<p>D2 is working a job with beyond horrible hours (72+ hrs, 6 days/wk) and low pay. It is related to her major and is non-profit. She has a lot of responsibility and has to hire and supervise employees. So I keep telling her when she calls me very frustrated and tired, this will help boost your resume. It may also help her to decide on graduate school or, OMG!, work for a profit making company that pays more and has more reasonable hours.</p>
<p>She is also not living at home, is living in Boston and paying her own way (mostly) and becoming more and more independant. </p>
<p>Not a perfect job soon out of college. But it is a help towards moving forward. In some ways, I feel she is still in college learning and gaining experience in the real world preparing her for the future.</p>
<p>S1 is going through this right now. He just graduated with a degree in broadcast journalism - sports and is doing an internship with a TV station in his college town. He called last night and said he got a quasi-offer as an assignment editor for the station’s affiliate in our town. This means he could move back home for a while and get a jump on his student loans, while doing something at least related to his field and keeping his eyes open. He agrees with all this, but is afraid he’ll be “typecast” as an assignment editor and will never get to do sports like he wants to. I’m anxious to see what happens …</p>
<p>I fully expected by D1 to graduate last June and come home with her pricey degree in Communications/Graphic design, but a miracle occurred and she was offered a Temp position in DC the week of graduation. Her apartment lease was through August, so she decided to take the Temp position. The thought was that she would use the time to search for a full-time job in Music focused business. She searched, found nothing…not a single interview. The folks at the Temp position loved her and had opened the Temp position because someone left, so they knew they would need a full timer. They went through the advertising the position and allowed her to interview even though she did not have the experience level they wanted, and another miracle was that they offered her the full-time position. She really wants to work in Music, but I told her “It’s much less stressful looking for the job you want when you HAVE a job, than if you don’t.” She took the job, but living in DC is very expensive and takes up a good chunk of her salary. She is hoping to find at least a room mate or two, but she now has a full time job and having trouble arranging for that and her lease is up so the cost will increase. All in all, it’s all much better than her coming home and getting comfortable and having no income! She is definitely going to hanker for that Music focus and she is still motivated to do that, but she has grown so much just paying her own bills and getting herself to/from work etc… that is so worth it.</p>
<p>I think that view is out of touch with today’s reality, at least for younger people. It makes more sense for mid-level executives or professionals – you might expect job longevity there. But recent grads are going to be very fortunate if their first job out of college is fodder for a long term career – I know that my daughter’s first job was intended by her employer to be for 2 years only. They made that clear at the outset – they wanted a 2 year commitment, but there was no track for growth and they expected that the position would be stepping stone for their hires. It was a wonderful job, but after 2 years my daughter was ready to move on. </p>
<p>I agree calmom. In fact I had always heard that if you want to advance your career you have to look for a new job at a new company every two years. I was very surprised by his view on 2 or three years being considered job hopping. </p>
<p>I think these days companies have zero loyalty to their employees, so that is what they are getting in return. It is a different market than in the old days when people were often lifers.</p>
<p>calmom–when I got hired at my current job (and when I was interviewing,) my supervisor made it very clear that she has a 3-year professional development plan and that that is a typical length of stay in this position. But I agree that longevity makes more sense for mid-level execs or higher.</p>
<p>Many people who go from job to job every two or three years do not really have that much choice, since the companies go out of business or downsize.</p>
<p>Yah, my poor brother in law. He had grad degree in finance, was an internal auditor for one bank that got swallowed up by another bank, which then broke up and was bought out by someone else…this went on for a while.
He had a different employer every two or three years, or less.
Now he is an insurance agent after he took bonuses and paychecks in stock for a tech company where he was encouraged to take stock rather than cash.
Of course they went out of business.
But as their CFO I would hope he saw it coming.</p>
<p>My daughter has now been with job #2 for 2 years and she will be happy to stay long term, if there is a path to promotion and greater responsibilities — but she is also attending grad school in the evenings and will have a master’s degree in management in 2 years— so the hope is that the job grows with her. If not, the it doesn’t make a lot of sense for her to stay. </p>
<p>In my parents’ generation, people got jobs with defined benefit pension plans and they stuck around. Now that is pretty rare to find outside of government jobs. </p>
<p>I think that these days the employers need to look for growth, not longevity. That is, was the person moving to jobs with progressively higher levels of responsibility and requisite skills and knowledge. </p>
<p>Even my dad job hopped every year or two until his late 30s… (though his final job was at a company that bought his previous employer) I don’t know how new of a phenomenon this is. </p>
<p>I wanted to be picky, but I needed a job to pay the bills. I took a job 1/4 my projected average salary. However, it was at a university so I could go to school for free, and ended up changing to a stipend that was twice the pay as I went full-time to finish my master’s degree.</p>
<p>Working at all is better than not working, but my advice is to not take a job that you won’t last at unless you have a game plan for when it ends.</p>
p.s. cuz you’re not living here … ;)</p>