How did you choose your career?

Hey all, a little background on myself, I'm 23 and have my associates degree (Welding) but I don't enjoy that field, currently I'm an equipment operator but it's not challenging enough and my current employer (State) just doesn't pay well, I've decided if I'm going to switch employers it would be nice to switch careers and find something more challenging.
The issue that I'm running into is I know I can do pretty much anything I put my mind too but that just gives me more possibilities.
My past experience includes retail, electronics, construction, automotive mechanic, equipment mechanic, boat mechanic, postal experience, arborist, electrical (Basic), plumbing (basic), HVAC (Very basic), and my hobbies are electronics and firearms

So that invites the question, how did you decide on your career? What would you recommend me do to attempt to narrow the potential jobs to check into?

 

I will say this, the current global situation has me reevaluating my career choice. I'm very fortunate that I haven't lost my job or been furloughed (yet), but the company I work for is definitely a non-essential one. With the economy the way it is things are very uncertain looking forward for me in terms of my current job. In light of recent events, I want my next job/career to be something considered essential...something that will still be needed in times like these despite stay at home orders and such.

I'm 35, not old but not young enough to go back to school for a medical or law degree lol. Something in the trade field is what I would probably focus on, like the jobs you mentioned having experience in. Electrician, HVAC, welding, etc. Of course they are still subjected to the ebb and flow of the economy, but they're essential trades.

 

What's essential is going to be defined by what the situation is. Currently, those trades you mentioned are "essential", but that doesn't mean they will be in some other global meltdown issue. Pick a career that is flexible and learn skills that can be transferred to other jobs.

 

I looked at the pay and said yeah that’s cool. I don’t mind the hell I work in for the paycheck

 

I went back to college and took classes I liked until I found the field that made me happy. Then I figured out a job after that. I tell my students now to think of education as collecting skills not reaching milestones. Just because they take a class doesn’t mean they learned the skills they could have in that class, that was on them.

if you like electronics or firearms, maybe machinist, or robotics training. Maybe engineering. Life is too short to do something you hate for money.

Right now, I work for a University, but I have worked lots of places. I have 3 degrees, all in art because it is what I like and what I am good at. That did teach me to build, and lay tile, and weld, and bind books, and many other things. So if you want to do something, go do it. You can’t predict the future, so be willing to keep learning. I started as a potter, but now program robots and run Cnc’s.

If you had a dream job, aim for that and give it a try, some times you find a dream job you didn’t know existed until you stumble on it.

 

I ended up in engineering because it just fit. I've been building things my whole life, it only made sense to continue.

If I were choosing something right now, I would look at industries that I have an interest in, see what jobs they have available and how I might fit in right now. I would also want to look at where I fit in the long run - if there's no advancement path that you can see yourself being happy with, that is not a great sign. That said, you may be able to find other aspects of the same industry where you can be valuable, so be flexible in what you search. In other words, don't look at just the company that does the thing you like - look upstream and down stream at their suppliers and customers.

 

I fell into it. My degree is in psychology and while I am not a psychologist it amazes me how much I use in my day to day especially dealing with the clientele I do.

 

Trucking has been a good field for a long time. It might be automated within the next 10 years or so tho. I made my living sitting behind a desk and it always appealed to me.

 

Go for what you like... if it’s electronics or engineering maybe take some courses to see if it’s what you want. I chose electronics engineering technology and it’s made a good living for me.

 

Don't listen to me when it comes to taking advice, I am 30 and by far do I have it all together. That being said I have a general outline of how I would like to live out my life at this juncture. As always results vary from person to person, so take what I am going to say with a grain of salt.

I have found over the years that nothing is set in stone, jobs are just that, and careers with promises of paying you pensions after X amount of years, only to make bad on that promise and leave you feeling for a source of income after are becoming all too commonplace in today's world.

What I'm saying is that work is not what it was back in the early 1900s. You could not work and retire out of a newspaper company after working for 20 years and living out the rest of your life living off their income as well as social security like folks of that time were. Working one job for the life of your employment is now an ideal of the old world.

Get a general skillset (which it seems you already have) and follow the money wherever it leads you while it is good. Once it dries up, move on, but ALWAYS keep your options open and never stop looking for new opportunities even if you feel good with where you are at the time.

I personally feel that the military is a good choice if you utilize it properly, and if you network out of it enough over the years (which by default most usually do) you will make some solid connections that will lead to excellent opportunities in other general related fields such as firearms industry or even IT in the future. Besides, it helps further develop your own character as a person and that is always something I've been a proponent of.

This Corona thing is shape shifting the jobsphere around the nation, definitely here on the West Coast and it appears that many jobs will be shifting into remote style work. This is both a good yet bad thing.

If you are a hands on person like I and many other people here are, I suggest you stick with businesses which are critical to people's lives, HVAC, Auto industry, that sort of thing if military is not for you.

I hope you were able to get something valuable out of this, if even just one thing.. best of luck to you in your endeavors.

 

Being a business owner. Looking at your work history you listed tells me your not sure what you want to do. If the hobbies you listed are something you would like to do for a living, I would look into classes in electronics or even becoming a gunsmith. A good rule of thumb is find something you really like that you would do for free and become so good at it people will pay you to do it. I see you have an associates in welding, is you decided you didn’t like welding or you just didn’t like the company you worked for. There is always gonna be a need for hi quality skilled labor. I have a friend who is an underwater welder and he makes stupid money. Whatever you Do don’t chase money, find something you really like and the money will come. Good luck.

 

Uhhh, that isn’t entirely accurate in my area from my experience. Everyone I know that works for the government around here makes way more doing much less with better health insurance and retirement plans. The benefits and PTO seems to be worlds better for government workers. And the job security seems way better. But I gues it might be relative to what field you’re in.

 

HIGHLY agree.

Those who say government and/ or military jobs do not pay well are just uneducated to the reality on the actual playing field. You just have to know how to utilize the system to your advantage is all.

Not all government and military jobs are structured equally and while some pay less, some pay more doing the same thing the lesser paying pays out.

Like I said, you just have to know how to work the system in place to your benefit.

Oh and the PTO IS killer.

 

I deleted my post. Re-read it and Kinda rambled on

East coast near DC are high paying. The rest of the US doesn't when it comes to government work in my opinion.
For instance, I had a civilian counterpart in my previous position, head of a department. In charge of 20+ people w/ responsibilities of roughly $700M+ assets. Gets paid $40/hr ($76,000/yr) I have a friend with somewhat equivalent responsibilities and duties but less assets (service director for a dealership), gets paid $150k+/yr.

I trained someone to take over my position I get paid military so $60k a year adding all the benefits include healthcare. The same person left a year later for civilian and became a company in Texas around $160k/yr.

I can keep listing a lot of examples including some of my relatives. Here are some not all examples:
My mom made $200k+ a year as a traveling nurse in private sector. Got tired of traveling and starting to settle for retirement so she took a VA (gov) position as a nurse, gets paid $60k/yr.
Uncle makes $200k+ a year as a project manager. I filled project manager position for the Military I was only getting paid around $45k at that time including benefits (military provides us a yearly comparison on what our benefits cost).

 

Read my above post^

 

Actual dollar figure amounts and whether it is enough to sustain you or not are relative to YOUR situation, not everyone elses.

Do you have a wife, kids, 3 dogs, and a blood sucking ex wife who hounds you for alimony or child support from a kid you are not even sure is your own? If you answered yes to all of the above then it is in your better interest to work a job paying something north of 150-200K a year simply due to all of the areas the cash is being funneled into.

I believe it has been proven that the average person making over 70K a year without massive commitments is all is required to live well and comfortably, the rest being candy money at that point. Of course that research likely excluded California because of the obvious hellhole this state is, but I digress.

At 52K a year I have lived VERY comfortably as a single. I cannot say that will work for everyone but at the brisk age of 23, OP has literally all of the options available to him and his whole life ahead of him. If he plays his cards right and keeps his nose clean throughout his life, the actual amount of money to sustain yourself as a single person required is not an astronomical one nor should it be. We have just become a country of self indulgence which seems to think that more is less and we must keep up on the constant trend of iPhones and Jordans.

Not ranting to you or even debating in order to keep this thread on topic so OP gets his answer to life. I just want you to understand where my thought process is coming from and with that being said I also understand that not everyone feels the same way I do.

 

I noticed your avatar and couldn’t help thinking you should consider law enforcement. And at your age you could pursue a state police job.

I’m 35 (and live in Texas) but if I could “redo it” I’d for sure go the state trooper route. Very solid salary and great career. I work with local agencies and there are some great options there too...

 

I got you. I was just highlighting that government work is not all cracked up to be if you are go-getter in my opinion, especially military (pay wise). I know people that gets paid same as I that sits on the computer all day watching youtube videos. Probably one of the reasons why getting any government work completed takes a long time + all the red tape people don't want to do.

 

Thankfully around here most jobs that I would consider have stayed "essential" it's the food service, tattoo, salons, etcetera, that suffered.
I definitely do want to take into considerations the market outlook for whatever I decide to do.

True, linemen could be knocked off of the "essential" list however unlikely, it all depends on the disaster.

I completely agree, after years of the "I don't care about money" I started listening to the Dave Ramsey show and now I've decided to do what I enjoy and can make good money at, I want to live debt free.

Engineering would be cool, I've played with CAD a little bit and would love to do a little bit of CAD work mixed with shop work, I think I like a balance of hands on and office work.
I completely agree, there's not much advancement in my current career field unless I want to start my own company and I just don't really want to do that, and that's a large portion of why I'm looking into career options now and not in 3 years when I would realize that I'm pretty much stuck.

I wanted to take a Psych course in college but ended up taking sociology instead, it's a very interesting field to learn about for sure.

I've considered it, one of our latest hires was an OTR driver who "retired" to be closer to home and he made great money, I just don't think I would do well as an OTR driver.

Correct, my true work history doesn't include the electrical, construction, or HVAC, those were learned by not hiring repairmen and by rebuilding our house after Katrina, and the mechanic stuff isn't from a job either (living on/ being around a farm gived plenty of opportunity for that) but you're right, I've never hated a job (Supervisors are a different story) but I've never been at a job and thought "I could do this for 30 years", One of my plans is to start a gun shop when I retire but it's not a big money maker, it's more of a retirement job/hobby.

I never worked as a welder, I did 3 semesters in welding school and got tired of the headaches from the fumes and smelling like burned metal when I got home, I use it as a skill around the farm/house and It's something I could do as a side hustle but shipyards are the most common employers for welders around here and the conditions suck.

I'm a reserve officer for our PD and I really enjoy it and was considering going full time but I would rather have a full time career and do it part time because of the current climate, I wouldn't want to end up like the Washington (Or Ca) officers that got fired for what they (and I) believe.

I have not, I know almost nothing about the energy fields, offshore is big around here but it's so volatile that I wouldn't consider it.