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Need a Plan.
#26

Need a Plan.

No, don't take more classes, especially if it is going to cost you money. Invest that money in building yourself strategically crafted work experience through an internship. To be honest I don't like a lot of those internships that I posted because it directly contradicts my philosophy of career leapfrogging. Even if an internship is paid, 90 percent of the time it isn't even enough to cover your rent. Moreover, the work experience is crafted to benefit their immediate needs, and not to develop skills you will need in your next job. Thus, it makes more sense to use the internship as a springboard to make yourself very attractive to employers down the road.

Recruiters are expecting you to be able to paint the Mona Lisa, even though all the training/experience you've had in your internships was scrawling on the sidewalk with a piece of chalk. To demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that you can create a masterpiece, you are going to have to find your own canvas and paints to work with.

An employer sizing you up for a position will think something like this:

"I need this guy to be able to work independently, work well with others, know how to build a spreadsheet and a powerpoint presentation.....it would help if he could do some sales too."

You should learn in advance EXACTLY what the employer is going to want to see on your resume. Not a general picture of who you are - WORD FOR WORD, BULLET POINT BY BULLET POINT the PRECISE candidate he wants.

He wants leadership, teamwork, microsoft office, and sales? You design a project for your current internship that looks like this:

XYZ CONSULTING, SHANGHAI OFFICE - JUNE 2011 - DEC 2011
INTERN PROJECT MANAGER


- Independently tutored senior members of the company in English language skills, empowering coworkers to function in an international environment (PROVEN LEADERSHIP/TEAMWORK EXPERIENCE)

- Created a business plan for the company to enter a strategic new market and presented to senior management, enabling the company to forge a long term competitive strategy (PROVEN TEAMWORK, MICROSOFT OFFICE SKILLS)

- Independently sourced and interviewed potential clients, increasing the company's client base by 20 percent and sales by 10 percent in the third quarter (PROVEN AND QUANTIFIED SALES EXPERIENCE)

Usually getting those three bullet points would take 1-2 years to achieve, because the opportunity to accomplish those things is directly dependent on whether or not you are given those sexy projects. Instead of waiting for that to happen, create all your own sexy projects, volunteer to do them for free as an intern, then cram two years of work experience into 6-12 months while doing other shit like building your own business or learning a foreign language. You don't even have to work full time for them.

People work aimlesly for 1-2 years, hoping that what they are currently doing will help them in the long run. It won't. Design your own career path by hacking your work tasks. By having control of what you do at work, you can directly alter colleagues' and future employers' perceptions of what you are capable of.

I haven't even gotten into hacking human resources, strategic networking, social media strategies, outsourcing, and the dozens of other hacks I've designed up to this point. This is the tip of the iceberg.

That's why I'm making this product. I'm starting with China specifically but will transition into a different product later on about career hacking. If any of you are interested in this topic, please let me know, as I have been looking around for interest from my target market and the kinds of things they might want from such a product.
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#27

Need a Plan.

Is a college degree necessary for any of this advice to work?

I plan on dropping out of college at the end of this semester (this being my 4th) without enough credits for an AA.
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#28

Need a Plan.

It certainly doesn't help to not have a BA. Even down the road you will continuously be judged for not having a BA.

I don't think this would work for someone without a BA, although I'm sure there are college dropouts out there who have done this successfully.

If you're going to drop out of school you should try to build a business, not climb the career ladder. Without a BA you aren't going to get far. The degree is a prerequisite to even get into the running for a lot of these positions.

My two cents. I could be wrong, since I've never tried doing this without a BA.

One thing you could do is put your college education on hold instead of fully dropping out and take a shot at this. If it works, great. If not, you still have the BA to fall back on.
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#29

Need a Plan.

I'm pursuing a music education outside the standard schooling system -- the only reason I'd teach elsewhere is for travel experience.
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#30

Need a Plan.

Quote: (04-13-2011 06:20 PM)Docter Wrote:  

Is a college degree necessary for any of this advice to work?

I plan on dropping out of college at the end of this semester (this being my 4th) without enough credits for an AA.

I wouldn't encourage anyone to go to college unless they had a set career plan which required a BA. It takes a good deal of discipline to stay focused while surrounded by college slackers and the debt from school is a major burden. The only thing I've been interested in doing that requires a BA is teaching English abroad. Most of my job rejections have been due to lack of experience, not education.

A lot of people have become very successful without formal education. Search YouTube for "Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address".
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#31

Need a Plan.

To be successful in business you don't need a formal education.

To be successful in the working world you do.

For most people, the working world will be their ticket to having any kind of life at all.

Most people aren't Steve jobs, and have no chance of ever being him. I think that using examples such as him and his organization, while popular to do, is a disservice to young guys.

Eventually cold hard reality is unavoidable, but I know a lot of guys who think that coming out with the next great iphone app is a career path and are wasting years trying to hustle along those lines.

The trick is figuring out where the jobs are in this new/transitioning economy, and figuring out how to make money in a world that is dead set on eliminating the middle class. To figure all of this out is very difficult.

Because there is less opportunity in the average job than ever before, guys become entrepreneurial / business zealots because they believe that 'making it' is the only way to a decent life. However, they usually don't take into account a 30-40 year career arc. (For example, wasting 3 years on an web app that will make money for a few years but have an overall short lifespan is a bad career decision)

In one sense they are right, and in another they aren't. It is difficult to become upper middle class in a career any more, but at the same time making it in business is a very high risk low probability proposition. That means that a higher percentage of people will fail than succeed.

Having business opportunity is a great thing, but needing to be successful in business to have any kind of life is no way to create a foundation for a society. Decimating the middle class for the sake of business interests is what creates such a society. Especially in an age where the population is so large and fast growing.

In the new economy wherein labor rights are severely eroded and the middle class is diminished (partly due to the political influence of lower class business zealots who will never make it and are just voting against their own self interests), government jobs will be the best to have. Police/ military jobs will always be the least in jeopardy, because the police provide the muscle to guard the interests of the upper class, and other safety critical jobs are the next safest. But, in general, especially in a highly inflationary economy, those closest to the people printing money (government) will be the most secure.

I'm not saying don't have your business projects. For me, they keep life interesting. Its sort of like buying a lottery ticket for a lottery that I can partly control the outcome of, and in which winning is much higher probability than an actual lottery. Business ventures are fun and exciting. But a guy needs to hedge his bets with something more stable at the same time.
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#32

Need a Plan.

Quote: (04-17-2011 12:29 PM)hydrogonian Wrote:  

(For example, wasting 3 years on an web app that will make money for a few years but have an overall short lifespan is a bad career decision)

I wouldn't consider that a waste. It's naive to think that your first web app is going to be something to live off of, but app creation is a growing field and gaining experience in it is valuable. If it's something you love, even better.
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#33

Need a Plan.

Quote: (04-17-2011 05:25 PM)CupCake Wrote:  

I wouldn't consider that a waste. It's naive to think that your first web app is going to be something to live off of, but app creation is a growing field and gaining experience in it is valuable. If it's something you love, even better.

Your perspective is common.

We have different perspectives.
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#34

Need a Plan.

Quote:Quote:

I'm 27 years old ... 6 years out of college ... with a ... "bullshit degree" ... wandering from menial job to menial job, barely making ends meet and unable to pay my hefty student loans.

I suddenly got lucky ... working overnight in a 24-hour grocery store.

[S]uccessful 20-somethings ... knew their path early on or decided to "pay their dues" in a shit job and eventually come to make decent money after climbing the ladder.

This is a slow-motion train wreck. I hate to criticize the poster for immaturity, but this is awful and common. Too many students waste time and money on college with no plan or motivation. They build no job skills and let the taxpayer absorb the cost. Presumably this guy could have found a night shift grocery store job out of high school.

This wasn't a concious plan. The poster isn't proud, doesn't have a rich family to support him, and is unhappy with the outcome. But it's bad all around.

How can we prevent this? Maybe I just came from a shitty family and had to get the f*ck out.
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#35

Need a Plan.

I'm in a similar boat. I majored in mechanical engineering, but never had much luck finding a job with that. I think having a "bullshit degree" is not so much the problem as getting your foot in the door somewhere. That's the difficult thing. You don't learn much of value in an engineering program either, trust me. After finishing a master's in engineering I went to China and studied Chinese, and did some tutoring on the side. That was fun, but also worthless as far as career advancement. I sponged off my parents the entire time, so at least I am not buried in debt. After China I was living at home for a while, and did menial tasks for my parents' business.

Over the last six months, I've been trying to start an online information product business (with a business partner who had expertise that we made into a product). We do some sales, but I doubt the business will ever make enough money to justify the amount of time and effort we spent on it. Honestly, the info product thing isn't easy. We are in a large, underserved, and desperate niche, and we have objectively the best product in that niche, and it's still pretty difficult to make much money.

I'm looking into either doing some math tutoring or going back to China to teach English since I don't really have a lot of other options.
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#36

Need a Plan.

Irminsul PM me if you want help breaking into a China career.
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#37

Need a Plan.

Quote: (04-20-2011 12:43 PM)Irminsul Wrote:  

I'm in a similar boat. I majored in mechanical engineering, but never had much luck finding a job with that. I think having a "bullshit degree" is not so much the problem as getting your foot in the door somewhere. That's the difficult thing.

I'd second that. I have two "bullshit degrees" but when I look around the most deciding factor is contacts - not your education, even though the ones who studied something boring but useful have gotten jobs more easily than the ones who studied something interesting but "useless". Some people have gotten great jobs without even having a degree (through contacts). One thing I like about YMG's blueprint is that would allow one to get useful social contacts.

Ive seen some other threads about chosing a a career you love or a carreer with job security. According to Steve Jobs, one should do what one loves and it will bring success down the road, even though you don't connect the dots immediately and this is something I believe in. Though studying something "boring" is definately better if one wants to get a solid job as fast as possible. Then, however, the risk would be to get stuck in the rat race which I kind of see some of my friends being. Maybe doing a llittle of both while working on social contacts is the answer. Go figure.

Mechanical engineering especially in China though I would have thought was a solid career choice.
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#38

Need a Plan.

Quote: (04-17-2011 12:29 PM)hydrogonian Wrote:  

The trick is figuring out where the jobs are in this new/transitioning economy, and figuring out how to make money in a world that is dead set on eliminating the middle class. To figure all of this out is very difficult.

Hydro, you have articulated my views exactly in your entire post - couldn't agree more with pretty much everything. I, too, know a few guys (actually, a scary amount given how many friends I have in total) who are dead set on developing some iphone apps.

Anyway, I'm interested in continuing/elaborating on the topic of middle class erosion and the job sectors that survive.

It seems that as many industries consolidate and only the largest corps/multinationals survive, the smaller service companies (ad agencies, for example) that survive will be the ones directly servicing those corporations. It will be interesting to see if the consumers diverge into two normal distributions (income), and new entrants will have to pick to see which curve they position their products towards. Perhaps we have to look at countries where there is NO middle class to speak of (high inequality coefficient) to see what works.
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#39

Need a Plan.

I've been working with someone who is actively testing the system that I made for career hacking in foreign countries. This particular candidate is in Beijing. I've been working with him for about a week and he has secured three internship interviews with 3 of the top 10 marketing and advertising companies in the industry.

This has been going way smoother and more successfully than I expected. I assumed that my test subject would be unable to come up with the correct means of handling himself competently in an independent scenario (cold calling prospective employers) but so far it's been amazing. Out of seven companies he called he got three interviews. The entire process took about half an hour of work.

Unbelievable.

I'm going to move him on to the next stage now, where he will design his independent project and smoothly propose his project in his interviews. If that goes well and he starts working, then the next point is strategic networking, reference eliciting, and infiltration of competitor companies.
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#40

Need a Plan.

Quote: (04-17-2011 12:29 PM)hydrogonian Wrote:  

world that is dead set on eliminating the middle class ...
It is difficult to become upper middle class in a career any more

No way. Real wages of U.S. high school graduates peaked around 1970. But wages of educated workers have increased. Salary information is easily available on the internet. Based on this, you can eliminate law school, pilots, and other "sexy" professions in favor of computer and medical fields. It's like going to a bar with 60% attractive women - it helps the odds tremendously.

Job hunting is like game, there is a basic set of skills.

Story - When a plant had no jobs, my friend's father kept showing up early every day anyway. After a few weeks they figured he was reliable and hired him.

Story - My department was idled and about to be eliminated. Out of boredom and curiosity, I talked with peers and created a small project in a related department. I nearly got an offer in that department before choosing another.

Story - My dry cleaner's son applied for a job. He was the only one out of fifty wearing a tie. He was also the only on who got an offer.

The point is that if you have initiative and put yourself in the right working positions, then opportunities will open. Youngmobileglobal's intern strategy sounds quite credible.
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#41

Need a Plan.

Quote: (04-19-2011 09:15 AM)kimleebj Wrote:  

This is a slow-motion train wreck. I hate to criticize the poster for immaturity, but this is awful and common. Too many students waste time and money on college with no plan or motivation. They build no job skills and let the taxpayer absorb the cost. Presumably this guy could have found a night shift grocery store job out of high school.

This wasn't a concious plan. The poster isn't proud, doesn't have a rich family to support him, and is unhappy with the outcome. But it's bad all around.

How can we prevent this? Maybe I just came from a shitty family and had to get the f*ck out.

I agree here. How the hell can we stop this from happening? As long as colleges and other educational institutions are making good money, they're not going to turn away potential students. These facilities need to start having mandatory life-planning courses, to keep students on track.

Course, you could be like me: get a bachelor's, work in the auto-industry, have the rug yanked from underneath you and stumble into all sorts of crazy situations.
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#42

Need a Plan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/busine...xpats.html

One of my friends is featured in this article. When I met him in 2006 he had nothing to his name, no work experience, and no Mandarin.

Instead of competing with lots of well qualified people in America, find a country you like where you know you will have some sort of competitive advantage off the bat. Even if you don't have a competitive advantage, in many emerging markets there are so many opportunities that you really just have to show up and keep networking before you make it happen.

This is the same reason we go abroad to hook up with chicks - higher quality opportunities with less investment, headaches, and "paying dues."

Globalize your life and career. Corporations are already doing it for you, so you might as well go to where the opportunities are.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

-George Bernard Shaw

Stop fighting a losing battle in the US. If you are in your late twenties and your best work experience is working in a grocery store, you do not have a bright future here. Go somewhere where you have value simply by being a Caucasian male with a Bachelors, which to be brutally honest is the only thing professionally you have going for you. The good news is that being a Caucasian male with a BA is actually all you need in many emerging markets to launch your career there.

Case in point: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arch...-guy/8119/

You can cram 10 years of career experience and development in to 4-6 years because opportunities will come at you twice as quickly in these markets, especially if you can identify them as they are slowly coming to the surface. Simultaneously your romantic options will be significantly greater.

Stop fixing what is broken here. Start with a clean slate somewhere else and build your empire on strong foundations. It is always more effective to improve strengths than to try to make your weaknesses merely mediocre.

1. Choose high growth destination you can feel comfortable expatriating to for at least 2 years

2. Calculate living expenses for 6 months and save up money

3. Get a 6 month visa (student), set up internship arrangements with companies you feel might be interesting

4. Negotiate a working arrangement with them where you do basic office work as ordered by your superiors while conducting some independent work in your area of interest

5. Aggressively network with other professionals and find a back door into a full time career

I've seen this done successfully too many times to accept that it doesn't work. I think your current rut, or the rut for anyone in your situation, is that you have been seeing repeated failure in your life due to lack of motivation, lack of goals/vision, and lack of opportunities.

That's my suggestion for your plan and it's been tested to near perfection.
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#43

Need a Plan.

Quote: (04-07-2011 12:10 AM)CupCake Wrote:  

I don't even know where to start. I'll just lay it all out.

I skipped the replies so that my answer will be unbiased.

6 years out of college and still nothing tells me that you need you need an an attitude shift. Listen, you studied philosophy right? Take this: your reality is your perception of reality.

I'm not going to give you precise steps to get out of the rut. I know it will all fail if you do not fix your main mental programming. Your main programming are your values. You must develop the internal thought mechanism that gets you up and going. The constant positive chatter that motivates your body to perform it's actions.

You must develop a winning mindset.

No amount of strategy, career planning, future planning, hard work will help you if you fail to beet the minimum requirement. The root of success, which is, as I said, a winning mindset.
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#44

Need a Plan.

Now on to specifics. You have a grocery job. That's great. That means you are exposed to business, and that you have income. You might be making $10 an hour, for example. With a monthly take home pay a little over $1,000. After expenses, you should be netting or able to save around $300. That is something.

If I were in grocery, with little administration, what would I do?

- I would use the time to study. I would scribble in my hand some notes and work in my head while I stock boxes.
- I would have flashcards of foreign words to juggle in my head.
- I would take notes of the products. I would apply for jobs with those products.
- I would study the shit of the operations, make recommendations then submit it to the boss or to the boss's boss.
- I would make friends with the customers, use it as a platform to network.
- Who are the suppliers? Those fuckers are my little duckies too.
- Who is in the HR? Who signs your checks? How is the organization set-up? How can I leverage myself to score internal postings?
- I would use the stability to work on myself.

There are countless ways to use what you currently have to leverage your way out of it. Nobody teaches you this in school. You sort of need to figure it out. Listen to young money global and take his advise as it will speed up the process.

In my case, I work insane hours as I work even when I am not at work. I am constantly refining my skills, my networks, my plans, my duckies. I have excel sheets where I log my time spent, my goals, which I then review at the end of the month. Tonight, I go out for a yuppie "salsa" event, but you know what.. I'm not going there for salsa (although I am pro already), I am there to get some leads so that maybe one day I can get this shit together for a final departure. I'm 26, you're 27, now is the time to be hustling.

All the best.
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#45

Need a Plan.

Quote: (04-23-2011 05:52 PM)manilaguy Wrote:  

- I would use the time to study.
- I would have flashcards of foreign words to juggle in my head.
- I would apply for jobs ... .
- I would study the shit of the operations, ... .
- I would ... network.
...
- I would use the stability to work on myself.

Maybe ...
- I would goof off at work and smoke cigarettes in the back.
- I would grumble about how the manager is a hard-ass.
- I would feel superior to other employees because I have a degree.
- I would be jealous of a cooperative employee who got a raise.
- I would go home and play video games.
- I would wonder why my life doesn't improve.
- I would fear becoming a lifelong loser.
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#46

Need a Plan.

Cupcake and anyone looking for a career change where you'd have a real international juicy lucrative career, get in touch with YMG. This guy knows his stuff and will provide you a fresh new perspective on what's possible out there in the real world, outside of North America.
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#47

Need a Plan.

Thanks for all the reps, VP.

Yeah, I'd love to help motivated people out, even if it's not China specific.

Manilaguy's advice is a prerequisite to all of my action plans. If someone does not have confidence, determination, and a clear vision of what he is going to accomplish, then very little of this works.

This is not a plan for the faint-of-heart. You have to quickly adapt yourself to a foreign environment, be able to handle rejection, and be able to act professionally and independently. In many ways it is like learning how to do direct day game for the first time and not having a wingman.

The risk is certainly present, but fortune favors the bold.
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#48

Need a Plan.

Quote: (04-24-2011 03:49 PM)kimleebj Wrote:  

Maybe ...
- I would goof off at work and smoke cigarettes in the back.
- I would grumble about how the manager is a hard-ass.
- I would feel superior to other employees because I have a degree.
- I would be jealous of a cooperative employee who got a raise.
- I would go home and play video games.
- I would wonder why my life doesn't improve.
- I would fear becoming a lifelong loser.

Heh, you're too much of a realist Kim. However, having been in that situation before, I can tell you that's exactly how I felt.
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