Recent Graduates Are Most Likely to Work in Sales, Making around $40K
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
I wrote a little about this framing it as a CS degree problem, but it seems true for a lot more than just CS.
> Can we prove aptitude is flat? Kinda. In 1970s 1-in-2 college grads aced Wordsum test. Today 1-in-6 do.[2] Using that as a proxy for IQ of the median college grad, in the 70’s it was ~112, now its ~100.
> In other words we have more people going to college than ever, but the “average grad” is less intelligent than ever. Degrees are increasingly diluted yet expensive. You can pay more money than ever to show that you are of average intelligence.
From: https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/why-is-computer-science-enr...
Everybody poops.
The same goes for carpenters, masonry, etc. The physical work will wear you down — but by the time that becomes a problem you should be skilled enough to be a manager.
I'm making decent money now, but it's crazy how much trade work was frowned upon when I graduated high school. In retrospect I think I'd be totally happy with being a contractor managing a small business.
I've also hired tradespeople who did put in the time and were worse than doing the job myself after watching youtube videos for a few hours, so at that point what's it even accomplishing.
It doesn't necessarily mean that it takes any more or less effort or intelligence to finish a university degree.
It also doesn't mean that average intelligence is dropping.
It just indicates a stereotypical reversion to mean.
Anecdotally, I'm still baffled at those in my extended social circle who followed a path similar to:
- Graduate high school with sub-3.0 GPA
- Admittedly they didn't "like school"
- Attended community college or local state university
- Proceeded to graduate in 5-8 years (to their credit some may have worked part-time or full-time)
- Study general business, marketing, or a social science
- Graduate college with sub-3.0 GPA
- Graduate with no meaningful experience (internships, part-time work, etc.) in their desired career
- Immediately and even in later years, get upset about undesirable job opportunities and/or low salaries and/or high cost of livingWe're extremely luck to work in an industry where meaningful experience only requires a time investment, all our tools are free (or near free) and we can collaborate with other people around the world.
I'm not necessarily talking coursework, either -- how students are treated is very different.
at the right company with the right compensation structure, a handful of $100M+ deals can set you up for a LONG time
There are a host of other qualities, but this strikes me the most "inborn" one.
I think it's the same for sales or a lot of other professions. People with talent can go much further.
it is very hard to replicate the behavior of someone that just loves being around people. i can usually tell who is a "natural" and who isn't (i.e. those that went through therapy, coaching and the like)
learning how to be around people can't really be done in a safe space since the world at large in unsafe. people will say dumb shit at you. people will cut you off. people will do unexpectedly nice (or mean) things. everyone is different.
the only way to truly learn these skills is to get out there and be vulnerable. i can see how classes and sessions can get you to a point at which one is comfortable enough to even BEGIN doing this (I went to a few social anxiety meetups with friends), but that alone isn't enough.
getting to the root of that anxiety with a psychologist is more effective, in my (limited) opinion, but that can be expensive for many
you CAN get pretty far on the basics though. most people like being around someone that is humorous and makes them feel good about themselves. you can go REALLY far by finding what someone really likes to talk about and letting them talk (while asking questions throughout)
podcasts with interviews from journalists or news companies helped me with this a lot
People LOVE stories they can see themselves in. Gets their imaginations all worked up.
Also, EVERYBODY has incentives. Money, becoming a 10x developer, travelling the world, being a better parent. All of these are incentives.
If you don't believe me, check this out.
Remember the last time you got pitched a timeshare? (If you ever went on a heavily discounted Disney vacation, you almost certainly did.) The salesperson working the room will spend at least the first 15-30 minutes setting the scene. "You. Puerto Rico. Corona. Beach. Need I say more?" type stuff.
Pyramid marketing salespeople do the exact same thing to build their downlines (i.e. hire more people under them). They spend 80% of their presentation on how much you can make and maybe 10% on what they're selling (the other 10% is lost to heat).
Luxury brands are THE MASTERS at this. (I would not be surprised if hip hop icons got some kind of commission/free clothing from high-falutin haute fashion brands; luxury setting is all they do!)
They seem cheesy, but people eat stories up (and, consequently, buy product) like no tomorrow.
It might take a while to catch up to someone who has been practicing a skill like that all their life, but that's true of anything.
:)
I know some salespeople today, who during highschool were the most introverted, least talkative guys or girls in the world.
Their success is due to practice both in work (entry level sales jobs require non-stop talking for 8+ hours per day, as opposed to entry-level engineering where there are 4+ hours of quiet time), and outside of work (e.g. debate teams, tea clubs, book clubs, meetups, networking events, speech therapists, etc.)
It really comes down to making people (a) think that your shit (mostly YOU) will help them with their problems and (b) feel confident in trusting you.
As for comp: Most people in sales jobs go through ups and downs in their annual comp largely because most of it comes from commission and bonus. You could make >$1M one year and <$100k the next. Technical sales are more stable since salaries tend to be higher, but comp is still highly variable. Also, unlike engineering where one's performance criteria are somewhat superfluous, sales is a very numbers-driven job. Most have quotas they need to hit with bonuses for every level above that. Not hitting your quota == not having a job next month/year in some places.
That would include talent agents, advertising, etc. (You could argue these are all just salesmen)
(It's even worse in some third world countries on the way down. In Egypt, unemployment of college graduates is higher than for non-college graduates.)
If pay is also higher then college could still be +EV.
If the ROI of college aggregated over all consumers is positive, then the colleges are mispricing themselves. As capitalists, they should charge more until they capture all the consumer surplus and the aggregate ROI for all consumers converges to zero. This is more or less what has happened over the past generation. (Not all colleges are strictly capitalist, of course, but in broad strokes this is what we've seen.)
Seems that the number isn't adjusted for inflation and should be closer to $45 or $50k in 2017+
http://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
Lots more to read here:
Total compensation per hour has increased 44% since the 80s.
for the 1%.
With that said, I'm not exactly sure what type of career path somebody studying, say, political science could embark on -- it seems to me that there's a lot more demand for accreditation in certain fields than there is demand for actual practitioners.
Computers are getting better at sales. Amazon doesn't have salespeople. Retailers barely have salespeople any more. Outside of real estate, cars, and financial products, what B2C companies do?
AWS sure as hell does
Declining for sure, but high ticket B2C still has salespeople.
Home improvement, cosmetic surgery, cosmetic dentistry, vocational education, timeshares, boats, recreational vehicles, insurance, furniture, solar energy, hot tubs, pool tables, pianos, etc.
And a lot of stuff at the low end, home based seller angle...beauty, vacuum cleaners, organic, supplements , diets, and so forth.
Selling to businesses, for example, pretty much requires salespeople. For example, I know someone in corporate real estate, and you wouldn't believe the type of shit the salespeople get away with there or how ridiculous their compensation is (especially compared to her, who does just as much work trying to win business when putting together the proposals those salespeople present).
I'm not so sure it matters. Even in engineering, college courses alone won't provide you with a worthwhile resume. In college, you have plenty of chances to build a CV worth hiring. You can do research, work on meaningful projects outside of class, get internships, etc. no matter what you want to study. All the people I knew who got jobs out of undergrad did some combination of the above regardless of their major. The important part was that they could point to concrete things that demonstrated their skills.
Conservatively assuming this is intended to be a snapshot of first job salaries, it's interesting to note that a $40k salary is in the top 50% of jobs in the US [1]. And again, we expect most of these people to earn increasingly more as they hit their earning stride (which will be after grad school for many).
1- https://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/10/30/heres-the-average...
I'm not sure if this is a good way to quantify it. It was always common for people to get low end jobs after graduation. It's not the jobs they've done in the last 5 years that are of interest, it's the ones they hold after 5 years.