Have you graduated from university and are looking for a job, but you can’t find any suitable job opportunities in your field? Or have you quit your boring boring job and want to try yourself in something different? Or maybe you have long dreamed of mastering a new field of activity? Then there is only one way out - get a job not in your specialty! It's not as difficult as it seems, and you can easily claim success ! And how to achieve this - Beautiful and Successful will tell you!
Is it worth trying if you have never done it before?
A bird is created for flying, a fish is created for swimming, and you... is it really for the one and only type of activity that you were taught at the university? Of course not!
Psychologists have long developed many tests to help career guidance .
So, having gone through any of them, you will never receive as a result the specific answer “You should be a painter-plasterer.”
All professions are conditionally divided into groups : “Working with people”, “Working with an artistic image”, “Working with a sign system”, “Working with wildlife”, etc.
Moreover, the full test result is not considered to be one group of professions, but 2-3, because many professions combine different subjects of work - for example, an actor works with both people and with an artistic image, a writer - with both an artistic image and an iconic image. system (letters of text), etc.
You can take this test if you don’t know what specific job outside of your specialty you’d like to do, or you can just think about what you’re inclined towards - do you consider yourself a “humanitarian” or a “technician”, do you have managerial ambitions, or are you more comfortable being a subordinate? Would you like to become a freelancer, having the opportunity to set your own work schedule, or do you want to come to the office from 9 to 5 without unnecessary nerves?
Or maybe you have a hobby that can be turned into a source of income? (The website sympaty.net has already written about how to make money from a hobby)
The main thing is to have a desire to learn a new specialty , and knowledge and skills can always be obtained: take courses, undergo an internship, study literature on this issue, find an experienced person who will agree to train you, etc.
How to make money without leaving home
Why go to work when you can bring work into your home! There are many ways to earn money without leaving home.
You can even engage in trading by creating an online store and managing it from your personal computer, tablet or smartphone. You can sew, knit, glue and felt various products to order, if, of course, you have the appropriate professional skills.
And if you are an advanced user of a personal computer, there are always plenty of offers for you on freelance exchanges.
Turn your hobby into a source of profit. Do you grow flowers on windowsills? Sell them, gradually increasing your market.
Do you keep fit with regular workouts? Open an aerobics or shaping club - the same training, only in company, and it also brings in money.
Do you work with polymer clay? You can sell not only jewelry and trinkets, but also your own workshops.
Professions that don't require a diploma
The first thing that comes to mind when they talk about work outside of their specialty, which is not taught anywhere ? Janitor, loader, housekeeper?
This answer would have been relevant 20 years ago, but now this dull list has been supplemented by very interesting, well-paid, in-demand professions !
For example, work outside of your specialty may be related to creativity : web designer, photographer, copywriter (author of texts), organizer of public events... This cannot be said that this is not taught anywhere at all - of course, certain preparation is needed .
However, when applying for such positions, the first thing they will ask is not about your diploma!
If the employer likes your portfolio (this word means a “presentation set” of examples of your work - for example, your photographs, websites you have made, texts published under your name, etc.), then he will be absolutely indifferent to where you learned such skills - at home using a tutorial or taking expensive courses!
Therefore, a very important step for getting hired for such a job outside your specialty is to create a good portfolio that maximizes your talents. To do this, sometimes you first need to do something very cheaply or completely for free (for example, publish your essay on a free website, do a free beautiful photo shoot for a friend, etc.).
But as a result, examples of work , and at the same time you can ask your first clients to leave you written recommendations for future employers.
Another option for working outside your specialty is professions that can be learned “on the spot” by completing an internship or a probationary period combined with training.
For example, they often hire merchandisers, sales consultants, computer typing operators, animators at children's parties, etc. Sometimes several candidates are hired for an internship for a vacant job: then your goal is to show the best result of what you are taught , and in no case lie at the interview that you already know how to do it all!
What can replace special education?
You know what kind of work outside of your specialty you would like to do, but you understand that the existing knowledge and skills for employment are not enough.
Where to acquire missing skills?
- Retraining courses, professional courses . As a rule, finding such courses is not a problem. Over the course of several months, with several classes per week, you will receive real professional knowledge and skills, supplemented by a document confirming completion of the courses (this can become a powerful argument for employment). However, before you become a course student, clarify whether the course is designed to teach a profession “from scratch” or is it about retraining on the basis of some kind of education (for example, the “Logistics” course based on economic education)?
- Self-study . According to books. So, for example, you can master a certain computer program, and now you can call yourself a 3D graphics designer, or an editor of desktop publishing systems, or a Java programmer... However, in order to be completely confident in your abilities, it’s a good idea to combine “book” self-training with practice, and advice from a specialist knowledgeable in this matter will not hurt!
- "Reconnaissance in Combat" . You can try to immediately take up... your chosen job outside your specialty! Not with the goal of getting a good job with a high salary, but with the goal of practically understanding what and how. When you realize that you have figured out a new business, you will quit and look for more promising options, already having a little work experience! For example, before you become a fashionable photographer with whom people sign up for a photo shoot six months in advance, work in a simple photo salon, clicking people “for your passport” - you will understand how to set the light, how to handle equipment, how to edit pictures in Photoshop, etc. .
Diploma on the shelf: Why almost every second person in Russia works outside of their specialty
Wrong profession
Almost half of Russian residents surveyed by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) currently work outside their specialty. Only 51% of respondents work in the professional field in which they studied, and 58% have higher education. On the contrary, among people with secondary specialized education, the share of those working outside their specialty was 55%, TASS reports.
The compilers of the survey also asked what the reason for the discrepancy between the field of activity and the profession received was. Almost a third (30%) indicate the impossibility of finding a job in their field due to a lack of jobs or lack of work as such. 24%, that is, almost one in four, chose a position in another professional field, but with a higher salary level. 20% of respondents “found themselves” in other areas, choosing them regardless of earnings.
28% of survey participants have never worked in their specialty. 48% of respondents worked for a relatively long time (more than five years) in the profession they received at an educational institution, another 16% - from one to five years, 6% left it in less than a year.
VTsIOM also found out how Russian citizens move into another field of activity, and what steps they take for this. 37% of those who decide to change their profession are enrolled in professional retraining courses. Another third comprehend it on their own. In 29% of cases, no new knowledge was needed.
Why is this happening
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University studies last on average about five years. This is a fairly long period of time, during which students persistently prepare for their future profession, not yet realizing its pitfalls. In this case, we are talking about those who independently chose their specialty before entering a higher educational institution, since the next category of graduates refers to those for whom their parents decided everything. So they enter such “clichéd” fields as law, economics, management, and so on. Already in the late nineties, there were too many personnel with such specialties on the labor exchange, and they simply lost their value.
The second reason is the cult of higher education, which seems to guarantee a bright future and a job in the desired position. In fact, even a diploma with honors does not always open all doors, nor does it guarantee getting a job in your specialty. Often it all comes down to a lack of practice and experience. A common complaint from young professionals: “How to find a job if they don’t hire you anywhere without experience?” Some companies, of course, agree to cooperate with interns, which gives them the opportunity to resolve the issue of gaining experience, but there is a catastrophic shortage of such organizations.
There is also an option when a graduate, after some time, simply loses interest in his acquired profession; in this case, he can find a job in another industry without any effort, or he has to retrain in another direction. However, changing a profession is not the quickest solution, which is why nowadays there are numerous schools for accelerated training of specialists.
The third reason, which has recently become increasingly popular, is fear of the Unified State Exam. This happens when the desired specialty may have a set of quite complex subjects, which becomes a difficult task for schoolchildren. Lack of self-confidence pushes them to take a “safer path,” that is, choosing a different direction where it is easier to enter.
Another reason lies directly in the results of the VTsIOM survey. People realize that they can earn more in other areas. It may take 10, 15 or more years from the moment of entering a university to the decision to change professional field. During this time, the situation on the labor market inevitably changes. New types of businesses are emerging and people are starting to engage in them to make money. And it doesn’t matter that you are a builder by training, but you open your own barbershop or sushi delivery service. With the development of the Internet, there are more and more ways to earn income, and people prefer them.
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What to do?
In 2014, talk began that the State Duma would adopt a law that would gradually oblige all graduates to work in their specialty. It was planned that from 2020 this would apply to public sector employees, and from 2020 to everyone else. However, it later turned out that they were only talking about new professional standards that workers must meet. But this cannot radically affect the situation. Obviously, a person without a medical education cannot become a doctor, and just anyone will not sit at the controls of an airplane.
It is necessary that by the time a student enters a university, he has formed the most adequate idea of his future profession. A graduate should not receive higher education solely for the sake of a diploma, especially at the expense of the state. It is, of course, possible to prohibit by law from working outside the acquired specialty, but in the conditions of the modern world this is unlikely to have the desired effect. In Belarus they made such an attempt - you pay for your home country for the years of your education and go to all four directions. However, how effective is such an employee who has no money and works at this or that enterprise under pressure is a big question.
This means that all conditions must be created so that the student himself has or retains the desire to work in his specialty. And here we again come up against the quality of education, which, unfortunately, is only declining. Industrial practice can also play a big role, but students often do it for show.
Dialogue between business and universities
An important point, which is being talked about more and more now, is that universities must “hear” business, and for this they need to establish constant contact. The education system does not keep up with the labor market. Yes, its inertia is inevitable; modern technologies are developing rapidly. What can we say if the share of teachers using materials in foreign languages in different regions ranges from 2 to 7%? Most of them themselves worked on analog equipment, but students will have to deal with digital equipment. The twenty-first century is just around the corner. Almost twenty years ago.
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If we approach the issue globally, then the statistics obtained by VTsIOM do not indicate any kind of catastrophe. In 2013, Jason Abel and Richard Dietz of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York conducted a study that showed that only 62.1% of American workers work in jobs where any degree matters at all. At the same time, just over 27% work in their specialty. So Russian indicators are far from the worst. But the quality of work even of those who did not change their occupation after university often leaves much to be desired. Including due to the fact that highly qualified specialists go into business, into more lucrative areas. This outflow also needs to be reduced to a minimum.
