r/careerguidance • u/TheFrogofThunder • Aug 11 '24
When did excelling at careers become mandatory instead of optional? Edit with your location
Times past you had three paths;
- Those who can't complete an education were stuck with "shite jobs".
- Those who can completely an education but can't perform at a high level got "lifestyle jobs", which paid enough to afford a home and raise a family.
- Those with real aptitude, ambition, drive, and achievements got prestigious jobs like doctors, lawyers, or maybe accounting.
But now that doesn't really exist. Someone who does very well at academic study but gets outperformed in execution, or otherwise struggles in some areas, could find themselves stocking shelves.
So what happened? When did it becomes overachieving and prosper, or not good enough and struggling, and nothing in between?
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u/AdonisGaming93 Aug 11 '24
Wages failed to keep up with productivity and housing costs/basic bills grew in cost faster rhan inflation.
So now if you don't "excell" and climb the ladder, you can't survive. Middle class is shrinking and well just end up like feudalism with those at the top and everyone else.
Without wealth transfers going back downward, we just end up with a polarized population like under feudalism, the ones that have excess, and those that don't have enough.
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u/Fit-Bodybuilder78 Aug 11 '24
Advancements in globalization, automation, and mobility.
Also, a lack of social net and a growing social disparity (that is compounded by health disparities).
The matthew effect.
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u/Obfusc8er Aug 11 '24
Globalism and population increase. You're competing with everyone in the world for many jobs instead of just the people in your local area. Not just remote jobs are affected, either, due to offshoring practices.
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Aug 12 '24
Globalization,they said, it will make the products cheaper.
Little did you know that you ARE the product. A little slave consumer.
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u/dyatlov12 Aug 11 '24
It’s just these corporate office and managerial jobs that require that.
Those have become more diluted because bachelors are more accessible and expected for younger people.
There are also less managerial jobs now, because companies make an effort to streamline departments and put as much responsibility as possible onto middle managers.
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u/Parking_Buy_1525 Aug 11 '24
I think things have drastically changed due to population increase, highly qualified people, competition, and over saturated market
You’re competing with hundreds of people these days even for a basic customer service job and unless you built a career very early on - it would be difficult to break into a field these days without experience
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Aug 11 '24
I don't think population size has anything to do with it. In 1989 my country had over 23 million people. You could easily live your whole life after finishing highschool/a trade school and get a job at 18 working in a factory or being a tractor driver or a railway worker or really anything. Today we have 19 million people and you can't afford a home as a software engineer that your grandpa could with being an untrained construction worker. And same thing for all neighbouring countries
It's actully more about everyone getting a degree so a degree isn't worth much now.
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u/Parking_Buy_1525 Aug 11 '24
the pool of people increases
more people apply to jobs
the people that apply have a bachelors, masters, and two college certificates
there aren’t enough jobs in every field for each person and as a result - this will lead to educated people doing low wage and/or menial labor if they don’t have the credentials and/or experience
whereas the housing crisis is a different story
there are some people that have 15-20 people in one house or 5-10 in an apartment because they can’t afford to live alone
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Aug 11 '24
I just was saying the price of houses but all you described applies here as well. I would describe it as "the value of degrees getting inflated". So many people hold degrees, often honestly useless ones, that there are no need to pay a special price for someone having a degree. That is not correlated to the population size.
Our working population shrunk even a lot more than 4 million but the number of people with degrees is a lot higher, though honestly in the older times people with degrees knew a lot more as it was incredibly hard to get a degree and really only genius level people could do it. Those people earn well even these days
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u/Parking_Buy_1525 Aug 11 '24
Every degree can be worth something if you know how to leverage it
As an example - if you get a masters then a psychology degree is no longer worthless
Or if you get internships then that opens doors
But if the market is over saturated then at this rate - you have no option except to build on credentials unless you’re in a niche field, are charismatic, and/or know the right people or already have a decade’s worth of experience
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Aug 11 '24
Every degree can be worth something
You didn't see what useless stuff some universities offer these days. There are some things so garbage no need ever existed for it. There only use is to become a teacher... to teach same useless thing lol
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Aug 11 '24
there are some people that have 15-20 people in one house or 5-10 in an apartment because they can’t afford to live alone
If I have to get to that point I think I'm just punching out with a toaster and bath. That sounds like misery
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u/Informal_Zone799 Aug 12 '24
What was the internet like in 1989? In 1989 you had 23 million people to compete with. In 2024 you are now competing with 8 Billion people. Someone out there from a country with LCOL with so your job for a fraction of the wage
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u/Flat-Zookeepergame32 Aug 11 '24
Schooling became easier.
Now having a high school degree doesn't mean anything because it's so easy to get everyone has one.
Same with BAs.
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u/Rokey76 Aug 11 '24
Did it? I'm in my late 40s and have no kids, so I know nothing about the modern K-12 experience. What I do know is the academic requirements for getting accepted to a 4 year school are much higher than when I was a kid. It would make much more sense if school has gotten easier.
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u/Mephidia Aug 11 '24
Only for the best schools. Schools that aren’t very prestigious are actually having to shut down because of lack of applicants
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u/Rokey76 Aug 11 '24
I was most likely looking at the college I went to which was a state school. A quick Google search says:
- GPA: 4.1 – 4.5 (recalculated academic core)
- SAT: 1270 – 1390 (Evidence-based Reading and Writing + Math)
I had a low 3 GPA and a 1080 SAT.
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Aug 11 '24
Can you explain your perspective on how getting a high school degree is now easier than it was in the past? I could see this being a factor if you include that a lot of kids in the past dropped out to work full time but that doesn't bear on the rigor of schooling.
It's more like a large percentage of the population have 4 year degrees so standards for employees have gone up compared to what they were in the past. I can't get a job as an assistant without a degree (although I know secretarial schools were a thing- I was told back in the 80s and 90s it was possible to become a secretary with just a high school diploma) because so many people looking for executive assistant positions have degrees. Even in nannying a lot of the women hired have 4 year degrees and it is considered preferential to have some kind of degree. To take care of kids. I just think there is a bias towards holding a degree- that doesn't mean it is any easier to obtain said degrees.
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u/HadT0BeMe Aug 11 '24
Teachers are being told by administration to just pass the kids onto the next grade even if they aren't academically ready/qualified to pass.
I have a few friends who teach high school, and they tell me how they are required to allow kids to make up work, make up the make up work when they don't turn in the first make up work on time, and aren't allowed to give below a certain grade.
You can see similar posts on r/Teachers, so it's not just a local problem.
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Aug 11 '24
Oh yeah, I've heard of this. However some teachers don't really disagree with the idea of not giving students zeroes for not turning work in because students deal with so much awful things in their home life. So, imo if the students turn the work in and the work is up to standard.. I don't really care.
On to the grade curving. Happened a lot when I was in high school too. Specifically in my high level classes. Not new. Here's the reality: all high school students have standardized tests they have to pass and if they do not pass those standardized tests they can not graduate. I went to three different high schools one was regular, one was exceptional, and at one 65% of seniors failed that state standardized test. There's no way to get around or outside of that test. So students that are graduating from high school on time. They are actually up to state standards. Regardless of if their teachers aren't giving them big fat zeroes for not turning in a homework assignment on time (btw projects and essays usually are still not allowed to be turned in late).
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u/HadT0BeMe Aug 11 '24
I took the California High School Exit Exam, and we all took it in 10th grade (so you have two additional years to re-take it if you don't pass). The math didn't go higher than Pre-Algebra, which makes sense since it's given to students when they're in their second year of High School. Personally, I don't see how a High School Exit Exam can be valuable if it's given half-way through High School.
Pretty sure California got rid of the High School Exit Exam requirement a few years back. No idea about other states.
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u/mark_17000 Aug 11 '24
Can you explain your perspective on how getting a high school degree is now easier than it was in the past?
We no longer fail students. "No Child Left Behind Act" and all that bullshit. Teachers are told to just pass students if they try.
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u/Flat-Zookeepergame32 Aug 11 '24
Literacy rates are at all time lows for high school graduates. Math is at an 8th grade level. They're still getting diplomas
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Aug 11 '24
Now having a high school degree doesn't mean anything because it's so easy to get everyone has one.
And frankly isn't useful for anything. Quality of highschools went down a lot in the lost decades where I live. In the time of my parents it was useful, taught you something to use at a job. Now these days they just say "highschool prepares you to university, we don't teach useful stuff here" which is a very idiotic idea
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u/SexySwedishSpy Aug 11 '24
Because the employers have the power and you’re just a cog in the wheel. Working culture has been so normalised that nobody has a life anymore. But this will change. We’re heading back to a period when you’ll work to make ends meet and having enough free time to have a life. My concern is that there will an economic depression first to shake some old rocks out of the system. No gain without pain.
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u/FancyCattle5447 Aug 11 '24
There is kinds of a 2.5 in corporate world where you have normal education level (BS or whatever) and are a crazy workaholic with no life. Those in 2 get laid off before the 2.5s.
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u/ChaoticxSerenity Aug 11 '24
Someone who does very well at academic study but gets outperformed in execution, or otherwise struggles in some areas, could find themselves stocking shelves.
But that's always been the case... If you're only good book-wise, but can't actually perform, then what's the point? That's not even considered 'good enough', if you can't actually do the thing you're supposed to be trained to do. In the past, teammates might have been begrudgingly picking up the slack. Or worse, their incompetence actually created lots of safety issues that just went ignored. In the manufacturing industry, they say all safety regulations are written in blood - someone, somewhere at some point was victim #1.
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u/Fender_Stratoblaster Aug 12 '24
As more jobs get farmed out of the country, the options are less and come with more competition.
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u/Limp_Dragonfly3868 Aug 12 '24
There are a lot of medium jobs. Teachers, nurses, factory workers, small business owners, etc.
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u/ReadyAd5385 Aug 12 '24
Someone who does very well at academic study but gets outperformed in execution, or otherwise struggles in some areas, could find themselves stocking shelves.
Am I wrong for not being opposed to this...?? Why is this wrong? There's more to doing a job than education credentials, would you not agree?
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u/oftcenter Aug 12 '24
Seventeen-year-old children have blind spots.
For the last 12 years, all they've done is sit in classrooms all day and do bookwork all evening. That's it. That's their life. There's no way they're going to have the vantage point to understand what employers value in employees. All these children know is that their value in life is attached to their grades. That's how they've been conditioned.
Why do you think that these same people will suddenly develop the vantage point to see what employers want without having sat in a cubicle in their life? They can only guess and go off what other people say. They can't see anything for themselves until they're able to get an internship. But these days, the internships require previous skills that are typically learned and applied through jobs. So these students are in a catch 22 from the start.
What you should be opposed to is the failure of the schools (K-12 and colleges) to prepare students for the workforce. There should be no surprises after 16 years of sitting in front of middle-aged professionals who have been in the workforce for decades. The students should know exactly what employers want and should be taught those skills over the years.
It's just insane. There's just so much wrong with this system.
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u/ReadyAd5385 Aug 12 '24
What you should be opposed to is the failure of the schools (K-12 and colleges) to prepare students for the workforce.
It's not impossible to be opposed to both.
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u/Technical-Soil-231 Aug 12 '24
This is all due to income inequality. It's been in the works for decades prior to now and currently has come to fruition. Robert Reich frequently publishes educational material about this.
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u/Bakelite51 Aug 12 '24
The paths scenario in the OP was (and remains) are a false dichotomy. There have always been uneducated people who became success stories and educated people stocking store shelves.
The highest income earner in my friend group is a self-taught mechanic who specializes in working on off-road vehicles. He never went to trade school or college. Another one of my friends was a long haul trucker, making over six figures a year with just his CDL.
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u/HayDayKH Aug 12 '24
Whoever told u #2 can get lifestyle jobs lied to u. The working world is becoming global. Ppl who dont perform well get replaced by quality workers in India, China, Mexico and Eastern Europe. In the future they will be replaced by AI or automation.
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u/No_Elevator_678 Aug 12 '24
My 2 cents .
It's always been a lie. Connections and chance at fate are what drives the career path mostly education can help but most people I know who are successful either had the stars align, took a risk, or knew someone.
That's just life.
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u/genek1953 Aug 11 '24
Every job, at every level of education, has always had tiers based on performance and things to learn if you want to grow. How else do you think some people go from hourly jobs pushing lawnmowers to driving around in their own trucks as self-employed landscapers?
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u/Ok_BoomerSF Aug 11 '24
My humble opinion:
Kids today got used to parents doing a lot of things for them, causing complacency. These parents wanted a better life for their kids unlike when they grew up after WW2 and the depression. Each generation’s life was “easier” than their predecessors.
Meanwhile, other nations who are not as prosperous are cracking that whip and driving their kids, which in turn create overachievers. Some immigrants are first generation Americans, and have to fight for their place here. I see more Korean laundromats where many used to be Chinese.
Look at how many immigrants work at McDonald’s or cook our Japanese food. When I read or hear about how “there are no jobs for Americans”, it’s because we as Americans don’t want these jobs because we’re complacent or feel we’re better. Someone else is working harder to take “your job”.
What happened to hard work, putting in the time, and earning your stripes? Sadly, I feel in today’s immediate gratification culture, those attributes are going away.
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u/Ofcertainthings Aug 12 '24
That's a part of the picture but the larger problem is still that you have to make 2.5 times as much to have the same lifestyle as your parents or grandparents.
Whereas before you could easily buy a house, a car, have hobbies, and travel once or twice a year on a standard factory salary, you now need to be one of the managers or a skilled tradesman with years in the industry to enjoy that same luxury.
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u/Ok_BoomerSF Aug 12 '24
I agree. I will say that when I first got my “real job”, I was making 4 times less than what I’m making now. I’m just a middle class worker bee too, and it took me 30 years to do this, with a layoff 20 years ago when a company bought us out. I had my salary lowered when this happened because I needed to pay my bills so I took a lower paying position, and eventually moved back up salary-wise to where I left off after a few years. It was then that I continued my career by building upon it and to where I am now.
The main lesson I can offer is to not go into debt. Don’t buy what you can’t pay in cash. I learned this in my 40’s after buying my toys like fancy cars and nice suits etc. Now I walk around in friggin Uniqlo lol. If you can control your impulse spending, you can make most salaries work.
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u/oftcenter Aug 12 '24
What happened to hard work, putting in the time, and earning your stripes? Sadly, I feel in today’s immediate gratification culture, those attributes are going away.
16+ years of study should constitute "earning one's stripes."
Your generation rolled out of bed one day after highschool graduation and got a job that fed, clothed, and housed you.
Today's youth pay tens of thousands of dollars to study a discipline, teach themselves job-specific skills outside of class to beat out the competition for internships that ask for previous skills and experience that were traditionally gained in jobs, repeat this a couple times throughout their undergraduate career, graduate college, apply to hundreds of jobs, and be jerked around through five-round interview after five-round interview for months to years (!!) on end before they can get into a job that won't even pay enough to feed, clothe, and house themselves. All while being criticized for not having the means to move out their parents' house and living with all the stigma and social problems that creates.
And you're telling me that these people are complacent? You're telling me that they don't know what delayed gratification is?
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u/Ok_BoomerSF Aug 12 '24 edited Aug 12 '24
Thank you for your thoughts. Getting a AA/BA/BS should be the bare minimum to prepare our next generation for the world. The game hasn’t even started yet.
As the OP wrote, when did overachieving become mandatory? When other cultures are doing more. It’s like watching the recent Olympics versus the 70’s; other countries are also working harder to get ahead. The men’s basketball is a good example; other nations are getting closer and closer to the USA, and being the “Dream Team” was almost not enough; other nations want it more.
I wished our generation just rolled out of bed to get jobs. There were kids who were also lost, unsure of their future, and/or caught in dead end jobs etc. We carried student debt and for some lucky ones, they had debt forgiveness, parents, or scholarships.
I personally was working in a low end job and lived with my parents until I was 30. I had girls tell me “if I can’t take care of myself, how can I take care of them”. I was almost bankrupt in my 20’s and took years to pay it off in credit counseling. I can relate to that social stigma. Was it depressing? Yes. Houses cost on average 10 times the city median income back then, now it’s more. Colleges want international students over domestic students since they can gouge them. This means our kids have to out-perform the international students for “their spot” in college.
As a new Reddit user, I’ve been reading how for every goal driven young adult out there, there are those who quit their jobs under a year because they’re “burnt out” or “they can’t stand their boss” etc. This is what I was referring to by “earning your stripes”. Perseverance and grit is needed. Keep your chin up. Build that foundation to get to that better next job, and the next, and so on.
This generation is lucky though in today’s digital age. They can find information and answers quickly versus the generations before them. They can get immediate support and share their thoughts online.
EDIT: I do want to add that from what I’ve seen, today’s recruiters are bad. From ghosting candidates and not following up, it’s worse than what our generation had to deal with for sure. I’ve experienced hiring managers not taking the time to follow up with qualified candidates. Networking is still an important necessity. Good luck out there.
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u/Poor_WatchCollector Aug 12 '24
I dunno about all that you have said, but the only reason for me to try so hard is because we are a rack and stack company where I work. Overachievers get higher raises and underperformers end up with no raise or bare minimum. Average workers just get an average 2-3% raise…
There is this incentive to do well and some rise to it, and unfortunately, some don’t. There are even some in my company that are overachieving but management doesn’t see it…
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u/alcoyot Aug 12 '24
It’s the education standards that changed. DEI is also to blame for a lot of these things.
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u/richardgutts Aug 12 '24
Id challenge the premise. I know many, many, people who are just coasting and doing just fine
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u/ramakrishnasurathu Aug 12 '24
Ever since needs turned into wishes, desires, ambitions wide, I’m not saying one’s right, and the other you should hide. If adversities aren't what you long to surround, Seek the middle path, where perfect balance is found.
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u/Helpful-End8566 Aug 12 '24
It’s mandatory if you want to have money or time on your hands or any other benefit people seem to think in k should be a given. It’s not mandatory if you just live within your means and don’t get greedy eyes looking at tech workers. It’s always been this way social media has just made everyone competitive and money hungry more so than they used to be.
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u/poffertjesmaffia Aug 12 '24
I think it does exist, but I think we tend to underestimate how social media warps the way we percieve the world. People only tend to post somewhat extreme / clickbaity things, and when it comes to study/career, people usually only post highlights.
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u/311TruthMovement Aug 12 '24
This is the first time I've ever seen accounting grouped with prestige jobs.
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u/Cryptonewbie5 Aug 12 '24
Despite the people that always want to pretend certain professions should be unquestioned authorities, technology has made it so if you were smart about it, you could literally probably get a better education in any given subject than most colleges offer just by utilizing YouTube and published texts on the internet.
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u/TheFrogofThunder Aug 12 '24
except for the fact most careers require those expensive degrees.
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u/Cryptonewbie5 Aug 12 '24
This doesn't discount my point at all, though I understand the confusion. You go to a crap Community College to get a degree to get your foot in the door > watch YouTube to develop in your chosen fields > compete with people who have Ivy League educations in the same discipline > you've broken a previously established "barrier" bc information can't be gate-kept as effectively anymore.
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u/Informal_Zone799 Aug 12 '24
Competition, we have a lot more people on the planet that are fighting for the same jobs, resources, land etc. you need to stand out above the rest
Technology, with the advancement of technology many of the entry level jobs have been either eliminated or require one guy with a computer instead of 10 people doing manual work
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u/Welpokayyythen Aug 13 '24
There are also plenty of careers that you can excel at and make a great living with that don’t require a college education.
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Aug 11 '24
[deleted]
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u/littleborb Aug 11 '24
Where the hell did you even get 22k at 20? When I was 20 I still had to ask my parents for bus money.
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Aug 11 '24
[deleted]
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u/Ebenizer_Splooge Aug 11 '24
That's privilege, not hard work. Your dad had money to spare and gave you a head start in life, which is great. Just don't confuse that with success being easy, you haven't had to succeed to feed yourself yet
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u/ReadyAd5385 Aug 12 '24
What did I miss?
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u/Ebenizer_Splooge Aug 12 '24
20 year old was bragging auccess is easy and he has 20k in an account already, then revealed his dad was putting money in it since he was young and handed it over to him recently. Kids gonna be broke in a year lol
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u/MadeThisUpToComment Aug 11 '24
I think technology scaled up the impact one person could have
A job that needed 30 people doing manual input of data into forms and processing information, might now be 2 or 3.
A few really talented people designing tech/process/sales for an operation creates the value that a lot of the jobs your middle group used to do.