College graduates find a tough job market
The news that college graduates have been having trouble finding jobs, especially positions in their fields, should come as no surprise whatsoever. Different generations have different patterns of luck, and those who come of age in a time of economic recession or depression are going to have trouble getting started in life.
They may never catch up.
I was raised by parents who were young adults during the Depression, the big one that was distinguished by having a capital “D” as its initial letter. My mother used to tell me tales of Depression woe quite regularly.
She had been engaged in college to a student at Columbia Law School, but he could not find work on graduation, so they never married. He ended up becoming a career Army officer, so he didn’t do half badly, but that was much later.
In the community where we lived, my mother knew the history of many of her friends with whom she’d gone to grade school and high school. She used to point out their sad career trajectories, or lack thereof, “He wanted to be a gym teacher,” (which had seemed a modest enough aspiration to me at the time), “but he had to quit school to help support his parents and never finished high school.” Now he pushed racks of clothing around the garment district.
This one, that one; all had tales. Some had done well, of course, but many had not. They were all still friends, by the way, despite their different circumstances in life. When I heard these stories, I felt a strong sense of the precariousness of plans and the random nature of fate. I also developed a deep respect for the power of economic cycles and their ability to affect a person’s life forever.
I had a relatively small taste of the same thing when my husband earned a doctorate during the Carter years and tried to get a job on his emergence from the grind. It was nearly impossible; hiring had dried up in his field. He went on interview after interview where hundreds of people were applying for a single job. Finally he found one, although it involved his doing something different from what he’d hoped, and in a part of the country far from where we’d wanted to set up stakes. But we were both grateful that he’d gotten it at all.
One of the differences between then and now is that fewer people incurred huge debts in going either to college and graduate school. Unlike today, tuition was more reasonable in comparison to the standard of living. Recent graduates now not only have to deal with unemployment, but their school debts tend to be massive.
What’s more—call them spoiled, call them privileged, call them anything you want—their expectations of life are higher, and therefore the disappointment greater when they fail to meet them. The go-go good years that they observed while growing up lasted longer, and the flying was higher. Today’s graduates know almost nothing else—nor did they have those Depression-era parents to warn them that it could all disappear at any moment.
Are engineers having trouble finding jobs? Computer scientists? Lawyers? Accountants?
Not making a point…I’m curious.
I’m a lawyer (in Europe not the US). From what I gather from US law websites new lawyers are having lots of problems finding jobs.
texexec: if you read the linked article, it mentions that some are doing better than others:
They could be graduating in, say, 1941,2,3,4. Or 1934.
My generation–I predate the boomers by a few months–knew the young folks’ starting situations. Not two decades later, the kids were growing up in the got-it-made-finally situations and didn’t understand the views of their older siblings and cousins.
My son is about to drop out of a university where he’s in his second year in horticulture. All brought on by getting a part time job on campus where it turns out his boss graduated with a horticultural degree 5 or 6 years ago and might make $25,000 a year and happy to get it. Plus his GI money from his 5 year stint in the navy is due to run out and he’s trying to figure out how in the world he can justify racking up student loans on such prospects. I don’t know what to tell him.
“while area studies majors – those who majored in Latin American studies, for example – and humanities majors were least likely to do so. Among all recent education graduates, 71.1 percent were in jobs that required a college degree; of all area studies majors, the share was 44.7 percent. ”
Best news I’ve had all day. I’ve given up any thought that these “studies” can be removed by normal academic means. Maybe they will wither and die as students get a taste of economic reality, and flee far away from them.
So much of it (and life in general) is luck.
Because of family problems, I had to drop out of school after the ninth grade. But I’ve always loved reading and was fortunate enough for it to be easy for me ( see On Reading… ), so while I’ve never had much discipline in study (or anything for that matter), it’s difficult to do as much reading as I have without something sticking.
As a result, I tend to do very well in tests, favorably impressing the USAF and later engineering and IT companies I worked with.
Even my first engineering job was a matter of luck.
After returning from the USAF (with not much in the way of useful civilian skills), I was given (by the unemployment office) a one-year drafting course at a local community college (before dropping out of school, I’d had a bit of that, where it was called “mechanical drawing”).
My subsequent job-hunting in Houston consisted of wearing out the telephone until an engineer at one company mentioned that they needed a mechanical draftsman. I dashed over there, thinking he meant what it was called in my school, only to find that in the building trades, “mechanical” referred to HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning).
Fortunately (Damn! – I use that word as frequently as you-know-who’s economic team uses “unexpectedly” when they issue economic reports), I had enough sense to bring along some drawings, which they liked enough to take me on.
That got me in the door, which is always the biggest hurdle.
Once inside, all things become possible.
I’m not the greatest genius you’ve ever met, and my current position is not in the least my “dream job”, but, By God, I’ve had some interesting times.
If I’ve made it this far, so can any of you.
Good luck, and keep trying.
–
Is this really a job depression or just a deflationary bubble, reacting to the situation that more and more credentials today just don’t mean squat?
About this:
“When I heard these stories, I felt a strong sense of the precariousness of plans and the random nature of fate. I also developed a deep respect for the power of economic cycles and their ability to affect a person’s life forever.”
Beautifully put. This is why religion is here to stay. Spreadsheets are as rational as astrological charts for “unfogging the future” (if you pardon my Harry Potter reference).
I wanted to be a physicist.
my grandparents on moms side are illterate
dad and mom have GEDs. dad a refugee of hitler and stalin as a child. i being first born here.
i grew up in a slum area… too poor since the war cost the family greatly… two janitor families married, and i was born (so was sis 3 years later)
learning soviet science… pencil and paper, when you have no equipment, or funding… and worked very hard…
i took speech classes so people wouldnt know i was half deaf… i sat in front of a mirror to work on getting rid of a small palzy i have with my mouth moving to one side (had 106 fever as a child)
i learned music, performed at lincoln center, carnegie hall (cousins went to juliard). i gave music up… did art work… photography… sculpture…
then got into bronx science early.. i took the test to see what it was like to prepare for the next year, and i passed.
having always been in the 99.999th percentile…
it was great.
but then bad race times happened…
two of my friends suicides from the pressure. another had a mental breakdown and became a kind of vegetable.
my family took me away from that…
and so, i lost my inner city slum child can make it big thanks to progressive education status.
then they started to screw with my life for social engineering and the push was on to disenfranchise POOR white males… (attack the weak is easy)
so comes time for school, i get bad advice, cant get any scholarships, or aid. move out of the house for being a kind of failure, get into barnard baruch continuing education program. paid by collecting cans, an copper, odd jobs… lived on a cot in my aunts living room when available. park benches homless when not…
as hired.. and on it goes..
failure after failure…
had a career but a feminist faking her murder, and using the courts destroyed a fast track fortune 10 career… (she was told by another feminist that if they work together and bankrupt me, she can get more). my son was abused, nearly died… all kinds of horrors… was told by a judge that i had no rights… and when she lied on venue, and lied as to what happened. my lawyer an ex supreme court judge had to give up… her hearsay was admissible nothing i said would be allowed…
went bankrupt..
son was taken out of state in violation of custory
no lawyer, no money
had to pay child support to her. and when she gave up the kid to my parents… had to pay them AND her. otherwise she said she would take him just for the money.
the police never apologized for destroying my life then for a murder that never happend. nice the way their playing the odds makes the odds, no?
i then started to invent and work hard to try to earn enough money so i can fly out and see my son once in a while. by the time i did. he had forgotten what i looked like..
i remember the day i came off the plane.. last..
he saw me… ran past me..
he started screaming his father never showed up.
there i was… hoping to hug him..
and he was runnin aronud the air port trying to get into every gate to find his father.
well.. i became homeless…
then a friend helped me out to get an apartment
i paid her back… it was an amazing person
but alas.. they did not know the legal things arrayed against me… so eventully they got tired that failure was normed as to pc stuff, as well as sba8a, etc.
now my sons life is over. the nih diversity program has a bounty for not hiring him.
self determinatino and social engineering are mutually exclusive.
so i went from company to company.
eitehr i teamed up with losers who cant finish
or theives that took the patents and stuff, or drained my bank accounts.
i have aspergers so i cant read faces for lies and stuff.
eventually i maneuvered to get hired by a hospital school… that gave me free access to all the journals.
i then teamed up with a doc.. but since the academics are all on tenure.. almost all are liberal socialist… nothing was finished… i lost my friends who kept hearing something good was coming. and lost business contacts…
i am in an affirmatice action department.
unless your a woman, gay, etc… you cant get a raise, promotion etc.. nothing i do is seen as merit, but seen as my trying to rise up to be a white boss, who oppresses.
my five years of work on my own, using my own tools, using expertise not on my day job, building prototypes and research stuff with electronics and mechanics etc.
well. that was turned into unauthorized projects when the affirmative action boss, who has less than 10 years experience to my 30.. no management experience to my fortune 10, wallstreet, and consulting.. has been at the job fewer years than me too… so i have seniority. so she had to pass her incompetence off as mine.
now i am completely locked down. i am not allowed to have a promotion, if i do someting to distinguish myself i am in trouble. cant work on my projects at home. not allowed to have any friends as i cant associate without her with me to oversee that i am not volunteering to do some stuff for a friend.
i have hyper hydrosis, so when the temperature is over 75, i get sweaty and sick.. so they decided to accomodate the condition.. they put me in an office half the size of a handicapped bathroom stall here… 47″ X 57″… two computers two monitors, incandescent bulb… never drops below 75… so hot the other day that my bowels let go… bad chair… back problems so now i cant take pictures any more.
they beat up on me like a dog chained to a stick…
(pension)
the doc is now retiring. he is sorry he didnt believe me (hey hux, are you sorry too?).
so now, i have no future, unless i get a sex change
my indonesian wife is being punished for marrying a white guy, we are near beign barren and may be… but cant afford it.
i have no way to work on my stuff, my art, my physics. .. and my life time of study and work hs been completely erased by being kept out.
any work i do doesnt count… otherwise you have to promote me… and women, and minorioties and that comes first.
right now… we are taking bets.
when will it end, and what is the method
suicide, collapsing health, or trumped up lies leading to being fired…
i am now completely isolated from all human contact most of the time… all day in the tiny hot room…
though the entry level trainee has a aroudn the corner desk, cabinets, good chair… etc.
not bad for 30 years of experience. and all that eh?
the icing on the cake is sis… she is STILL in school staking up phds, and masters… why? because all of you are paying her… so she either doesnt talk to me at all, since i am the black sheep for not suceeding and she is ashamed…
and lets see..
to put the cherry on top
one of the last members of my family died a couple of weeks ago… and my dad is going to have a part of his lung removed tomorrow. and i cant afford to be with him or see him before he dies.
thanks social engineers…
useful idiots
and do gooders with no brains..
anyone want to take my inventions,. math papers, and all that?
you would love the power generators.
the desktop peltier air conditioner
the reworking of the blueprint model of life
the math behind lifes beneficience sorting
new cell injector (sorry someone else took it)
how about a way to go through massive amounts of unordered string data.. ie… i can search through data so fast that the 60,000 unit center of craig venter would take over a thousand years to match what i can do on a desktop in one day.
space time cavitation… thats cool
it predicted spiral polarized light..
explains entanglement and duality
and lots of fun stuff.
oh.. and there is over 1 million art images too… not just fine art. but celebrity fashion and photojournalism… incredible nature shots, and a list parties, sports events… the clinton family knows me, as do the hearsts…
there are also sculptures… new circuits..
portraits… been paid over 400 to draw one..
now? i sit around sick and ruminate as i fear losing the pension that my wife will need.
oh… i am carving gemstones on the side to see if i can get some extra cash… anyone like art carved lapis? how about opals?
i can also repair equipment, design new stuff and even make prototypes. when i am allowed to.
but now i am not allowed anything.
i tried to do an end around, and if you dont accept the socially engineered place for you. they have to beat on you till you do… negate your work till you do. they certainly cant let someone who is hard working, experienced and so forth, earn a place above the affirmative action person, can they?
right now..
i have no hope of anything anymore..
for some reason i am responsible for what happend over the history of the united states even though my family was being tortured to death in europe at the time…
the people affected by such policies are the ones who know wahts going on most… those who are wealthier and all that… they are somwhat insulated.
so anyone have any idea what to do with a lifetime of great art (mine and my dads), over a million professional level images (i am signed to a top agency for celeb, but cant take pics anymore since work has hurt my health so much now)
and please…
unless your a lawyer offering
dont tell me to see a lawyer
they dont really fight for the oppressors
[and they sure get testy when you call them on it. even MORE testy when tehy find out that the same informatio presented by my wife is a case they will take but me, is not!!!! nice people,. eh? ]
so i am killing time, praying time kills me…
nothing else left..
no way out of the socially engineered crab bucket once they know you were trying to get out!!!
just like a real prison who locks down the ones who try to escape extra hard…
COllege degrees are becoming worthless – through various reasons they have been deflated.
Some of it is the drive to graduate – much of the govt funding out there (state and federal both) rely on graduation rates and the easiest way to get those up is to lower standards. Thus you have a glut of graduates.
The other is the proliferation of useless degrees – what marketable skill does “gender studies” bring to the table?
So, lets assume that it is a hard course of study (which it isn’t) – that it shows what an older liberal arts general education did (that you can think and solve problems). Well so does an Engineering, Chemistry, Biology, Business, and English degrees that would also carry *useful* skills along with it. So you still loose.
Add in that these course are fluff and you are no better off than if you had not gone to college – indeed given my experience with how many of those in similar majors have a VERY strong entitlement attitude they get avoided.
But tell that to anyone looking to go into them and get flamed, they then rail about it after graduation as reality (and massive debt that you can’t get out of) slowly sets in. Most of either learn from it or blame the Republicans and Conservatives and become radical leftists (which again is not a particularly good group of employees).
There are a few I feel sorry for – lawyers are one. We are so over lawyered that its hard work, a long time, a lot of money, and bad prospects for a job. But they are about the only ones. Your “harder” areas are just more marketable than your “softer” ones and the vast majority of the degrees given out now are in the softer areas.
SteveH:
I was one of the first college graduates in my family, and I soon wished that I had invested the time and money into learning a hands-on skill instead. So I was very supportive of my sons NOT going to college. Now they have great jobs, earning more than enough money to support their families, and with skills that will translate easily come what may – firefighting, search and rescue, EMT, steelmaking, surveying, heavy construction, auto repair.
Their father, an idiot liberal if every there was one, constantly berates my boys about not having “desk jobs.” You’d think, for health reasons if no others, that he’d shut up and be thankful that they’re physically on the move at work, well paid, providing real value to the world. With no student loans to pay off and no entitlement mentality holding them back, their lives are rich and complete while their white collar peers, who actually make more money, are financially harassed and emotionally strung out.
Maybe your son really does need a college education; but if so, he will have to be the one to determine that. In the meantime, I’d encourage him instead to look for employment that warms his heart and soul as well as his hearth, and not to worry about degrees or the color of his shirt collar.
the research halls are mostly women and foreign students. 67% women from 17% in one generation..
where did all those people like me end up?
well the valedictorian worked at the DMV
another became a heroin addict
one plays in a band…
these are or were the best and brightest.
all cut out of a future and not told that way they cant switch either…
all had seemed to have very bright future before feminists said merit is unfair… pudendas are the sign of a superior intelligence… and the racialists said… no, having perma tan is the proxy for a super intelligence… and somewhere, the gay men who claim everyone who ever did anything great was homosexual (including jesus and lincoln) then said, look we are the best..
well… now we have the best, and merit is gone.
which is why the med students here are somewhat illiterate, unread.. and i fear for the health of people in the future…
after all, what kind of doctor are you making when they urinate all over the toilet and leave it for some other person to sit in or clean?
i mean really.. you want to be a doctor, but cant clean up after yourself leaving medical waste for random others?
nice. eh?
you can read about my condition and see about others here
Savant Syndrome – Daniel Tammet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bVVQ0FZeys
Savant syndrome, Beautiful minds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkDMaJ-wZmQ
i have a very small social life
my projects are everything to me as i only sleep 4 hours a night… now less than that since they hurt me.
i have art skills, spatial skills, music skills, and more.. so even for them i am very unusual.
my childhood was spent mostly as a focus for social researchers… they set up cameras… even put me in with sociopaths to see if i can teach them.
i do tons of reading… and i cant forget..
and like the man who hit his head
FOX TV Interview With Derek Amato
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUgcoOLbWKk
he discovered that you cant turn this off. i cant help solve problems, see patterns early, know answers to things… memorize..
but you cant shut it off…
you have to keep it busy somehow..
and so i have been keeping it busy for over 40 actual years (over 70 functional years based on waking hours)…
most people dont like people who memorize the answers and can do things they cant… even more so now with equality..
this despite i just want to help…
there is so much more…
but i dont want to be beat up again by people here..
take care… 🙂
I read the linked article.
How in the WORLD does a person get $70,000 in debt going to college? By going to an Ivy League university and not working a lick before or during attendance?
Sounds like some who went to college only to get job training made some bad strategical choices.
I bet a graduate in Petroleum Engineering from Oklahoma University has a better chance of getting a well paid job upon graduation than an English major from Yale.
And with a lot less debt hanging over his or her head.
My dad worked his way through college doing janitorial work in the college class buildings and mowing professors’ lawns. Graduated with zero debt.
I worked my way through engineering school working with summer jobs and tutoring athletes and sorority girls in science and math. Graduated with no debt.
My three kids all graduated with honors degrees and supplied most of their college expenses by working before and during college in various jobs. They graduated with no debt and are doing well.
I dunno…maybe I’m just calibrated on costs and job markets that existed decades ago.
Oh…and another thing…my kids didn’t receive new BMW’s (or even Chevy’s) for high school graduation either.
Asperger’s Disorder and Savant Syndrome
http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/savant_syndrome/savant_articles/aspergers
There is no place in a socialist society of equals for special people with special abilities… is there?
….and forgot…
My dad graduated in 1936 so went to college during the Great Depression. Got several job offers upon graduation from a state university.
Despite being attacked for being a “troll” when I last attempted to bring my own personal perspective, I will try again to give a current student’s view. In what I can only assess now as a shockingly awful economic decision, I attend a private American university. The tuition, room, and board for this pseudo-illustrious institution add up to over $24,000 per semester. I work all year, but I really don’t make more than $8000/year, which doesn’t really match the $50,000 university bill.
The only people here who pay for their own education without loans are drug dealers and people in PMC work. Even those scumbag engineers who make $800/week in the summer doing God knows what don’t make enough to pay for school. I, on the other hand, have no such useful skills. I will graduate with at least $70,000 in debt.
On the other hand, I’m not really that worried about it, because rather than trying to enter the private job market when I really don’t know what I want to do in life (and when I’m only qualified to be a highly erudite secretary), I’m planning on joining the military. I’m a linguist; the Army is actively recruiting linguists; and the Army takes good care of its people, leaving me to put almost my entire paycheck towards school loans. If I can get a commission, I might be able to chew through all my debt in less than 5 years.
The point is, a lot of students can easily rack up a lot of debt nowadays, even if they work. Those with liberal arts degrees will essentially be in indentured servitude for more than a decade to come.
Bryan: I think most people who aren’t directly involved with colleges these days have no idea what a private college costs. Some state schools are quite expensive, as well. And if a person made the decision to go to a certain college prior to the stock market crash, he/she would have been living in a dream world about the chances of getting a job and paying off the loans. I know plenty of young people who were left holding the bag after they graduated.
Good luck on your career plans—sounds like a good idea!
Good luck Bryan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m like texexec, also an Engineer who worked his way through college. My wife has a Business degree and is a CPA, also worked her way through college by working in local grocery stores. We have 2 daughters, both recent college grads; one Business and the other Engineering. Both are gainfully employed and not living at home. Both daughters worked all through college and didn’t have any trouble finding jobs. Indecently, both daughters are young 20’s and pretty conservative.
However, we have a niece that will graduate next spring with a degree in French Lit. She’s never had a job, always looked to Mom & Dad for everything from spending $$ to clothes to wear. Any bets on whether she’ll have a job when she graduates? Also, she’s a flaming liberal who’s always complaining that life is unfair.
Go figure…
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Good luck Bryan. Sounds like you’ve a plan. Believe it or not, that’s half the battle.
Thanks for the support, y’all.
Neo: It is definitely true that state schools can be terribly expensive as well. When I was choosing colleges, my final two choices were an expensive private school and a public in-state school. However, the private school gave me significant financial aid grants, and the public school gave me nothing but loans, so they were both comparable prices over 4 years. The fact that even public school would have put me $60,000+ in debt is disturbing, to say the least.
Osopardo: You’re fortunate to have such successful daughters; it reflects well on their upbringing!
College degrees used to mean something because college was hard to get into and hard to get out of. Now a 3.0 GPA puts you in the bottom half of the class.
We have another niece that graduated last year from a very expensive private college in Boston with a degree in Fashion Design. She’s $110K in debt and the college doesn’t have a placement dept. While watching the graduation ceremony it occurred to me that the college doesn’t even pretend there’s a market for their graduates.
This is not education, this is fraud.
I know a fellow who went from freshman to Ph.D. in mechanical engineering in one long shot. This was in the ’60s at a state university. He worked odd jobs through the summers, fixed other student’s cars in the dorm parking lot for a few bucks, and graduated with zero debt. That just isn’t possible anymore.
My wife is a graduate school administrator at a medium-sized state school. There’s a libtard working in her office who has over $80,000 in student loans, and is still going to class. She has an undergrad degree, two masters, and is working on a third. The rule is that as long as you are enrolled in a degree seeking program, you can keep deferring (and accumulating) student loan debt. The current maximum debt limit is $139,000.
It used to be that you could weasel out of student loan debt through bankruptcy but the law was changed in 2005 so you can’t anymore (as a general rule). The above mentioned libtard still has an out, however, which she is guaranteed to use: If you work for a non-profit, certain agencies or a learning institution you can make payments on your loan for 10 years, after which the rest will be forgiven. We, the taxpayers, will get stuck with the bulk of her debt in the end.
Bryan – I’ve been in college (undergrad and grad) for about nine years, and I can second your remarks. There is no way to pay for it if one is on one’s own.
Since I had inadequate GRE scores (despite a 4.0 grade point average and glowing recommendations) no grad school would give me a scholarship. The Master’s program I wound up at cost about $55,000 a year, and in a city (hint hint) where even a basement apartment runs about $1,300 a month.
I’m comfortably over $100,000 in debt, and the job market is not pretty at all. But props to you for at least doing something that could get you a job in the army (very smart thinking there – I’ve considered it myself, though the army has very little use for philosophers).
Now I will stop talking about this, as it makes me feel like “snuffing it,” as they say in A Clockwork Orange.
My son who is due to be honorably discharged from the Army on June 1 is not planning on immediately going to college when he gets out. He does have his Sikorsky and A&P certifications however and has found that those combined with his 6 years experience in the Army working on Blackhawks is making him qualified for some really good helicopter mechanic positions.
My other 2 kids are in college and by the time they are done will have racked up about 130K worth of student loans between the 2 of them when they are done. Ouch!!
If kids coming out of college need a job they might want to look into becoming an independent insurance adjustor. There are 2 programs that the industry uses and you need a bit of knowledge or construction and the ability to do reasearch on insurance policies. With all the floods, business is good. But they must be ready for the possibility of long periods with no work.
On the other hand, I am a database administrator\consultant in the Dallas area and can tell you that the IT industry here is desperate for database\SQL\data warehouse people. If you have IT skills, look in Dallas and you will find something.
Bryan et al,
Don’t forget that the military also offers student loan repayment programs. As far as a philosophy degree is concerned, if you have a diploma the military by and large will have a program for you.
I’m not a recruiter, but have spent a little time in uniform. Good luck whatever you choose to do.
Wm Lawrence,
Yes, I’ve seen that they offer those programs. Those would be particularly helpful in trying to pay off my loans quickly. Thank you for the reminder, though. There’s a recruiter on my campus that I’m going to talk to later this year to get more information.
I have 100k in debt, but that was due to two graduate programs. I can’t imagine having similar debt just out of undergrad, which is basically a self-indulgent babysitting exercise. Anyway, I chose the smart route- working for the government. 😉
Anyway, I chose the smart route- working for the government. 😉
And so, you were seduced by the Dark Side? 😉
–
Just read this thread. Hope you keep visiting, Bryan.
Oh by the way Bryan, don’t get screwed by recruiters. But then, you might not be able to help it–that’s usually the way it works. There will be an “oops” we actually weren’t able to offer you that benefit. You can either finish your enlistment or go to the brig. So make sure you have the terms of your enlistment contract examined carefully. You might want to take it to another recruiter.
kolnai
The military has a number of issues they need done, issues which have civilian analogs.
If you have a nasty, grubby technical specialty, the military has a nasty, grubby little job for you.
If, on the other hand, you have a background in something the Army has no use for, you can go into the Infantry, which has no civilian analog.
In my experience, the most intellectually broad-minded folks were in the Infantry. I spent some time in Air Defense. Terrible place for a simple but honest grunt. Corrected my superiors’ grammar, but didn’t try to converse with them. You ever try to have a conversation with an engineer, much less tell him a joke?
If you’re a female–apologies for not keeping up–you could join the MPs. Known as Infantry for Chicks, or Infantry Lite. Means they don’t do as much walking.
Talked to an MP at an airport last Christmas. He was at pains to tell me that chasing tail lights on post is a job for contracted civilians. Kicking in doors is the MPs’ job these days. I guess telling him I’d been in the Infantry put him on the defensive.
Quite rightly, too.