The Permanent Career

[pplooker]

I'm being cute and facetious with the title.  I'll admit upfront this is somewhat related to one of the PP concepts, but it's also me venting a little frustration.

One of Harry Browne's tenants, and one that I think stands on its own regardless of whether an individual chooses to use his Permanent Portfolio or not, is that your wealth really does come from your career.  The trouble I have is I can't seem to find a career that generates much wealth.

I'd like to think I am not an idiot, well perhaps mostly an idiot, but not a complete idiot, let's put it that way.  I shoot for at least a "harmless idiot".

On paper I do a lot of things correctly.  I have an undergraduate degree in a hard science, and am finishing up a Master's of Professional Accoutancy.  I have years of experience managing difficult people in difficult situations, doing complex tasks independently, using IT, I have experience in the fields I have degrees in, and I have plenty of experience ripping out old carpet and loading concrete into trailers too.  You get the idea I'm not here to post up my resume.

Sure every once in a while I get a little nibble that opportunity awaits.  I presented one of my papers in a conference in 2009, and the same paper was the centerpiece for a discussion seminar on the opposite coast in 2010.  I interview with companies who tell me how great I am (KPMG among them, interestingly enough, but they wanted me to commute 8 hours a day from where I am finishing my degree to their tax office).

But it never gets me anywhere.  I never get offers.  I can't seem to ever actually make more than just above minimum wage.

I am curious to hear how people who have been at it longer than I have, have overcome these problems.  From what I've gleamed, most of you are completely isolated from the problems of the economy or industry.  There's just got to be a way to make a reasonable wage with above average qualifications and abilities that isn't dependent on a prosperous economy.  I'm just physically and emotionally at a low place right now, realizing all my efforts are going to naught.

I hope my next career will be a better one.  I have a sinking feeling if I can't latch onto the accounting field withon 1 year of graduation, I never will.

[MediumTex]

Learn how to sell.  Once you learn how to sell, the world will be your oyster.  HB wrote a book about sales that is great.  Most people avoid sales--those who seek it out instantly separate themselves from others.

Talk to people as a peer, no matter who they are. 

Understand the entire business you want to get involved in, and pinpoint where the revenue comes from and position yourself as close to that revenue source as possible.

Study leadership to pick up many intangible traits that people look for.

Study acting for ways of filling roles more effectively.

Study yoga for ways of relaxing the mind and body to perform well under stress.

When looking for the perfect mental posture to take into any situation, I suggest that you cultivate a sense of humility, skepticism and deep belief in your own abilities.  Conveying these traits to others in subtle ways often creates good interactions.

Talk to people in terms of what they want, not what you want. 

Most people are more insecure than you would think.  Practice picking up on these insecurities, and then being sensitive to them.  If people feel like you can see into them and you accept them without judging them, they will often be more generous with you.

Never act like you are looking for a job.  Act like you are a free agent who happens to be on the market right now, and you would possibly be interested in showcasing your skills in a prospective employer's shop.

Be decisive.  Be confident.  Convey authority.  Dress well.

I hope some of that is helpful to you.

[AdamA]

From what I've gleamed, most of you are completely isolated from the problems of the economy or industry.  

I don't think anyone can be completely isolated from these problems.  I think successful people position themselves to ride out the tough times with limited damage.

From what I can tell, you have some good skills that should be marketable (IT and accounting).  

Here is some advice (albeit, a bit generic).

1.  Do not take on any additional debt to further your career/education unless you are certain it will pay off.  It's one thing to learn a trade or get a professional degree/license, and another to to wallpaper your bedroom wall with useless diplomas.  It seems to me like you already have marketable skills, you just need to find a way to market them (see MT's response).

2.  When hiring someone, personality matters most.  An employer is much more likely to hire someone he can communicate with than someone who is very qualified on paper but lacks personal skills.  When I'm in the position to hire someone, I want someone who is trainable (not neccessarily already an expert) and, most important, knows how to respond to constructive critism without becoming defensive.  

3.  If you can afford it, take an entry level position at a place you'd like to work.  Don't worry about the job title.  Pass out coffee if you have to.  If you prove yourself capable and likable, you will very likely get "discovered" eventually.  Truly good employees are a rarity.  If you are one, a smart employer will use you to your full potential.  

1.  Don't get into debt.  2.  Be nice.  3.  Take an entry level job, if you can.

My thoughts...

Adam  

[Wonk]

MT and Adam made excellent points.  I strongly endorse the point regarding sales. Learn it, know it, be it.  You might be an accountant, but you are selling yourself to an employer.  Why should they pick you?  I've never met anyone truly great at marketing or sales who has had a tough time making a living.  HB's sales book is excellent.  Cialdini's book "Psychology of Persuasion" is outstanding.  There are 6 major components to influence: Liking, Authority, Social Proof, Reciprocity, Consistency, Scarcity.  Once you know how to implement them all, you'll be a hot commodity.

Also, here's a brutal fact: figure out where you are on the income statement.  Do you add value or subtract value?  Anyone who adds value (typically marketing, sales & strategic sourcing) are the least expendable people.  Those who subtract value (R&D, IT, HR, etc) are always at risk of cuts if management can source their skillsets elsewhere.

I had one job out of college.  Never again.  I decided to hire myself after several years.  If you can launch and run your own  profitable business, you'll never worry about a job again. 

[Storm]

Wow, MT makes some great points.  These things have helped me throughout my career, and I make north of $150K annually for the last 5+ years.

Think of yourself as a salesman, no matter what your position.  In sales you learn the ABCs - Always Be Closing.  To me this means, always be proving your value to the company.  For most people they think of a job as a 9-5 thing, they come, punch a clock, do their work, and go home.  In order to progress beyond the wage slave mentality, you need to think about a few things:

1.  Learn how the business operates - learn where they make their money and who their customers are.  Learn about their competitors and who is eating their lunch, or trying to, in the marketplace.  Even if you are entry level, this is still important and just having this knowledge will position you for a promotion.

2.  Now that you have this knowledge about market, competitors, and marketplace, think about your day to day job, and how it relates to the meta-job of the company as a whole.  For example, your job might be to just make widgets every day.  You learn through your research into #1 that the competitors don't know how to make widgets that can do X.  But, because you make them every day, you can easily modify your widgets to do X.  Tell your manager about how you can make more money for your company by changing your widget production process to do X.  Do research and project exactly how this will help them make more money, or compete better in the marketplace.  This is key - selling yourself as providing a way to add value to the company.

3.  During your performance review, highlight the ways you added value to the company in the last year.  Whether you added value through cost cutting measures or by increasing sales, make sure they are aware of the value you add to the company.

In the end, the ones that succeed in the workplace are the ones that add a net value to the company.  Nobody would hire an employee if they knew that employee would cost $50K a year and only bring in $25K a year in revenue.  You need to be constantly proving that even though you only make $50K, you are providing $200K of value.  Then your manager will give you a raise, because you are providing more value than you cost, and they are afraid of losing you to the competition.

This is how it works, simple capitalism.  I wish you the best luck in exploiting it to your advantage... 

[Storm]

Also, if you are interviewing for a job, be sure to stress how much value you created for your previous companies.  You need to stress how much money you saved or new customers you brought on board in order to sell yourself.  Remember, it's all about how much value you bring above your salary that matters.

[smurff]

I interview with companies who tell me how great I am (KPMG among them, interestingly enough, but they wanted me to commute 8 hours a day from where I am finishing my degree to their tax office).

But it never gets me anywhere.  I never get offers.  I can't seem to ever actually make more than just above minimum wage.

I agree with all the above advice, PPlooker, especially that about seeing yourself as a salesperson, i.e. selling yourself and your skills to a prospective employer. 

One of the most important parts of the sales dance is knowing when you have actually made the sale.

It looks as if you did get at least one offer (a sale).  Apparently you had made a great sale to a fantastic company (KPMG), but did not realize it.  They probably cried when you turned down the opportunity to dance with them.

Of course, I could be wrong.

As for the 8 hour commute:  People and their stuff can be moved closer to the tax office or other job site; you can find happiness living most anywhere in the world if you know how to be happy with yourself.  (That's probably the hardest thing to do, being happy with yourself, since consumer societies like ours train us to be dissatisfied with ourselves in order to sell solutions for our dissatisfaction.  The economy runs on dissatisfaction--which is not always bad.  But learning to be happy with yourself--and I don't mean in a narcissistic way--means breaking out of that training.) 

Sometimes two households--a room in a shared house or apartment 2 miles away from the job site in addition to the family home 8 hours away--can be easier on the soul and the wallet than one household 8 hours away and a long commute. (This is how the less wealthy members of Congress handle being in Washington DC.)  It depends on the region of the USA and the family situation you're in.  Degrees can be put on hold temporarily to work professionally, and job experience can enhance your academic progress, especially in business-related academic disciplines.  And brilliant students (like yourself--don't forget, you got bigwigs on both coasts talking about an important paper/article YOU wrote) can often make arrangements with their university departments to complete degrees by alternate means.  It's been done.

Unless you live in a handful of metro areas and specialize in the major work of those regions, it is likely you will have to move at some point if you want a long professional career, with advancement, in the USA.  (You may only have to do it once or twice, but plan on it.)

Another concept has to do with the courage to be successful and avoid self-sabotage.  If a person does not believe that he/she can fulfill a $150K position, for example, when one comes along self-sabotage can come into play.  (This is a largely unconscious process but there are often clues you and others can see when it is happening.  Just knowing that it is happening is the beginning of ending it.) 

I write this because during a Depression--which may not be what we're in as far as corporations and banks are concerned, but is the situation we're in when it comes to employment prospects and good jobs (the true unemployment rate is closer to 20% than the 9.X% reported in the news)--it may be more important to overlook correctable shortcomings of a job offer than seek perfection in it. 

[pplooker]

You know, I lost regular personal internet access after this.

Nothing's changed, other than I've redoubled and worked harder and obtained nothing.  I've come within inches of it, only what happens is the companies inevitably decide they'll simply not hire anybody at all, at least for a few months.  I've got two more such arrangements to follow up on, however my persistence has yet to go anywhere.

Now I'm really in a fix, I can't get any kind of job even if it's menial or basic because I'm overqualified and the more advanced employment I'm qualified for keeps up its cock-tease.

Best case scenario is inevitably I'll get some burger flipping opportunity and do what I did last time, live on less than I make, buy training, and try again.  I'm just sore I have to do it all over again, I'm not getting any younger and it took four years to get through school last time.

I realize I do not deserve nor am I entitled to jack squat.  But this sucks.

[MediumTex]

But this sucks.

Maybe you are not looking at it in the right way.

If what you are doing is not working, all you can do is try something else (including trying to see your situation from another perspective).

I would encourage you to try to meet people who will help you get where you want to go.

I would like to say I had the magic formula, but I already gave you my best ideas in my earlier post.

Good luck.

[clacy]

First, realize that this is a horrible time to try to get a better job.  There are 100 resumes for every open spot.  I'm not trying to depress you, but I say this because it's important for you to not let your struggles cause you to lose confidence in yourself.  It's just a tough time right now.

Secondly, as a 12 year sales professional prior to joining a family business, I agree that ANY person can benefit from some basic salesmanship.  Please grab a couple basic sales books to study up, if you haven't already done so.  That doesn't mean you have to be the "in-your-face-slimmy-sales-guy", but take some pointers from the profession.  An interview or any interaction with a superior from your current employer is nothing more than a selling situation, where you are the product that has to be sold.

Enough about sales, as it seems others have already covered that topic.

Thirdly, due to my current profession, I am on the other side of the interview.  I can say that the vast majority of interviewees have no clue how to conduct a successful interview.  I always took, this for granted as a sales person, but most do not know how to communicate effectively to a prospective employer (think buyer).  To sum it up.....put yourself in the shoes of the interviewer.......how do they want you to answer various questions?  What are they looking for with each question or scenario they throw you????

Obviously they want to see someone that is extremely motivated, talented (even if no one else has discovered this talent yet, make them understand that you are talented/valuable and they will reap the rewards from being the first person to discover that talent).  They want to hear that you're very positive, and think beyond the position you're applying for (think like the owner of the company or the hiring manager, or his/her boss).  Make them understand that you committed to helping their bottom line, because at the end of the day, that's what business is all about.......and so on and so forth.

Lastly, keep the faith.  My father barely graduated from HS and came from a below middle class farm, where education, professionalism and things such as this were under appreciated and barely known.  He bounced around from career to career, with limited success, but he always worked extremely hard, had a lot of ambition and was very entrepreneurial.  Long story short, in his early 50's he had no money to his name, and had been like that for the better part of his life.  10 years later, he is a multi-millionaire.   I only tell this story because it's good to remind yourself that it's never too late to be a financial success in this country.  Not to say by any means that financial success equates to personal success.

[Coffee]

Wait... did I miss it?  How did your father become a multi-millionaire in 10 years?
You can't leave us hanging like that!

[LifestyleFreedom]

One of Harry Browne's tenants, and one that I think stands on its own regardless of whether an individual chooses to use his Permanent Portfolio or not, is that your wealth really does come from your career.  The trouble I have is I can't seem to find a career that generates much wealth.

I am curious to hear how people who have been at it longer than I have, have overcome these problems.  From what I've gleamed, most of you are completely isolated from the problems of the economy or industry.  There's just got to be a way to make a reasonable wage with above average qualifications and abilities that isn't dependent on a prosperous economy.  I'm just physically and emotionally at a low place right now, realizing all my efforts are going to naught.

I happen to have a lot of college education and I, too, have had problems in the past getting a job.  Many years ago, I went to a career counselor to go over my resume to find out what I was doing wrong and her simple response was "never lie, but always remember the purpose of a resume is to get a job offer."  After I thought about it for awhile, I reorganized my resume from an "experience and education autobiography" to an "advertisement" about my skills and have had a lot easier time getting job offers since.  As other people on this thread put it, in other words, learn how to sell.

You might want to use meetup.com to find a Cashflow 101 game to attend.  The purpose of the game is to learn how to get out of the rat race (i.e., achieve financial freedom).  For most people, someone not making much money actually has an easier time achieving financial freedom than someone making a lot of money.  That's because in our society, a person's lifestyle tends to rise to the level of their income.  Make a lot of money; buy a fancy car; live in a fancy house; and so forth.  Make not that much money; buy a plain car; live in a plain house; and so forth.  It's a lot easier covering $2K a month of living expenses with investment income than it is covering $5K a month with investment income.

If you want a way to become financially free sooner rather than later; check out http://earlyretirementextreme.com/.  It's better to be a modestly-paid generalist than a highly-paid specialist because you have a broader choice of job opportunities.  Specialists can become non-specialists quickly when technology and other factors change slightly (and hence, lose their high-paying position because they are no longer qualified), while generalists tend to adapt quickly to changing circumstances because they don't have to make that big of an adjustment.

It's also OK to have a career that is different from what your college degree is in.  At the end of the day, the cashier at the grocery store doesn't care where the cash you are using to buy your groceries came from.  It's even OK to ask people if they want fries with their order, especially if you also happen to own the restaurant. 

[clacy]

Wait... did I miss it?  How did your father become a multi-millionaire in 10 years?
You can't leave us hanging like that!

Nothing too sexy.  After spending the previous 18 years in the restaurant business, much of that working for a corporate chain, he was finally able to open his own high-volume franchise restaurant.  After his first one was successful, he acquired and built several more locations.  He's not ultra wealthy by any means, but has a nice looking balance sheet and a big yearly income.  For someone with his background he has achieved a great deal, mainly through tenacity and drive (and some luck along the way of course).

He had previously opened 3 businesses, all of which failed and one caused him to go bankrupt (in his early 30's).  He didn't let his previous failures destroy his confidence though.  He kept battling back, which is what I admire most about him. I suppose if take enough shots, eventually you'll hit one.

[Pkg Man]

Keep the faith pplooker.  As someone said, there is a lot of competition out there, so try not to feel down about not getting any bites. But keep your chin up as the economy is improving.  Unemployment has fallen and unless the economy is thrown another curve, should continue to improve.

Good luck.

[AdamA]

pplooker--

To clarify.  Are you a CPA?

Adam

[julian]

I don't mean to be a jerk but your post has a spelling error among others. When you are presenting yourself, something that simple can blow your opportunity. Passing on the KPMG offer was silly. There are ways to overcome the commute. If you truly want to get rich, you have to learn to make some serious sacrifices.

[gizmo_rat]

Try not to worry, things change just never at the speed that you want them to.

Always remember that your education is your own personal achievement that can't be taken from you by people or circumstance. 

Jobs however are ephemeral things given and taken by things outside your control, best not to expect too much from them as they often disappoint.

Respecting yourself and being happy with what you have achieved is far harder than amassing a pile of cash and crap you don't need.

Oh and don't take too much any notice of advice on the internet. Place is full of fools who aren't walking in your shoes.

[Storm]

Nothing's changed, other than I've redoubled and worked harder and obtained nothing.  I've come within inches of it, only what happens is the companies inevitably decide they'll simply not hire anybody at all, at least for a few months.  I've got two more such arrangements to follow up on, however my persistence has yet to go anywhere.

I realize your personal or family situation may preclude this, but if you are not finding opportunities where you live, you might need to start looking for opportunities in other states that have more jobs available.

Personal experience:  In 2002, I was laid off.  It was right after 9/11 and the economy sucked.  I was working as a contractor at an Internet startup (double whammy, contractors are the first to go, and who wants to invest in a dot.com after 9/11?) and was laid off along with 39 other employees and contractors.  I collected unemployment for 5 months, fell behind on my mortgage, and couldn't find any jobs locally.  I even got desperate and started considering jobs that were $30-40K lower than my previous salary.  It wasn't until 6 months later when I had no opportunities waiting for me that I started to look for jobs on Monster that were out of state.  I almost immediately found an opportunity in Arkansas, of all places, that paid better than my old salary and paid for my relocation expenses.

There are jobs out there if you're willing to relocate.  The problem is that most people set down roots and aren't willing to sacrifice their family life to move to Arkansas or some other backwoods state for a year just to keep food on the table.  So do what I did:  work a 1 year contract in Arkansas, a 6 month contract in West Virginia, then as soon as they put you on a contract in a good population city on the west or east coast (DC area, NYC area, SFC area, or LA area) start looking for a good job.  If you are qualified, when you get to a city with lots of opportunities and a healthy job market, you will get a good job, and you will make good money.  You can leave the contracting world and work full time and get paid what you deserve.

Here's another secret - jobs in most small towns and cities don't pay well because they don't have to.  There are too many unemployed people hungry for work and it drives salaries and benefits down.  Imagine the difference in your PP between making $60K a year in the country and making $100K a year in the city.  Sure, cost of living is higher, but you can still save a lot more.  Let's break it down:

Small town salary:  $60K
Taxes: - $15K
Living expenses - $35K
Savings: $10K a year into PP

Big town salary:  $100K
Taxes: - $25K
Living Expenses - $50K
Savings: $25K a year into the PP

Not to count appreciation, but just principal - 30 years of working in a small town and saving $10K a year = $300K principal
30 years of working in a big town = $750K principal

Then, if you like living in a small town, retire there with your big town sized PP - live like a king.

I don't regret at all moving around - I ended up in a better place and it was an adventure.  Opportunities are wherever you choose to make them.