#anyway if anyone has alternatives please put it in my inbox i have zero friends who like to read or are still intensively studying <3

[haechanhour]

cant believe i witnessed the burning of the library of zalexandria

[apprenticebard]

How can I make more money like you?

An important question!!

So to start with, I am not a person who has Figured Things Out. I got lucky last year - my friend recommended me for a job in a very high-wage area (specifically, San Francisco’s tech industry) that I happened to be a really good fit for, and that happened to be willing to hire people on a trial basis if they were promising, even if they didn’t have college degrees (’cause I still don’t have one). And that was really good for a while, until some stuff happened and I kinda got eaten. Now I’m unemployed and looking for another job; I think I’ll find something comparatively good again, but I dunno how long it’ll be, and right now I’m looking at both moderately high-paying content-writing jobs and jobs that pay around minimum wage (which is a lot here; nothing pays less than $15 because the bay is lowkey insane), in case getting another really good job takes longer than I’d like it to.

But anyway! Obviously there isn’t a super easy way to make lots of money that’s going to apply to every anon who could possibly have shown up in my inbox, but here are some general pointers:

1) Even if things are going really well for you, you’re gonna tend to make less than most people while you’re early in your career. This is difficult but how it is. It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong, and you might be on track for a great career in a few more years, once you gain more experience. If this is where you’re at, I think the best way to make more money is to work on leveling up at your current job, or looking for a different job of the same kind that either pays better now or will probably allow you to level up faster. It’s good to take on extra responsibilities when you have the time and energy to do so, especially if they use a lot of skills you do have, but also a few skills that you’ll need to figure out as you go along. 

Note that I do think that this advice is less actionable outside of the bay (which is full of startups that are growing rapidly and trying new things). I do think there’s still something to it. If you gain skills and responsibilities as well as you can, I think that even if your current job doesn’t recognize that and reward it, you’ll be building up skills that’ll make you more desirable the next time you change jobs.

2) Say you think you’re in a really good industry, and you know that other people in your industry make decent money, but for some reason, you’re not. Or, alternatively, say that you have a lot of skills and some work experience in a decent industry, but you can’t get anyone to call you back, and you’re beginning to wonder if maybe you’re secretly terrible and have zero Good Employee Qualities.

Getting a new job is hard, and leaving an old job is scary. I know; I just left my old job, and I spend lots of time being scared that nobody’s gonna hire me and I’m gonna have to go back to working at Kroger again, where I only made it through cashiering shifts by imagining that my characters were being tortured and that I could only save them by making it to the end of the next hour. 

But it really does pay to look at what else is out there. You can get some ideas by very casually looking at job sites like Glassdoor or Indeed; there might be nothing, or a bunch of job postings that you don’t understand, but I’ve found that it’s often good to get the lay of the land and figure out what recruiters are looking for in your industry. If you want better odds, and you have some successful friends, it can pay to ask them whether their companies are hiring for a position you can fill, and whether any of them might like to recommend you for it.

If you don’t have an easy way to get your foot in the door, you’re gonna be filling out a lot of applications. This sucks, but it doesn’t mean that you suck. If you really feel like you’re qualified for the sort of job you want, get someone to help you put together a good resume that shows off your skills, put together a portfolio or similar if you’re in the relevant industries, and resign yourself to applying to dozens or maybe hundreds of things. Recruiters are super arbitrary and will totally disqualify you based on things that have nothing to do with your ability to do the job. (This isn’t even because they’re bad people, it’s because they have a stack of resumes on their desk and have only the faintest idea how to tell which of the associated candidates are gonna be good at things.) It’s a numbers game. If you’re not doing something really ridiculous, like applying to every job with a resume that only lists completely unrelated kinds of work experience, then someone’ll probably talk to you eventually. It’ll just probably take way more applications than you’d think.

(Oh, also, all of the requirements in job postings tend to be pretty silly; as long as you think you’re genuinely capable of doing the work, I think you should apply to jobs where you meet maybe 75% of the stated requirements if the job sounds OK, and maybe 50% if it’s something you’d be really excited to get to do.)

3) If you’re not in a career sort of job at all - if you’re stuck behind the counter at Wendy’s right now, in which case my heart goes out to you, anon friend - or you’ve found yourself in a career that pays very badly or makes you unhappy, and you don’t think your skills will translate to anything you like doing, then you might want to look at changing careers entirely. Most people will tell you to go to college, if you haven’t already. I’m gonna tell you that college is a great thing for lots of people, but not always a good idea financially, and not always the best way forward, especially if you’re not very academically inclined. 

Think about what you’re good at, and think about what your dealbreakers are. You’re approaching this from thinking about money, not about passion, but you still don’t want to end up in a job that you’re a terrible fit for; you’ll get fired or be miserable all the time, and that’s no good for anyone. 

As a first line, if you feel that you’re reasonably flexible and talented, here are some very different jobs that make good money; you might want to consider whether you’re a good fit for any of these, and do more research as appropriate. (This is largely an exercise to get you thinking, not to say that these specific jobs are the ones you should definitely be looking at.)- Nursing. There’s a perpetual shortage of nurses, they have to exist everywhere in the country, and they make at least decent pay no matter where they live. For an RN, you’re looking at an average of about $55k per year in the cheapest states, and about $90k per year in the most expensive ones (although remember that this isn’t what you’ll make at the beginning of your career). I don’t recommend it if you really dislike people, long hours, college classes, heavy lifting, or bodily fluids, but I do think it’s a career that a lot more people should be willing to consider. If you think you can hack the education part, but not so much the heavy lifting, the bodily fluids, or the being around people who might be dying, dental hygienists make about the same amount, and their patients hardly ever need to be carried anywhere while possibly dying. I think.

- Software engineering. The pay rate here is kind of insane; if you have the interest and aptitude, then doing a coding bootcamp and getting a programming job in either NYC or San Francisco is a relatively attainable way of making a genuinely six-figure salary within a few years of starting, even if you don’t have a college degree. It’s not for everyone - I’ve tried to learn, a little, but I’ve bounced off pretty hard so far - but it’s a great opportunity for people who can hack it, so to speak. Like nursing, there’s a shortage here, mostly because software is a rapidly expanding industry that has only existed for, like, forty years tops.

- The skilled trades. We’re talking about electricians, mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, and other people in this space. It’s hard in different ways than an office job, but there are a lot of people who these are a good fit for. While they’re not as highly paid as nurses or engineers, people in the skilled trades do OK; reaching $50k per year is totally feasible, and people who are both skilled and lucky can break $80k. These jobs tend to go by apprenticeship systems, so if you don’t have a family member or friend to vouch for you, it’s a good idea to look at trade schools in your area to get you started, and then expect to spend several years in a junior position until you know what’s what.

- Flight Attendants. Not all flight attendants are particularly well-paid, but many are, and things like waitressing can be counted as relevant experience. The first flight attendant job I found on Indeed just now is $18 an hour and doesn’t require any experience or a degree, though the requirements do have a lot to say about your appearance, height (gotta be able to get luggage out of the overhead compartments, after all), and willingness to work really weird hours. The BLS reports that the median flight attendant ultimately makes about $56k per year. 

- Police officers. Obviously there are a ton of very legit reasons not to want to be a police officer, but I am of the opinion that someone’s gotta do it, and it’s better if the people involved wanna do it right, right? (I guess I don’t know if you want to do it right. Please don’t become a police officer purely for the money and then shoot someone, anon.) The median police officer makes about $60k, and it doesn’t require a college education, which is honestly a pretty good deal even if you’re not as passionate as Judy Hopps. I don’t recommend it as a job unless you’re not scared of people, even the creepy ones, ‘cause scared people make mistakes, and when police officers make mistakes, sometimes people end up dead.

If you read that list and were like, “Bard, there’s a reason I’m at Wendy’s, can you lower your expectations here a little,” you might want to look into stuff like warehousing, groundskeeping, janitorial work, sales, garbage collection, or construction work. Job sites are your friends; it’s useful to browse them and see what sorts of jobs pay the kinds of salaries you’re looking for. I also think you might be well-served by considering whether you can move in with friends or family in a part of the country where wages are higher. The big cost of living difference in other places is rent, so if you have a housing situation figured out or can split that cost with a friend, you can make a lot more money just by doing the same thing somewhere else. For example, before I got super lucky and became a Real Content Writer, my plan was to hang out on my friend’s couch for six months rent-free, work at some supermarket in SF, and then take my wages back home to Indiana to pay for the rest of my degree. And honestly, if I hadn’t fallen in love with this ridiculous place and hadn’t immediately gotten a much better job, I think it very well might have worked.

There’s a lot more that I could say here, but this is already pretty long. The main things are to think about where you’re headed, to look around at all of the different possible lucrative directions to head in if you don’t like where you are, and to figure out what steps you’d have to take to get there. You’re welcome to come to my inbox with more questions about this - my last job was all about helping people find jobs themselves, so I guess I should know something about it by now - but you might need to be a little more specific if I didn’t hit on the thing you’re stuck on in this post.