Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Anything to do with the traditional world of get a degree, get a job as well as its alternatives
TopHatFox
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Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by TopHatFox »

This'll be a place for me to think aloud about a new career path. Thus far I'm thinking of reading a book on work suited for INFJs. Then I'll pick out a career from this list that I can swing a resume for and pays at least 40K+. I'll find openings in a place that is also suited to me, call people, forward my job materials, follow-up via e-mail, network over Skype, interview, land the job, toss my folding bike and life gear on a plane, find new friends and partners, and back on track we are. Onward! 8-)

------------------------

The modern world sure is globalized. In-person relationships are becoming increasingly short-lived for this reason. Awell, law of attrition. I've been trying not to get too attached to jobs, people, and things of late. A sign of maturity?

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C40
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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by C40 »

You can do it, Fox!

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by TopHatFox »

Read a long report on careers centered for INFJs. General consensus is that INFJs prefer people over things, and prefer big ideas over repetitive tasks. We like making a difference, and we like to be growing every day. We also like our jobs to match our value system. We like working with people that share that value system to some degree. I agree on all of this 110%.

These are some examples of good fit careers:

• Writer
• Healthcare Worker
• Artist
• Social Worker
• Counselor
• Therapist
• Librarian
• Scientist
• Life Coach
• Forester
• Human Resources

And bad fit careers:

• Accountant
• Customer Service/Support
• Door-to-Door Sales
• Journalist
• Security Guard
• Front Desk Clerk
• Military Officer
• Politician (except diplomacy)
• Every job that repeats itself daily without meaning
• Every job where inner advancement is not possible

----------------------------

One option I've been thinking about is working in HR of a fancy bicycle manufacturing company. Or, maybe working in bicycle advocacy work as a form of social work combined with writing.

I can write well, I can give good public speeches, I can dress up and show up on time. I'm less good at looking at spreadsheets with 110% accuracy. I also have a BA from a top tier college, but it's only a BA. For this reason, I'm thinking of avoiding therapist or other jobs that require more schooling.

BRUTE
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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by BRUTE »

brute knows health care workers in CA that make 6 figures. not in management or anything either. lots of money to be made, and caring is a large part of the job. (brute thinks THF is a carer).

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by TopHatFox »

@brute, good to know! Money and fit. Yay. Do you know what some of their job titles are?

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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by BRUTE »

nurse

CS
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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by CS »

Nurse... that could work out well. Traveling nurses have lots of freedom, can work short contracts, get to travel the country and don't get dragged into workplace politics. You could be semi-retired nearly immediately.

slowtraveler
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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by slowtraveler »

I have met many nurses who burned out. The ones who do best in my experience did not work for hospitals but private practices and in fields they were interested in.

Maybe find a naturopath or orthodontics private practice with a doctor you connect with?

I do not think life coach, social worker, writer, artist, counselor, scientist, or therapist will bring much cash flow based on meeting many people in these groups but there are the few exceptions in the group selling the dream to the other 95%.

Chiropractors make good money too but alas, more school.

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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by classical_Liberal »

...
Last edited by classical_Liberal on Thu Feb 04, 2021 11:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Unitarian Universalist Minister

SavingWithBabies
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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by SavingWithBabies »

Regarding HR, supposedly the role of it is to protect the company from the employees and protect the employees from the company. But my experience is that HR is much more focused on that first item and, beyond maybe ensuring legality, not focused on that last item. Maybe my experience is atypical and I'm sure you're going to do research anyway but just thought I'd say something. My end experience is that HR is not my friend and is not to be trusted. Maybe it's different though in other industries.

Is your goal to find something that you are compatible with long term? Or are you willing to trade some "fit" for greater income in order to get to FI sooner?

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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by TopHatFox »

SavingWithBabies wrote:
Mon Oct 16, 2017 10:21 am

Is your goal to find something that you are compatible with long term? Or are you willing to trade some "fit" for greater income in order to get to FI sooner?
My goal is to find something I'm compatible with that is sustainable in the day-to-day. Positions that are neutral to a very good fit sound good. It doesn't necessarily need to be a job I keep doing post-FI. I do like the idea of a part-time, 20 hour a week job. That'd leave lots of time for hobbies/business ventures.

I thought I could put a smile on my face and go into high-paid incompatible work, but not so. Living like that is draining, even with an optimistic attitude.

I'm gravitating to HR because I have the qualifications to get a position in it. Now going back to seeing job apps, I don't feel qualified for many positions that aren't in entry-level finance or legal businesses.

SavingWithBabies
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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by SavingWithBabies »

@TopHatFox Got it. I understand. With every job, there are pros and cons and maybe I'm too harsh on HR. I think you would do the job well because you're thoughtful. I personally just fell into my career because it was a personal interest. So I don't have much helpful advice but I too am sure you will find a good fit.

I've never been good at faking it so I've always tried to stick to jobs I think are a decent fit. I have one particular focus in software development and luckily, that focus has been important in the industry so things have gone well and I count myself fortunate.
Last edited by SavingWithBabies on Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by jacob »

HR is also the domain of Catbert, known for occasionally purring loudly, doing the evil dance, and self-hugging, all behaviors commonly observed in INFJs... and in the HR department :mrgreen:

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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by Scott 2 »

HR exists to protect the company, not the employee. As long as you remember that, they're easy to understand.

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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by fiby41 »

According to the article posted by Jason in the other thread (sic) nursing is one job that won't be moving down to Mexico.

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Ego
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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by Ego »

TopHatFox wrote:
Sat Oct 14, 2017 6:24 pm
One option I've been thinking about is working in HR of a fancy bicycle manufacturing company. Or, maybe working in bicycle advocacy work as a form of social work combined with writing.
Look to those who have these jobs and see the trajectory they followed to get them. I happen to know of a few examples.
  • For-Profit: A guy I rode with was working two weekend days a month at the Patagonia store while working during the week at his first post-uni corporate finance job. One day a woman came into the store to buy gear for a big ski trip. The guy helped her for a few hours. As he was ringing up the sale she stopped him and told him she was a secret shopper who worked full-time for Patagonia. Right then and there she connected him with someone in Reno who hired him for a fairly senior job at Patagonia.
  • The Oddball: Brendon Leonard who wrote the story that eventually became the short film 35 outlined his crooked journey in his book Sixty Meters to Anywhere. He started writing about the thing that interested him then turned that into a funny blog with bad cartoons that morphed into a gig writing for REI.
Companies and non-profits where people really want to work have to be defensive in their hiring. They've got the fanboys who want to say, "Dude I work for Filson", and from the other side of the spectrum are the dead-eyed corporate types who want to escape their cages and think they won't really have to work at work. So these companies hire people who are proven quantities.

You've got to find ways to prove yourself. Volunteer in bicycle advocacy. Accept the organizing jobs that everyone else avoids Work entry level at for-profit companies in the field. Organize events that are tangentially related to what you want to do.

Once there, do two important things.
-Schmooze
-Connect people

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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by SavingWithBabies »

An acquaintance of mine works at the Wisconsin Bike Fed. I don't know exactly how they got in but they have been there a long time and I think it was how @Ego suggested (lots of upfront volunteering/being helpful/etc). Wikipedia has a nice list of bicycle advocacy groups that might be useful to go through (some of the sites have jobs pages).

One of the organizations is League of American Bicyclists and they have a wikipedia page here that is interesting because it ranks communities by how bicycle friendly they are. They have a job under "About the League" on their website (only an internship at the moment).

My apologies if you've seen all of this already. I found the listing of friendly communities interesting as something to help narrow down good ERE places.
Last edited by SavingWithBabies on Mon Oct 16, 2017 3:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by jacob »

I'm probably pointing out the obvious, but sometimes that's helpful too. Any highly specialized work, like astrophysics, quant finance, FIRE blogging, mountain climbing, sitting on the board of directors, tend to be very small worlds which if you do them for more than a few years, you quickly end up knowing a significant fraction of everybody in that field, on the entire planet!

Estimate how many people are actually in that business on a global/continental scale. There are, for example, less that 1000 personal finance bloggers. If you're within an order of magnitude of the Dunbar number, the following applies ... (Alternatively, it might be that your world is just a single regiona/national/transnational company ... so it's also possible to consider that your world and use a similar strategy.)

A good way to gauge this is to figure out how many degrees of Kevin Bacon it takes to cover the entire field. The number is somewhere between 0 and 5 ... because 5 covers the entire planet regardless of the field. If it's low, it's a small field.

Once you get a good idea of the structure, you'll know who are the superstars, the stars, the Jupiters, and so on... in your field. The way the dynamics often work is that interaction only happens one level apart. This is due to quantity and quality. Everybody is best served asking one level above and answering one level below according to whatever level they're currently at themselves. This might seem callous, especially to level-zero newbies, but try dealing with endless requests for noob advice for a while and you'll understand how your energy is limited. If you try to respond to/connect with everyone you'll just burn out.

Try not to cross more than one Kevin Bacon at a time. My recommended strategy is:

Only connect to the next level up if you know they're actually aware of your existence. If not, you gotta go the extra mile: Offer to pay for coffee or whatever, but try not to be creepy/stalking. This is why references work. A reference acts as a Wheaton bridge. You want to reach 2 levels higher, so you ask someone who's 1-2 levels higher (at least 1 level from you), to mediate. You can try to bridge higher. Tim Ferriss is kinda famous for this. It might backfire, so survivor bias applies.

As for responding to such requests, I think Confucius got it right.
Mr Confucius wrote: I only instruct the eager and enlighten the fervent. If I hold up one corner and a student cannot come back to me with the other three, I do not go on with the lesson.” (Analects 7.8).
For this reason, trolling, mass-mailing, and follow-up emails is a very easy way to trigger someone's spam/pestilence filtering.

The Old Man
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Re: Fox's Career Plan 2.0?

Post by The Old Man »

TopHatFox wrote:
Sat Oct 14, 2017 6:24 pm
Read a long report on careers centered for INFJs. General consensus is that INFJs prefer people over things, and prefer big ideas over repetitive tasks. We like making a difference, and we like to be growing every day. We also like our jobs to match our value system. We like working with people that share that value system to some degree. I agree on all of this 110%.

I can write well, I can give good public speeches, I can dress up and show up on time. I'm less good at looking at spreadsheets with 110% accuracy. I also have a BA from a top tier college, but it's only a BA. For this reason, I'm thinking of avoiding therapist or other jobs that require more schooling.
TopHatFox wrote:
Mon Oct 16, 2017 10:50 am
I'm gravitating to HR because I have the qualifications to get a position in it. Now going back to seeing job apps, I don't feel qualified for many positions that aren't in entry-level finance or legal businesses.
Forget HR. You need to work with your strengths. I would suggest Fund Raising for a non-profit organization or/and foundation. You have a degree from an elite university and you worked in wealth management. You have a background that makes you relatable to major donors. Your writing and speech skills can only help. Finally, you seem to have very strong people skills that would be a major benefit when working with major donors.

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