Accurate. I didn’t begin building an actual career until mid-30s. Before that it was “unskilled” (term used loosely) labor and service.
Comment on Anon is 23
phar@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I mean…when I was 23 I worked shit jobs for a while too until I found an industry I liked. Now I have a good job. But it takes years, they don’t just hand it to you when you graduate undergrad.
It would be nice if the lower end jobs paid better, that’s the bigger issue. Pay people fair wages.
wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 1 day ago
Eq0@literature.cafe 1 day ago
I’m in my mid-30s. When I was 23 I had a master degree and got offered 2 positions that I hadn’t even applied to - both starting positions with good pay in my chosen field. When my boss was 23 he got offered a professor position at a good uni because he happened to share an office with the guy they were hoping to hire, so they hired him as well (?!). In my parents life time, neither applied to a job and got rejected.
Times have changed drastically, even from just 10 years ago.
Fishy@lemmy.world 1 day ago
So it’s possible for both things to be true.
You (and me) had it hard when 23 and harder compared to the boomers (I had to do shitty unpaid internships to get ahead (on top of work not in my industry to service) which was a huge gamble looking back). But 10-15 years have passed and it’s even harder now and I couldn’t recommend that pathway to younger people — cause if they’d do an internship, they won’t get recruited.
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
What would you recommend now? I’m essentially a copy of OP, down to being 23. I think it must be 23-syndrome
Fishy@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
I’m tenured in academia—I can only really talk about life here and funding models vary between countries.
I’d only advise people to do anything like an internship (but preferably you do it as part of your degree) with someone who has or is likely to get funding for a PhD student.
So to try and generalise this, my advice would be talk to people who are considered sound within the industry and get advice about what opportunities exist.
OwOarchist@pawb.social 1 day ago
Yeah, the Boomers give the typical Boomer advice of “just walk in and give the manager a firm handshake” … because for them, in their time, that actually worked.
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 16 hours ago
To be fair, being able to make a good impression to the boss will help you even today. It won’t guarantee a job, but you can make sure your resume at least gets seen by a human.