# Hey, new member. Job search questions. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 29, 2015, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-new-member-job-search-questions/726527 "2015-07-29T22:01:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![justjake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a587f6/32.png) [@justjake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justjake)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-new-member-job-search-questions/726527/41 "2015-08-01T22:13:55Z")
> [@Lakai](#): > > Everyone is knocking down **justjake** because he wants to make money with little effort. I do not think his goals are realistic either, but I, for one, strongly support his endeavor. > > So lets see what we’re dealing with here. No college degree, no money, and no skills. How can **justjake** make decent money with his situation? Here are the options I could come up with: > > 1. Work for the government. You can get some city jobs by taking a test. If you do well, you’ll get an entry level job for 25k-30k per year (in NYC. In other cities, YMMV). However, once you get that entry level job, you can qualify for promotions because the government promotes people from within the system. Some people worked their way up to becoming supervisors making 80k per year because they were good at taking city tests. The downside here is that you’ll work for 25k-30k for a few years before you’ll be eligible for a promotion. And the city gives preference to candidates with college degrees. > > 2. Take on a dangerous job. Join the army or maybe the police department? > > 3. Work in sales. There are places that will hire salesmen with no degree/experience. However, you won’t get paid anything unless you make a sale. > > 4. Become a struggling artist, such as a writer, actor or musician. Ok, you might never make money doing this, but it sounds more fun than not making money while doing something else. And who knows, you might write a best seller one day or star in an indie film that goes on to become a surprise hit. > > That’s all I got. I just want to add that **justjake’s** excuse for not going to college is total bullshit. I worked part-time in a liquor store for $8 an hour and made enough money to pay for a city college. My tuition was actually paid by my parents, but the point is that I made enough to pay for it myself. Another colleague of mine (at the liquor store) actually did pay for his associates degree himself, and then got himself accepted to Cooper Union, where the tuition was free. You do realize how much college prices have gone up in the past few years. Yes, they’ve gone up so much that it’s probably 1.5 times the cost from when you went. But the minion wage… still 8 bucks an hour. See the problem here guys? ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-new-member-job-search-questions/726527/42 "2015-08-01T22:48:44Z")
> [@justjake](#): > > I have no experience and no one in my family does jobs like that. I barely know how to change a lightbulb. I can’t even do an oil change on a car? > > Do you really think i would be able to be a skilled plumber and be able to diagnose issues with pipelines, knowing that? As has been said there is a huge demand for skilled trades Mike Rowe (Of dirty jobs fame) has a foundation that gives scholarships for trade schools. They can teach you, you can learn, you can make serious $$ doing it. [MikeRoweWorks](http://profoundlydisconnected.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-new-member-job-search-questions/726527/43 "2015-08-01T23:41:01Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > As has been said there is a huge demand for skilled trades Mike Rowe (Of dirty jobs fame) has a foundation that gives scholarships for trade schools. > They can teach you, you can learn, you can make serious $$ doing it. > [MikeRoweWorks](http://profoundlydisconnected.com/) I hate to sound like a broken record, but it is really not as simple as that in my experience. Being able to work at a trade for a long period of time and be good enough at it to have any decent steady employment generally requires a certain mindset. It is nothing like a job where you just learn something and once you learn it the rest is easy. Most of the people who do decent in trades have grown up working with their hands and come from family backgrounds of tradesmen. Please OP do not even begin to listen to these people who tell you to learn plumbing or whatever; you will be far better off focusing on going to community college and then transferring to a four year school. If you do half decent in community college, there are usually all sorts of aid and grants available - I was given a grant I never even applied for once based upon my GPA. ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2015, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-new-member-job-search-questions/726527/44 "2015-08-02T00:29:31Z")
> [@justjake](#): > > You do realize how much college prices have gone up in the past few years. > > Yes, they’ve gone up so much that it’s probably 1.5 times the cost from when you went. > > But the minion wage… still 8 bucks an hour. > > See the problem here guys? I just checked and tuition is [$3,165 per semester](http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/undergraduate-tuition-fees) at a CUNY school. I graduated in 2008 and I thought it was around $4,000. Either way, I was paid $8 an hour in cash and made enough to pay for it. I guess someone making minimum wage on the books would have to work full time to pay for college. And if you really can’t find a job to pay for college, you can always get a loan. Four years at CUNY is a 25k loan, which is not crushing debt. ---
**Author:** ![Ace309](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ace309/32/1050_2.png) [@Ace309](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ace309)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2015, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-new-member-job-search-questions/726527/45 "2015-08-02T01:39:40Z")
OP, [AskAManager.org](http://AskAManager.org) has a lot of posts about job searching that you might find helpful. It’s a supportive and useful community. ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2015, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-new-member-job-search-questions/726527/46 "2015-08-02T02:56:23Z")
> [@justjake](#): > > You do realize how much college prices have gone up in the past few years. > > Yes, they’ve gone up so much that it’s probably 1.5 times the cost from when you went. > > But the minion wage… still 8 bucks an hour. > > See the problem here guys? Tuition at my state local state college is literally 10 times now what it was when I started there. We can’t afford to send my son there for 4 years. He’s currently a senior in high school. So he’s getting a job (any job he can) and he’s working and going to the local junior college next year, and probably the year after. We’ll help him out as we can. The different I see between him and you is that he has this attitude of doing whatever he has to to make his goals, even jobs other people might think are beneath them. He is also willing to do volunteer work and take internships. I feel confident with that attitude, he will do well. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2015, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-new-member-job-search-questions/726527/47 "2015-08-02T09:20:50Z")
And dont forget to get a haircut, hippie. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-new-member-job-search-questions/726527/48 "2015-08-12T19:57:29Z")
> [@justjake](#): > > But the minion wage… still 8 bucks an hour. > > See the problem here guys? Eh, you’d never make it as a minion anyway. Not cheerful enough, and you wouldn’t get along with Gru. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-new-member-job-search-questions/726527/49 "2015-08-13T03:46:11Z")
> [@Infovore](#): > > Eh, you’d never make it as a minion anyway. Not cheerful enough, and you wouldn’t get along with Gru. Hell Bob would kick his ass. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-new-member-job-search-questions/726527.md?page=2)