new job is even more rewarding and amazing. Also be in good shape, right mindset and all that jazz. Feel free to pm me if you have questions about the Navy
Currently working for the state road department. The job itself isn't great but the education and perks they provide you are unbeatable. But it is easy to get with little to no education and a cdl that can be easily acquired and the State will help you. What's great about it is the education if your trying to proceed in college with no loans. They will cover almost all of your college cost except maybe a few books. Applying online is easy and you can send your application to tons of jobs constantly opening. Perfect job for someone trying to get through school on their own without loans.
Graduated with an EE degree in 2009. The major company I had interned with just laid off 2/3 of their design team and the area was flooded with out of work engineers. I applied for a technician job at a warehouse for a major company but wasn't even called back. I reapplied for seasonal work and started unloading trailers for them. I have been promoted 6 times since then and now work a cushy desk job at their corporate head quarters. I just bought a house and support a family of four on my single income. I guess the point of my story is be willing to do whatever you can to get your foot in the door if your options are limited. I am the person my friends go to for career advice and I tell anyone if they want to work in performing arts (acting, music), fine arts, or things like professional athletes need to think about where they would like to work if that doesn't pan out and they should be prepared to live below their means for potentially a long period of time to pursue an outcome that is uncertain. I encourage people to pursue what they want but some people seem to presume they'll get successful in those fields. Maybe they are just too confident in their abilities :/
After graduation I had no idea what I was going to do and my grandma get pressuring me to go to school. I remember being intrigued by that presentation and looked up a few school. Went to school for 2 years and learned how to use AutoCAD and Revit and got my Associate's in Science Degree. I worked as a delivery driver and worked up to catering manager till about a year after I graduated and landed myself a drafting position at an Architectural firm. It has it ups and downs but I mostly enjoy it. The way I see it is I get to sit at a computer for 8 hrs and draw. My favorite is modeling building in Revit, which my firm is mostly switching to, but that is only about 20% of the work.
Chose a Finance degree because I didn’t know what I wanted to do and figured it would be nice to wear a suit and earn lots of money. Ended up doing mindless back-office stuff for banks (glorified data entry and admin) whilst getting paid very little money. Decided I would hate my life if this was all there was to it, so I looked for any job that would earn over 6 figures within five years of work. Got about 800 rejections over 18 months until I finally landed a job in management consulting. In hindsight, I’m glad I got into consulting. It’s exactly the opposite of the back-office stuff that bored me – lots of variety with different projects, lots of thinking, working on exciting and innovative stuff with huge companies, and much better salary prospects.
I always enjoyed school, reading, and learning. As a teenager I babysat a lot. Small children liked me, and I liked them. I worked in Summer Camp as a teenager too. Teaching was a natural fit. I've been in my field, ECE, over 25 years and I still enjoy going to work every day... lucky me.
I was in Chicago looking for a job in radar tech, but needed to pay bills so any job would do. Saw a now hiring sign at a shop. Walked in and was hired on the spot. Im rather tall and was told my wingspan could hold up a large sign for installation. Fell in love with the work, the history, constant challenges and solutions. I stuck with it, abandoned my schooling, and have done scenic work for Harry Potter at Universal, Disney parade floats, and worked on top stadiums. Love the travel and being outside. I get to see so many cool things on a daily basis.
It was only after my grandfather passed that I learned he too was a sign guy in his younger years. His father before him as well.
My dad has always insisted on careers that we could do without starving; he once had to give up his original career (archaeology) for computer science, because the country where we lived wouldn't have had any work for him. I grew up with that mindset, and I liked science and computers anyway. So as we went through the list, I narrowed it down to three possible options, and eventually one. I got a bachelor of science in computer information systems, and got an entry-level position at a health insurance company right out of college. I made the jump to their IT department after a year inside, and I've been doing reports, small programs, and BI ever since.
Through trial/error/luck: Wanted to work in advertising. I learned that ad agencies spend a lot of time kissing ass. I got fired. I worked in catering for a while. I got a job placing those stupid "Win a Free iPad" ads, then a job managing search ads on Google for yet another shady company. Got laid off 2x during the recession. I didn't think I'd like search marketing, but I love it and I'm really good at it. Little bits of experience added up into a career.
My dream job was game development, but it wasn't worth it with the long hours, low pay, and low job security, so when I got a job offer that let me use my programming skills and paid a lot, with reasonable hours, I was happy to overlook the fact that the work was boring.
Had some sort of videogame console since I can remember and knew that I wanted to make games just like the ones I played. I never wanted to do anything else. Tried my hand at programming in highschool, I hated it, so I took up art which eventually lead to me being a 3D Artist at a small gaming company.
I never said no to something I thought I could make money at. Ive sold knives, insurance, concert tickets, vacuum cleaners, ponchos I got for 5cents at concerts when it was raining, mutual funds, roofing, rocks, dirt, lining up contracts for parking lot painting and many other things. from this I eventually got offered a job at a record label and most recently I was offered a job as Executive VP of sales at a company that is going to go public with a screaming IPO. What career path did you end up choosing? Are you happy with your choice?
What is your favorite aspect of your job? What's your job? What's your favorite and least favorite thing about it?
Meat Dpt for a grocery store - learned how to deal with a diverse set of individuals/personalities and had responsibility, but not too much to overwhelm a HS/College student. They usually worked with a person around their schedule and asked how many hours they'd like to work each week, under 40, that wouldn't be exhausting. Worked with people of the same age for the most part and it was a job I could easily leave once ready, which was understood by management. Pays well for a HS/College job ($10-12 per hour). Easy work.
Jewelry saleswoman at a Jewelry store. I made $9/hour plus commission with pretty much no prior experience besides working at a clothing store. It was super easy once I got to know about the different types of jewelry, and I was making $12-$15/hour at the end of the day after commission. I also had a job once where I delivered equipment to classrooms like projectors since the school couldn't afford equipment for every classroom. It involved running around for about 20 minutes in between classes delivering all the equipment, then hanging around with my coworkers or doing homework for the hour or so while the classes were in session. I only made $8/hour, but I remember I was in great shape and totally content with my life.
I was a labourer on a construction site. The company was building a large subdivision. It was awesome because I worked with my best friend and my major responsibility was to clean up garbage. I also got to drive around in a huge backhoe. We took plenty of naps and called many "safety meetings," where everyone left much more stoned then they were before the meetings. Smoking weed at work is great, but the days that we brought a little whiskey or beers were the best. Getting krunk and walking around construction sites is the best.
I work at a vans retail store as a sales advisor and I really like the discount that we get for things. But I hate how everything is run. I only get to work 5 hours a week and we barley make enough money to be open as a store. On top of all that most of my coworkers are some of the most stuck up people
My least favourite is always toilets. They suck. People are so messy at times. And there’s nothing worse than a broken toilet when you’re trying to clean it, the seats moving side to side, or the blockage smelling bad, or like at the moment, the toilet we have at work which is quite literally spewing water everywhere and it stinks of sewage.
I'm 21. I haven't worked many places, but every place I have worked at has been horribly managed, horrible pay, horrible hours, just generally horrible. I need a job. I don't need to be making huge money, but not minimum wage would be great. I just want a job that doesn't make me want to kill myself. So, where have you worked that you liked? Did you think you would like it, or were you pleasantly surprised?
I used to work for an auction company with my dad. He and I would travel all over the Puget Sound appraising and picking up merchandise. We were always finding really interesting things. I got to drive all sorts of cars and heavy machinery. My bosses were really chill guys who would also publicly call out rude customers. I rarely had a bad day at that job. Plus, lifting furniture 4-5 days a week made me pretty buff. Theater projectionist. I used to bring my laptop to work and watch movies for 12 hours and get paid. Eventually, I started moving my entire room to my workplace. I brought my stereo and free weights and just did what I would do at home, at work and get paid for it. Every now and then, I would have to thread the movie into the projector and start the movie but that only took 2 minutes. Thursday nights were fun because we would swap out old movies with new movies so there would be breakdowns and build ups.
I loved it because it was challenging, and I never knew what was coming next. The people I talked to were always grateful, because they got to talk to a real live engineer who fixed their problem, and not some dude reading a script half way around the world. I hardly ever had to travel, unlike the project engineers in my department. Those guys, in turn, were thankful that they never had to be distracted by calls from customers.
For 1.5 yrs in 2011-12, I worked in a small computer shop run by a friend. I was the main hardware tech and I made less than $1000/mo, but god I LOVED that job. I got to do what I loved and I was salaried so I came & went as I pleased, and some days I didn't even go in at all cause I just plain didn't feel like it. It's really too bad that the place was so horribly mismanaged that they couldn't afford to pay me anymore, cause I'd still be there otherwise.
Spending time with my team, they are amazing people and I thoroughly enjoy spending time with them. It might be weird to say that of subordinates but they are way more fun than my CEO and COO.
That's been the case with pretty much everything. Played D1 football, and graduated in December. I sure as shit don't miss hot days at practice, and getting broke off all day, but I do miss hanging with the guys. Literally being in the lockeroom and talking shit to each other was the highlight of every day.
Working from home to do nothing but get distracted by my personal laptop, phone, tablet, refrigerator, stove, washing machine, dyer, dishwasher, toilet, weights.
