I get what you are saying. My concern is getting not being able to get my foot in the door anywhere without the opportunity to network, or at the very least build a reference pool with a previous supervisor or two I got from internships. A lot of my hesitation comes form the fact that I have worked with many highly educated people who were not able to secure any employment in the field the studied form, two really stand out to me. One with a Bachelors in Engineering,the other holding a Masters in Business Admin. These are people who tried very hard knocking on doors and littering the city with resumes, begging and pleading for work, and ultimately offering to work for free just to prove themselves. Four years later the person Masters in Business Admin just got promoted from Assistant Manager to Manager of a JC Penny, making half of the yearly income he was making when he was bartending alongside me. Last year I heard the guy who got the Bachelors in Engineering is still bartending and the place I use to work at with him. This was only a brief exchange coming from a friend of his, but the jist of it was he is saving up to move back in with his parents in North Carolina and try to get a fresh start, maybe going back to school to make himself more employable, because he feared the unused education for many years will hurt his chances. Both of these guys are very hard working, very intelligent, and socially adept to nail it home in an interview… they just never got their foot in the door and networked. I am going to be finishing school much older than them, less educated than them, and I will not invest into further education until I have secured a position that I can build a career on. I have bills, a mortgage, and have to find a way to pay for surgery to my knees and ankle so my days of working 10-15 hours a day on my feet with no break have to come to an end. I cannot afford to take out student loans for a Bachelors until I am professionally secure enough to justify the risk. Ideally find work with a company that offers tuition assistance of course. Right now I can afford the Associates out of pocket, and that is what I have earmarked for my professional education. The Bachelors is a wait an see thing.
Does bulking up on classes which is only 2 BTW, help me in any way more than an internship that i could be walking away with a reference or two plus the potential networking could bring at the ASSOCIATES level?
As for my work/life experience, it doesn’t seem to command any respect outside hospitality which I am desperately trying to leave. Although I do have management experience, employers I have reached out look at it as babysitting transient 20 year olds in a F&B setting. This came from a friend who got me an interview with his company, and I asked him for complete honesty after he met with his HR person on my interview assessment, they liked me wanted to hire me but thought they would be training someone with no real world experience. I notice during my interviews, the HR person or Manager across the table go from full smile to closed face tight lipped smirk when i discuss my management experience in F&B. I tell them about improvements I am responsible for in the P&L, the rise in GSS, and my many positive references and Employee of the Month Awards… it seems to fall on deaf ears. The only thing my work experience says about me is that I can remain with a company for many years as a bartender proving that I am not a thief, and have been promoted to management in a low wage/low skill industry and held the position for a long time making me competent enough to do that job. Honestly, the interviewers spend more time asking me about my volunteer experience with the local animal shelter… that says it all.
About the CLEP tests, I will look into it. I have been out of school for many years, so I would like to get a few of the Pre-Req. courses I am required to take out of the way and help me get back into study mode.