Hi, today a am answering a question from a YouTube subscriber. If you have a question about any of the topics that I cover on my channel, please send a voice mail or better yet a video file to the email address on my YouTube channel and I will try my best to answer it.
Here is Anthony from Paris. France.
Here is a question I got from one of my readers:
My daughter is graduating from high school next year, she is what we call Generation Z. How should she approach her career choices, specially when deciding between jobs that she wants to do and jobs that pay well.
Generation Z, or zoomers, I think their age range is from 14 to 24 years old, is graduating from college and thinking about what to study or what to do with their lives.
Here are some career thoughts in regards to Generation Z.
- She has a long life ahead of her. Her life expectancy is between 80 to 100 years old, and most likely she will change careers many times over her lifetime, so whichever career she chooses now, most likely will not be the career that she will do 10 or 20 years from today. She will discover what she is good at, she will discover new careers that don’t even exist right now, and she will quit jobs that she doesn’t like or that don’t pay her well enough. Whichever career she chooses, it will not be definitive. It’s important but it’s not as important and most people make it out to be.
- There is a lot of competition for jobs that people consider to be “cool” for example, social media influencer, and there is not a lot of competition for jobs that are considered boring, for example, accounting. There is a balance between making lots of money and finding a job that she is passionate about. If she wants to work in something that she’s passionate about, finds challenging, believes is important, and feels she’s good at, she might have to accept a lower income. And that’s OK as long as she is aware of these tradeoff.
- Trade jobs can also be rewarding and many of them pay well. Not everyone needs a four-year degree to be happy or successful. A dental hygienist, for example, typically completes a two-year associate degree program and she can expect a salary of about $75,000. It’s not sexy but it pays well and it has regular hours.
- If she gets into student debt, she should make sure she can pay it back. One common rule of thumb is: Don’t borrow more than her expected first-year salary after graduation. For example, if she thinks that in her first year of work after graduation she will get paid $50,000, then she shouldn’t borrow more than $50,000.
In conclusion, as technology advances, Generation Z will have challenges and opportunities that previous generations have never seen before, but some things never change. She should take advantage of the experience of those who have participated in the job market before her to craft a better life for herself.
Other Personal Development Posts