What is a good job?

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MagicEmperor
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What is a good job?

Post by MagicEmperor »

I am wondering what types of jobs would involve an office type of environment ? Any ideas guys I work pretty much work everyday haha just trying to find something 9 - 5 weekends off. I was getting my associates then I stopped. Trying to explore a little while I can yet. So if you have any ideas drop the through ! :)

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Re: What is a good job?

Post by Werefrog »

If you are interested in health care and enjoy working with people, I recommend a degree as occupational therapy assistant. The rate of growth is super high. Around here, I think most make about $22/hour right out of college. Which I think is pretty great for an associate's degree. You won't get EVERY weekend off. AND you may not work 9-5 everyday.

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Re: What is a good job?

Post by MagicEmperor »

I see that sounds interesting. Where are you located ? Health care is supposedly the place to be !

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Re: What is a good job?

Post by Werefrog »

I am located in rural Indiana. There are definitely some ups and downs in health care. It's a growing field. You get the opportunity to work with a lot of great people across the lifespan. The pay and benefits are usually pretty good. Downside is that there are really busy periods punctuated by slow periods. There have been weeks where I've had to use PTO to get a full 40 hours in. Healthcare jobs are generally a lot of time on your feet and require a good amount of lifting. They are also not as flexible as some other jobs.

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Re: What is a good job?

Post by MagicEmperor »

I see good to know man I appreciate the info!

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Re: What is a good job?

Post by phyco126 »

I work in IT now. Was in help desk for a short while before I was promoted. It's lots of meetings, doing work at your desk, and occasionally driving to client sites. All in all I love the job. My day starts around 8:30 and I get off work at 5pm. Because of the flexible nature at this job (and probably only here, I don't think most are this flexible), my day sometimes starts earlier (on my own accord) and ends much later. Depending on the hours I put in, I can take part of a day (or an entire day) off to make up for it.
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Re: What is a good job?

Post by MagicEmperor »

What kind of position is that? IT tech?

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Re: What is a good job?

Post by Kizyr »

What are you looking for? What do you want to do? What were you wanting to do 5-10 years ago and how has that changed? ...I mean there're a bunch of questions you can ask yourself to figure out what you're looking for. It's hard to suggest a particular job as a great job without knowing the person you're suggesting it to. (And of course there's the matter of having a way to actually get a specific job, via connections, experience, and background knowledge.)

Here are some things to consider...
  • Rather than 'desk job' vs all others, a more useful way to think about different jobs is the extent to which you can control your own schedule. Do you have to stay in a specific place for X hours (e.g., retail, sometimes secretary) or do you have flexibility for how you work or when you take breaks (e.g., research jobs, writing)? There's a lot of middle ground here, too, so there isn't a right answer, it's more about preference and opportunities open to you. Plus, the same type of job can become more and more flexible over time.
  • What are your constraints? You may need to stay in a particular area, or maybe because of physical conditions any physically demanding work is off-the-table. Or, maybe there's an absolute minimum you need to make to pay bills and loans.
  • Are you looking for a job, or something that'd be a career?
  • Would you rather have a secure and stable job that doesn't offer much room for advancement or trying out new things? Or, would you rather have a job that's regularly changing but that carries some risk? The tradeoff isn't always going to be there, but it's worth thinking about. And, there's nothing wrong with either.
  • How much free time do you want? Do you need?
Anyway, yeah, these are some things to consider. KF
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Re: What is a good job?

Post by phyco126 »

MagicEmperor wrote:What kind of position is that? IT tech?
I'm a Junior Network Administrator at a IT only company (we provide IT services to organizations who don't need or can't budget a dedicated IT department - or have one but can't justify additional staff or need to cut back on staff).
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Re: What is a good job?

Post by Zero »

You can work at a bank without any type of degree, even doing things beyond teller. That's a pretty sweet office job in my opinion.
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Re: What is a good job?

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Re: What is a good job?

Post by MagicEmperor »

That depends..

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Re: What is a good job?

Post by ShugoHanasaki »

Not to sound cliche...But I think a good job is whatever your interests are. A good job to one person could be a terrible job for you. Focus on your interests and what you like and hopefully that will lead you in the right direct towards a career that works for you ^_^
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Re: What is a good job?

Post by Kizyr »

There was a post that went a little viral on LinkedIn a short while back here:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/ur ... 6773385216

Honestly it *is* advice aimed at people who are middle-upper class, who have options. But it's good since it concretely shows that more benefits/money/prestige isn't the only measure of success. If you want a job/career that affords you a fulfilling work environment and lots of advancement, great! If you want a job/career that instead is less demanding but gives you enough free time to pursue other things you find fulfilling, also great!

The only thing is that you (a) can meet your survival needs, and (b) are determining your own definition of "success" instead of feeling like you need to pursue someone else's. KF
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Re: What is a good job?

Post by ParkerSam »

That's a great way of putting it. People should try both options if they're undecided, especially at younger age.

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Re: What is a good job?

Post by Aaron »

Network security (requires 10s of thousands in certificates)

Sales

Engineering

Accountant

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Re: What is a good job?

Post by Sonic# »

Regarding jobs, it's useful to keep in mind that any field will probably demand some hard skills and some soft skills, and hiring managers like that you have at least one of a few soft skills or qualities: communication, leadership, analysis, integrity, and responsibility. (Those are also useful for entrepreneurship.) Being able to write and think critically about qualitative evidence is why many engineers and scientists double-major or minor in English or a similar humanities field, and why liberal arts majors (humanities & scientists) can often track into higher-paying jobs after graduation. Similarly, anyone going into technical writing, marketing, design, or related fields benefits a lot from at least knowing statistics and being comfortable with math and computers.

In short, people looking at careers should consider not only what their present educational track is offering them but also what other skills will benefit them, and take steps to show that they're growing the skills (joining an organization, becoming a president or secretary of a group, taking extra courses in English or technical communication).

Source: I work with engineers on job materials - highlighting leadership and communication gets them more offers.
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Re: What is a good job?

Post by Imperial Knight »

Sonic# wrote:Regarding jobs, it's useful to keep in mind that any field will probably demand some hard skills and some soft skills, and hiring managers like that you have at least one of a few soft skills or qualities: communication, leadership, analysis, integrity, and responsibility. (Those are also useful for entrepreneurship.) Being able to write and think critically about qualitative evidence is why many engineers and scientists double-major or minor in English or a similar humanities field, and why liberal arts majors (humanities & scientists) can often track into higher-paying jobs after graduation. Similarly, anyone going into technical writing, marketing, design, or related fields benefits a lot from at least knowing statistics and being comfortable with math and computers.

In short, people looking at careers should consider not only what their present educational track is offering them but also what other skills will benefit them, and take steps to show that they're growing the skills (joining an organization, becoming a president or secretary of a group, taking extra courses in English or technical communication).

Source: I work with engineers on job materials - highlighting leadership and communication gets them more offers.
Agreed. This is an attitude I see a lot in STEM fields of "why should I have to take all these classes that have nothing to do with my major, I'm getting nothing out of them." No matter how well you know your chosen field, if you can't communicate what you know effectively, you're going to have a lot of trouble. Tunnel vision is a bad thing, and most people could benefit from broadening their horizons.

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Re: What is a good job?

Post by Kizyr »

Imperial Knight wrote:
Sonic# wrote:In short, people looking at careers should consider not only what their present educational track is offering them but also what other skills will benefit them, and take steps to show that they're growing the skills (joining an organization, becoming a president or secretary of a group, taking extra courses in English or technical communication).

Source: I work with engineers on job materials - highlighting leadership and communication gets them more offers.
Agreed. This is an attitude I see a lot in STEM fields of "why should I have to take all these classes that have nothing to do with my major, I'm getting nothing out of them." No matter how well you know your chosen field, if you can't communicate what you know effectively, you're going to have a lot of trouble. Tunnel vision is a bad thing, and most people could benefit from broadening their horizons.
The irritating thing is that it's sometimes incredibly hard to get this message across to hiring managers even within your own organization.

It's very easy to check off technical items (do they know Python? have they worked with AWS? are they certified in ***?), but harder for those soft skills (can they communicate with clients? can they learn and apply new things quickly? can they come up with new ideas instead of just applying what's been done before?). So, there're a lot of hiring managers or HR departments that use technical items to strictly filter out candidates and make soft skills an afterthought -- but it's the technical items you can learn most easily on-the-job and the soft skills that can take a longer time to master, if at all.

Silicon Valley's kind of going through that issue right now. I don't have time to find the links, but there've been studies examining what skills are most suited to success at the major tech firms, and it comes back as a familiarity with subjects in the humanities. But too many tech companies still prioritize STEM fields above all else. It's not unreasonable to change though -- over a decade ago I saw a similar move in med schools (many med schools prefer that if you're doing a pre-med program that you *not* major in something that easily goes along with it like biology, but rather something that'll expand your understanding beyond what you'll get out of the pre-med + med school path anyhow). KF
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Re: What is a good job?

Post by Imperial Knight »

I have never been involved in making a hiring decision, but the impression I get is that some employers want to do as little training of their hires as possible, so they think they're being efficient by simply making a laundry list of whatever technical skills they need and only considering candidates who check every box. This isn't universal of course. I've been hired on the basis of having most (but not all) of the technical skills needed and having the right soft skills to convince the hiring manager that I could pick up the rest as needed.

Currently I'm pursuing a Masters degree in Statistics due to a desire for a career change, and one thing I like about my program is that there's a strong emphasis on writing. I also find that having taken many social science classes beyond what was required as an undergrad gives me something of a leg up on my peers. Statistics is a field that definitely illustrates the need for soft skills along with technical skills. As important as it is to know various tests, models, software and the like, it's if anything more important to know how to interpret your results, what to do when your results are borderline/ambiguous (as is often the case with real world data sets) and all those messy subjective things that many technically-inclined types would just prefer didn't exist.

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