Quote: (05-09-2014 06:57 AM)djwaters420 Wrote:
My bad...the question is pretty vague.
I'm a lib arts grad...so after realizing my education is virtually worthless, I want to learn things that are attractive to the average employer. For example, I know Microsoft Office and adequate typing skills are universally required. Is there anything beyond that that you all would deem necessary to know?
Beyond general computer skills that allow you to use a PC without melting it and MS Office, nothing is universally required that I can think of. What software you learn depends on if you're working for someone else or offering personal services through your own business, and what type of work you're doing.
If you just want a generic office job, work temp jobs through an agency and build experience. Being there in person where you can ask questions and see how things are run will be a lot more help than asking us. You might find that you're like me, that being in a corporate office environment makes you want to suck start a 12 gauge. Better to know that before you sink time, energy, and maybe money into learning skills to land an office job.
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I also have an idea for a video blog with accompanying website. Key word is idea...I don't know much about the website creation process. For those with experience in these areas, how should I get started?
IMO you should start with a free blog through wordpress, host your videos on youtube and embed them in your blog, then after you have a decent following shift your website to a normal domain. I have never messed with youtube but hosting videos from your own server space will be expensive (lots of storage and bandwidth), so avoid that unless you have a huge viewership and it makes sense to get away from youtube.
Wordpress is simple to use. Sign up and put together a site from their templates; it takes like 10 minutes to get a blog up and running. The hard part is drawing a readership, so you have to market yourself. I don't have much advice there; the last time I cared about developing a blog readership was like 10 years ago and I'm sure things have changed a lot.
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Are you dead set on working white collar? There are plenty of labor shortages in the trades... if I wasn't determined to start my own business, I'd probably become a machinist. From what I hear, skilled machinists are getting rarer every year. It's highly skilled, very well paid work. Welding is another option, especially pipe welding with the all the oil jobs right now. Sign on with a drilling company, work your way up to driller in a few years and make $150k a year. There are lots of opportunities if you don't mind getting dirty, and I think a smart and skilled tradesman has better chances of making low six figures than most people in tech.
Also, sit down and figure out what marketable skills you have right now. You might be surprised. Think outside the box, figure out what people might be willing to pay you to do. If you do have marketable skills, your success will come down to your professionalism and ability to market yourself to your clients. There are plenty of extremely talented people out there who are making no money because they don't know how to sell themselves, or because they don't know how to behave professionally.
Don't think you have to do just one thing to bring in money. Maybe you can't build a single business on one skill because the market isn't there, but you can do two or three different things to pay the bills. In my case, ignoring what I'm actually doing for my business, I could probably live comfortably by tutoring college and HS kids (SAT/ACT, math, chem, geology, intro physics), giving private cello lessons, teaching basic gun safety or CCW courses, and doing handyman type jobs. I have lots of skills, I'm very good with my hands, and I enjoy teaching (and I'm actually good at it which is rare). All I'd have to do is get out there, build up my client base, and not fuck it up by being unprofessional. I wouldn't get rich, but it would be a lot better than working at McDonalds. In my spare time I could work on other ideas to make money.
Look up Beyond Borders' posts about freelance writing, there's a lot of gold in those threads that applies to more than just his specific niche.
My point with all this is don't think you have to do the regular college => office job type routine to be successful. Maybe that's what you'll do, but do that because you WANT to, not because you feel like you have to.
