I’m surprised that people still think they can predict what some fields will be like 5 years from now, let alone 10 or 20 years from now. Some of the highest paying fields are the most susceptibe to disruption or disintermediation, because their higher earning powers make them targets. The most talented in those fields will still do fine, of course, but the others may not. As a matter of fact, the most talented in any field will do just fine.
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Yes, the elite of a given field of work will most likely do well (often very well).
However, for the case of planning education paths (including cost and debt involved) and their relation to fields of work, prospective students should not assume that they will be elite in their desired fields of work.
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And some fields get disrupted in ways that impact the lowest paid fields. Self-check out at supermarkets- essentially off-loading what used to be minimum wage tasks to the customer, reducing the number of minimum wage jobs in that sector. Going on to Expedia to make travel arrangements- eliminating thousands of jobs at travel agencies. “make your own appointment” software- dentist’s offices, hair salons, etc. eliminating receptionist jobs.
It is hard to predict where disruption will show up and who it will impact. In 1960 would anyone predict the demise of Kodak? Or fill in the blanks on any other successful company caught flat-footed by a new technology…
That’s why prospective students should pursue careers in which they have comparative advantages/talents, and equally importantly, they’re deeply interested so they have a chance to develop their potential talents (they can never be the elite in a field they aren’t even interested in).
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Yes, any field can be disrupted. Any job that is relatively unskilled and/or mechanical is always at risk. What’s different now is that highly skilled jobs are also at risk. Creative destruction has always been part of capitalism. Some of these highly skilled and paid jobs are safe because mechanisms to disrupt them aren’t possible or economical. However, that may no longer be a safe assumption.
It’s not really any different than mechanical computers, themselves, putting a ton of skilled jobs by the wayside.
Right. Some careers that were once considered “highly skilled” have been replaced. What are considered “highly skilled” today, including some of the “hot” fields in finance and tech, may also become replaceable in the near future.
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Exactly. The person who develops the ground-breaking algorithm vs. the teams of people who just plug and chug the numbers into it… the actuary who creates the risk models for an insurance company vs. the teams of people (many who are off-shored) who just check boxes and process applications…
One take from a successful person on what are the skills necessary for personal success and the future of our nation. Spoiler: Need both technical skills and effective writing and communication skills.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2022-03-22/citadel-s-ken-griffin-be-a-problem-solver-video
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This is the correct answer, which seems to be lost on many parents on CC.
CS is notorious for ageism.
For lots of people (probably the vast majority), the field(s) of work that they can be their best and most interested in are not where they will be elite in (because there is no field of work that they will be elite in). They may be good at them, but that leaves them more vulnerable to job disruption than those who are elite in them, as well as probably lesser paid than those who are elite in them.
Those entering the labor force who realize this may focus on trying to move to the capitalist class as quickly as possible (i.e. ability to FIRE, even if they do not actually want to retire early), in case the field(s) of work that they can be their best in get disrupted away, causing their labor to be devalued.
No one is good at everything and everyone is better at something. If a student (or anyone for that matter) chooses a field that s/he is more interested in and has some comparative advantages over others (not necessarily being among the “elite”), s/he is more likely to be relatively successful than s/he would be otherwise.
I’m not sure middle management is really a safe place to be in a field or industry that is subject to the force of disruption.
This is not always true. Being 90th percentile in an elite-or-bust field where only the 95th and higher percentiles earn a reasonable living may be less secure than being in the 40th percentile in a field where the 20th and higher percentiles earn a reasonable living.
(This also does not consider soft or political skills that may be as much of an influence as to who gets the job, or who gets the better job, as the actual skills of the job. The influence of such soft or political skills can vary from one field to another. Demographic attributes can also matter in some fields, even if it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of such.)
I did not mean middle management when I wrote “capitalist class”. I meant accumulating enough capital so that it and its investment returns can provide for retirement, since disruption of your field of work could force retirement from that field of work. Yes, you can try to move into a different field of work, but that may mean a period of low or no income (or costs, if there is school involved) before your labor becomes valued again.
Entry level salaries are driven by local markets and they don’t compare. When you get a job, you get a market entry level salary, no more, no less. If the company pays any more, they can hire an experienced professional to do the job. In fact, salary is more a function of local buying power than dollar figures. In a tech-heavy city like Dallas, if you ask for $100k for your first job out of college with zero experience, you’ll get laughed out of the interview. In Silicon Valley, that would be arguably what you could expect…maybe.
They pretty much make the same within a company, a big factor of salaries is the budgets the hiring manager or group has. In SV where I am, even if you have say 200K for two new hire grads, you’re not going to give one $150K and other $50K, it will be that both make close to $125K. I know CMU grads as well and they’re not making $200K their first year, even with bonus and stock. And your starting salary at many companies is based on how you do in interviews, not what college you went to. It would be very odd also to have an outlier among new hires, say someone making $200K and the rest at $100K, because if word gets out, and it will, you’ll have a morale problem on your hands.
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You don’t ask for a $100k. You take it or don’t take it based on what other options you have. At the moment there are options in the market elsewhere. It is for you to decide whether the COLA hit is small enough to prefer the higher salaries in CA or WA or NY.
Pick your typical SV tech giant, say Google. Companies like Google pay new hires within bands based on market demands for their skills. Negotiations also come into play. For example, my S knows new grads that simply accepted their Google offer and some that pushed back and asked for more (and got better offers). Both got hired - one makes more money.
I think that pay packages totaling +/- $200k are more common than thought. And significantly more that $200k, at least as experienced by our S and his friend group - all working in SV, in ML research groups.
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IMO, new grads (in high demand fields) should never, never, just accept an offer without negotiations.
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In some fields negotiating works, in others, it marks you as a $%^&. I have had several situations where a new grad has tried a crazy negotiating tactic where my company’s response has been- moving on to the next candidate in the queue, thanks for your time.
We offer $100K (keeping numbers round for clarity). Candidate’s response is “I got an I-banking offer for $200K” (we are not a bank). My response- “if you want to work in investment banking you should absolutely do that”. Answer- “Well, let’s split the difference and I’ll take $150K”. My response- “I’m thrilled for you that you are launching your career at such a prestigious bank- thanks for your time”.
There is no difference to split (that’s a terrible negotiating tactic anyway) because we are not a competitor to the company that has offered you twice what we’ve offered. And our offer is at the top of the range for the sector we are in- and we review and adjust and benchmark comp on a continuous basis. There are entire companies (which we use) whose sole product is salary benchmarking data- lots and lots of data. What do people who do X make in Hong Kong, and how is it different from a colleague in Singapore? Does the COLA between Chicago and Minneapolis matter since candidates view those markets as essentially the same? Etc.
See why “never never never” can backfire?
Better do your homework before you recommend never, never, never…
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