<p>or is it possible for one to still do something white-collar with these? (i mean, work experience demands a resume doesn’t it?)</p>
<p>It will be tough to start out with those stats… at least so far as the traditional ‘white collar’ jobs are concerned.</p>
<p>I think this is what people mean by the term “understatement”.</p>
<p>1) Are you good-looking and
2) Are you charismatic?</p>
<p>As long as you can sneak into a good door, if you shine in the interview you’ll be fine. #2 is more important than #1 in most cases.</p>
<p>Actually…good looking will generally trump personality characteristics (including charisma)…check the literature.</p>
<p>If you have no relevant experience and your GPA sucks, it will be very difficult to obtain your first job since there are so many people vying for the same position – especially when one considers the state of the U.S. economy (assuming you are in the U.S.)</p>
<p>so say you had a 2.0 GPA but finally managed to get high grades (and a recommendation on top of that) in say, your 4th and 5th years of college. Would that help things?</p>
<p>==> you all know of stories of people who have ****ed themselves up in their 20s right? Is it usually positive feedback?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not really… unless you pass the stats screening stages it’s unlike you’ll ever even get to really meet anyone in person that’s in a position to boost up your application. </p>
<p>For a lot of top ‘white collar’ jobs the competition is so fierce that you won’t really even start being evaluated face-to-face until perhaps the 2nd or 3rd round of the recruitment process (step one is usually a pure stats and CV screen and a 2.0 would almost always be the fast track to the trash bin) and then sometimes there’s even a step two consisting of testing or other non-human interaction screening step.</p>
<p>You’ll be fine as long as you know somebody that can get you an entry level job. It’s all who you know. You’ll start out on the bottom rung of the ladder but you can climb your way up.</p>
<p>You are far from screwed up for life! You can go to community college to get your GPA up and start with a minimum wage paying job and work your way up. Or you can go to a technical school for a year or two and start making some decent money. </p>
<p>Then again, I don’t know how far you are into your 20s and you might be to the point that you don’t care about going to school any more, and in that case, good luck.</p>
<p>If you’ve got a college diploma you shouldn’t be working any minimum wage job. No, it won’t pay that great and no, it won’t be prestigeous, but you can find something livable.</p>
<p>Sheesh! The majority of Americans haven’t even attended college - you’re only “screwed for life” if you ended up with those stats because you have no work ethic.</p>
<p>maybe… if you keep working like that. and even if you get all 4.0s one year, even that probably won’t be able to help you out all too much. the highest you can probably even get right now is 2.5 (considering you <em>might</em> get 4.0 all year). so… i say, if you’re still in college, focus on networking and internships. or, go to technical school.</p>
<p>Probably since the combination that you describe indicates that the person has no personality, no interests, and no work ethic either.</p>
<p>Oh wow - so say, if you get a <em>single</em> connection who really trusts you (outside of family of course), can you quite possibly totally revolve yourself around? </p>
<p>(that combination can come out of things like getting addicted to WoW, or depression to the point that one literally can’t get out of bed, etc. That, and American society tends to shun people like that, even if these people convincingly admit that they’ve managed to dig themselves out of such things). And freshman year mistakes are common, but sometimes people make catastrophic mistakes for several consecutive years.</p>
<p>If you’ve got a single connection even if it’s within your family you can turn yourself around. If you get the entry job and work hard you can get promoted and eventually end up pretty well off. That said, turning yourself around is much harder than keeping going in the same (right) direction, and if you do well in school you’ll be able to get a better starting job and not have to beg family and friends for a connection.</p>
<p>edit: Look, as long as you’re not in an absurd amount of debt, don’t have a kid, aren’t sick or disabled in some other way and haven’t been arrested you can always turn yourself around. Not saying you can’t if any of those are true, but if you’re “clear” of all of that then why can’t you? Somebody will hire you, and then you can bust your butt and get promoted, etc. You probably won’t be a CEO or millionare but you shouldn’t have to be to be happy.</p>
<p>"Oh wow - so say, if you get a <em>single</em> connection who really trusts you (outside of family of course), can you quite possibly totally revolve yourself around? "</p>
<p>Of course. Lots of people are late bloomers.</p>
<p>If you’re young (still under 30) and healthy, those also are big plusses as is having a college degree. If you’re willing to put the effort into becoming more personable and hard working, the world could still be yours. Get a job – any job – and then bust butt to do far more than is required so you can use that job and those contacts to get even better things. Also get involved in political, religious, alumni or professional organizations – good way to meet people. Be an active member, though, not just want who goes there to network, but offers nothing to the organization. People don’t help out those who are leeches.</p>
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</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The OP was not asking for “top white-collar jobs”.</p></li>
<li><p>Connections and the people you know will trump any of your stats. Once you get your foot in the door, it’s all about experience, and you can forget about your academic career. What you described seems to be something you’d often find in large companies with formal hiring processes. It’s a lot easier if it’s a small company. Besides, the OP would not be putting down that he had a 2.0 on his resume.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Ken is right. Once the OP has received his first job, things like GPA matter little; however, the fact that the OP has made the same mistakes for several years (evidently not having learned from them the first or second…or third…time) is a bit ominous a track record and could indicate there will be problems once the OP is employed. It’s not so much the track record you should be worried about as it is what that track record indicates for the future – which is what employers are attempting to predict anyway! Everyone knows that the best way of predicting future behavior is by past behavior.</p>
<p>Original Poster,</p>
<p>I have a 3.5 GPA, no work experience, no ECs, no other things, and I feel as though I am screwed for life. Good luck</p>