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Career Advice for the College Grad?

By Rick Ackerman Posted on April 13, 2015, 12:01 am EDT Last Updated April 12, 2015, 6:52 pm EDT

In a month, my son will graduate college with an English degree and a teaching certificate. He plans to travel to South Korea in the fall, where entry-level jobs for kids with his qualifications are plentiful. I graduated with a degree in English myself, but that was in 1971, when students with arts and humanities degrees didn’t have to go all the way to Asia in search of employment. I found work as a reporter with my hometown newspaper, The Atlantic City Press, a week after graduating. Although I’d planned to stay just for the summer, I wound up working in journalism for seven years, until the lure of the options floor in San Francisco proved too tempting to resist. Interesting, well-paying jobs were plentiful back then, and even students with degrees in English, art history, psychology or philosophy were not anxious about finding work.

A Glut of Humanities Majors

These days, however, good jobs for college graduates are scarce, and unless you have a degree in math or the hard sciences, you’re likely to find yourself doing work that is unrelated to your educational background and training. Even so, students continue to flock to humanities departments, mainly because the curriculum is far less challenging than math, engineering, accounting, organic chemistry and computer science, where the best opportunities are. The point was driven home when I hired a high school classmate of my son’s to do some development work on my web site. I’ve been paying him $100 an hour – a relative bargain, I’m told, because he can complete a project quickly and without glitches.

In times past, career advice usually boiled down to the old adage, do what you love. Unfortunately, the current crop of graduates can’t afford to be so choosy, especially if they have student loans to pay off and the oft-exorbitant expenses of living in big cities where jobs are most plentiful. But if your son or daughter were graduating this spring with a humanities degree, what career advice would you give him or her? Personally, I am far less concerned about career opportunities for my younger son, who has a high school degree and recently went to work at an auto shop that does collision work. My older son will find his way, I am sure – he has worked as a wilderness guide and will spend his last “free” summer as the activities director of a YMCA camp – but opportunities will not come so serendipitously as they did when I graduated from college more than 40 years ago.

  • Jackson April 16, 2015, 5:03 am

    Times change. This decade is different from the last and the next will be different from this one.

    But still life goes on. My parents speak of the good old days. When I am old I will speak of them too. When my children are old and gray they will do the same. Times change.

  • Stephen G April 15, 2015, 11:46 pm

    No matter what advice you give him and what path he takes, he’ll still wake up one day at age 35 and wish he had a do-over of his 20s, just like the rest of us.

  • Oregon April 13, 2015, 4:37 am

    I hope the classmate of your son is fun to be around, at $100/hr. I think I prefer the old site, but I never graduated from anywhere.

    My advice for your college grad is…
    ALWAYS do your best, you are being judged. And even if the job you have currently is not where you hope to be, the experiences and relationships will help in the future. It is much easier to get a bad rep. than a good one.

    When I look for employees I am looking for hard work, self discipline, and moxie. Anticipation, effort and follow through is perhaps the best way for me to put it.

    Keep your nose clean, your powder dry, and enjoy the ride ’cause it goes by fast…

    Good Luck!

  • wayne siggard April 13, 2015, 4:15 am

    I had a full ride undergraduate and graduated in comparative literature (French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese). I then went to UCLA law. I detest the legal system. I have practiced law, done private placements, and specialized in project financing of alternative energy projects,until I started designing and building mansions. That is the love of my life. My wife is also a college graduate. But I only have one of my five children who graduated from college. She graduated in animal sciences, but is a professional photographer. One son started working in sales at a liquid vitamin company while taking night classes. In five years he became (and still is) the CEO – no degree. Another daughter needs only to do student teaching for her degree, but married at 18, and he is now a doctor, so she doesn’t need to work. Another son is going to night school while he works at a major bank. He keeps moving up the ladder in measured steps.
    My last son barely graduated high school, but started working with a guy doing insurance and benefit sales. He was never paid what he was told he would be, or what he was told he would be; BUT the guy was an incredible salesman, and my son learned. At 18 he went to work at Godaddy, and was soon earning twice what graduating college students were getting.
    The genius MBAs at KKR soon started firing all the best performers because they could hire new college graduates for less than half what these high school grads were making. You can see how well that worked out, because their clients left with them. He took an interim job with Esurance where he became one of the top salesman in the company within one month. Meanwhile, he was looking for another job in an IT firm. He was told they couldn’t hire him because he didn’t have a degree. Finally, someone he had known at Godaddy convinced the firm that his 6 years experience were worth a degree. He got hired, and again, within one month, he was doing at least double what the new college graduates were doing, and ended up as a mentor to the college grads – movin’ on up.
    Bottom line – A college degree might get you into the interview easier, but it’s not worth squat in the real world. If you are smart and willing to work your butt off, it is better to make 200,000-400,000 in four years and have no debt. If you can get into a good position without the degree, how you perform is all that matters until you try to get a high management position, and even then, performance on the job is worth a lot more than a degree.

  • John Jay April 13, 2015, 2:58 am

    Your sons all have one great advantage on their side, and that is Time.
    So, number one, tell them not to waste it.
    Time is going to pass, and as it does, they need to be sure that they accomplish something to better themselves.

    The first thing I would do is to embark on a recon mission and visit all the popular job websites to see what skills are in high demand and are paying the most.
    And I would pay special attention to the Federal Government jobs website, that is the Holy Grail if you plan to work for someone else.
    Air Traffic Controllers make a lot of money, and at a small regional airport, probably low stress involved.

    Next I would make a hobby of acquiring job skills.
    If you take advantage of what in California is called Regional Occupational Vocation programs, you can get a Class A license, learn auto mechanics, plumbing, carpentry, electrical work and other skills for very little money.
    Or accounting, nursing, computer skills, whatever is a good fit for you.
    For example, good farriers out here can command $200 to shoe a horse, but you have to be very good, and it takes time to get that experience.
    If you good at it, your phone will be ringing off the hook.

    You can see what you like to do, make some friends that might get you job leads, and, make you more self sufficient in life.
    If they start out now in their 20’s, by the time they are 30, they should be well supplied with options to make a living and not be at the mercy of anyone.

    I have friend that was chipping away at law school for years and at 65 passed the Bar.
    He is now in his early eighties and makes good money working part time. and he enjoys himself immensely.

    Never stop learning.
    I am having major work done on my old 300 ZX and working with my mechanic friend I was amazed at what I have learned.
    Nissan wants $500 for a new distributor, after market ones go for $250.
    Well, I went to the junkyard, and tore a few apart and guess what?
    There is nothing in there but the Cam Angle Sensor, and a new one is $100 and takes 10 minutes to install without removing the distributor.
    Oh, and Nissan does not sell that part, only the entire distributor!

    So, anyway, my advice to your sons is to accomplish something that improves their job skills as time passes, because the days of walking to work to your job at Remington Arms for 45 years as my late uncle Cliff did are gone forever.
    Never Stop Learning!

  • PhotoRadarScam April 13, 2015, 2:37 am

    I would tell him to use the first 5 years or so gaining experience to use on the resume later. The kind of experience that doesn’t pay well, because you once you’re 30 most people generally can’t afford to get the low-paying entry-level work, internships, and apprenticeships required to start new career paths (because at this time you might have a family or mortgage).
    Companies don’t seem to be willing to train as much as they used to (unless your foreign and cheap), so try to gain the relevant experience when he’s young and where he can get it.

  • Steve DeMotts April 13, 2015, 1:36 am

    You are right, and this situation has been coming for many years. I knew a man who had a degree in psychology and worked in a carpet store. He returned to college and received a masters degree in psychology. His best offer for employment was the same carpet store he had left. Unfortunately American students seem unable to handle math, computer science, or any of the other hard sciences which the Asian, Indian, and Middle East students excel. They have been trained from an early age to study hard the subjects at which the American students fail…and they receive the jobs that are well-paying. It will only get worse unless American students understand that no company requires or even wants a new hire with a degree in African studies, history, or all the other useless degrees that have no value in the new economy totally dependent on cross border trade in bits and bytes.


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