Don’t Let Career Articles Choose Your Career For You

I hate how outdated and misleading career articles like this and this keep cropping up in places like MSN and Yahoo that regurgitate old or just plain wrong advice that just doesn’t apply to the times anymore. Articles like these are great for ratings. Hell, the titles even made me want to find out more. However, it’s often littered with dangerous advice. The advice is limited and almost always serves to advertise MBAs and plethora of other degrees and certificates that will never make up for experience and knowing exactly what you want.

Careers for social butterflies? Get an MBA to be an entrepreneur? Great jobs that benefit from the stimulus? Give me a flipping break. Oh, this brings me to another thing I despise: posting the average salaries for each of these careers. I get it, some people are lost and don’t know what they want. I’m there right now and part of the reason is because in the past I took this kind of advice too seriously. There are so many things wrong with these articles.

• Average salaries are just that: averages. It creates unrealistic expectations especially when you are starting out at the bottom of the ladder. Secondly salary says very little about whether the job is a good fit for you even if it indicates that you might, and I do mean might, make a comfortable living. Average salaries are collected from self-selected people who are more likely to post their salaries: that is, people who are happy with their salaries in the first place.
• Just because the job description sounds great doesn’t mean its a match for you. I’ve already talked about this before. Not all social butterflies will like a job in public relations just because the job title calls for regular social interactions. Not everyone will like entrepreneurship because they are a social butterflies or because they are tired of the 9-to-5 thing. The descriptions are often different from the reality of the career.
• Many of these career articles are similar to the financial articles that talk about “Hottest Stock Picks of the Month” and the like. It’s always a good idea to take this advice with a grain of salt because they don’t necessarily have your best interests at heart. Like the index funds in stock market, the demand for many jobs are usually cyclical. How often the demand changes depends heavily on the job type and the location, but the concept is still there. The question is will you still like that job even after the demand for it falls? The advice is as fickle as fashion trends. Which brings me to another point:
• Chances are if the job field was such a great find, do you really think they would be posting it out for the world to see? It’s usually (but not always) an advertisement to get people into jobs that aren’t particularly desirable either because they are overvalued, unstable, are difficult to get into, have job conditions that leave a lot to be desired, or they don’t pay great (despite high averages).

These types of articles aren’t all bad news, of course. Again, it’s a matter of taking it with a grain of salt. They can definitely be a great starting point. But remember that going out and trying to get  a personal insight into the field is your best bet, as opposed to sinking thousands of dollars into a degree for a job that you will end up hating because some career article claimed it would be the perfect match for you.