What should I do with my life?

Don't know if you have talent /  interest in networking or user devices, but most school districts have IT positions...

BlueInGreen44 said:

In reply to AngryCorvair :

Sent you a pm.

Replied

BlueInGreen44 said:

In reply to szeis4cookie :

I've played guitar since I was 12 and took bass and guitar lessons in college so I know my way around a fretboard.  I like giving lessons but it's hard to find committed students, especially since I don't have a traditional music degree so I wouldn't be able to give lessons through a music studio.

Anyone here want to learn? 

I feel like the music degree isn't as important for guitar/bass as it might be for the more "classical" instruments. Around my area there's a music school called "School of Rock" that I feel like has marketed itself pretty successfully by offering lessons in all the positions of a rock band. If you don't have one of these near you, maybe this could be it: https://locations.schoolofrock.com/shortpump

In reply to BlueInGreen44 :

The good paying jobs usually aren’t where a lot of us want to be. The industrial, the slog it out 9-5 the sell your soul for a paycheck sort of places.  

But that’s why they pay well. People don’t want to do this stuff but will for the sake of their family.  

Its being a man.  Putting away childish things and pulling the wagon so your family does better from your efforts.  

Darn hard!  The opposite of fun.  But done well,  put the sort of effort into it to succeed that you do to perform well on the race track or in a informal get together with a band.  That’s the attitude that leads to success and respect. 

Then when those moments come, you walk your daughter down the aisle that you pay for or take them to college that you motivated and financed. 

That’s when it’s all worth while. That’s the real reason you are here. Well done!  

frenchyd said:

In reply to BlueInGreen44 :

The good paying jobs usually aren’t where a lot of us want to be. The industrial, the slog it out 9-5 the sell your soul for a paycheck sort of places.  

But that’s why they pay well. People don’t want to do this stuff but will for the sake of their family.  

It's worked out fairly well for me. I'm the guy that buys and installs the hose and conveyor belting from people like DATSUN310GUY.

I've always said that you should never try do for a living what you really love to do. Once you do, that thing you love just becomes a job and you no longer love it. I like having a job I can walk away from and not think about on my days off. Something that provides me the means to do what I really love on my days off.

Something to think about.

I got so many interview offers through linkedin it sort of blew my mind. It's how I ended up selling cars. The position I have now at this dealership was a product of people I met and stayed in contact with at the first dealership I worked at. If I've learned one thing from getting out of the military and not knowing what the hell I want to do, is that when people say its all about who you know, they aren't kidding. I promise if you get on linkedin & start adding people you worked with/know, you will be amazed at how many people you know that can get you in the door

In reply to MazdaFace :

Amen!  It’s who you know. That’s the real role of a headhunter is to act as your “who you know”. 

I was stubborn. Heck as a salesman I should be able to sell myself. But when the business gets hundreds if not thousands of resumes and applications you need someone selling you.  

I sent out so many resumes I lost track. During the day I did nothing but cold calls to business.  I networked with everyone. I actually wore out shoe leather to the point my shoe repair guy could no longer sew a new sole and heal on. 

After a year and a half of that I contacted a headhunter and suddenly had interviews. 

frenchyd:  Okay, so tell us more about that.  How did you find a headhunter that really helped you?  When I've done this, and then I've seen this discussed, it's always been frowned upon.  This could be educational.

In reply to pres589 :

I back doored  it.  Talked to a CEO I met at a social event and asked him who he’d go to for a sales position he had to fill. ( he’d already told me he wasn’t looking). See,  I told you to network. 

Do be be careful though. I was having no luck getting an interview with a company I’d previously sold  to.  I knew they were looking and I used my connections to actually go in through the back (delivery) door. But when I showed up in the office of the person doing the actual hiring  instead of applauding my creative approach he got offended. 

Right now there is a serious void of qualified heating techs.  Nobody wants to diagnose and fix all of these new high tech heating systems.  Just finding an oil burner guy to work on the old school stuff is hard to do.  If you are somewhat mechanical, have a clean record, and don't look like a freakshow, you can land a job working for a bigger outfit.  Let them train you on the job.  Once you are competent, go out on your own or start doing side work.  Compensation is twice or three times what the best auto mechanic would get, and the work isn't much different.  A typical oil burner service is $150 to $175.  You install around $15 worth of parts and spend an hour or slightly more there.  Much of the work is cash.  No heat calls are even more lucrative.  Another field where techs are seriously overpaid is in well and pump work.  Water treatment install and service is crazy lucrative.  Most of those guys can make a couple of grand for a one day install.  These jobs are easy to come by, pay well, and don't take long to master.  Sure beats pushing a lawn mower in July for $18 an hour.

Funny how when you're day dreaming about all the holidays and summers off, someone goes and posts how much they hate working in education.

I dream about having substantial time (as in a month every year) to travel the world, and show my kiddo places outside the USA from a different perspective of just being a tourist. My wife and I dream of helping those less fortunate in foreign countries.

I'm willing to work for less in order to get more out of life. Perhaps not immediately, but I'd like to semi-retire when I'm in my 40's (still a decade or more away), as in: someone else is paying my mortgage, or my paid-off mortgage is earning me income. 

I think education is a great place to be (as someone with many friends working in it), but it requires some job hopping and willingness to relocate to find the right spot. 

pres589 said:

frenchyd:  Okay, so tell us more about that.  How did you find a headhunter that really helped you?  When I've done this, and then I've seen this discussed, it's always been frowned upon.  This could be educational.

Not frenchd – hope I’m not butting in…

My LinkedIn account is pretty detailed / comprehensive and I’ve got ~850 contacts (~100 being fluff junk and the rest being professional colleagues). I get three or four cold calls from headhunters per week due to my LinkedIn account and although I’m very happy in my current role, I always take the time to thank them and let them know it’s OK to continue bringing opportunities to my attention because “you never know”.

I literally shot off a “you never know” thank you e-mail just 20 minutes ago.

I don’t think headhunters are like realtors where you have to provide an exclusive listing…just start a rapport with a few that specialize in what you do and go from there.

Okay, we've got some serious communication issues in this thread.  The suggestion that was laid out was calling a head hunter without the useful backstory.  "I talked to a CEO at a company I wanted to work at and he told me to talk to a recruiter that was tasked with filling a role I might be interested" is excellent use of a person's network.  It isn't cold calling head hunters hoping they were working on filling a role that might be of interest.

To wit, " I get three or four cold calls from headhunters per week due to my LinkedIn account..." is a perfect example of what I suggested.  Get your information straight.  Work on your network and list of contacts.  If the role exists, someone is hopefully trying to hire folks like you for it.  These are headhunters with a role in hand that they've been asked to fill.  

I'll get off my soap box, because we're all kind of saying the same thing.  It think the OP's big issue isn't making a LinkedIn account so much as knowing what his next adventure might look like and what he wants it to be.  For that, honestly, “What Color Is Your Parachute" seemed like a pretty good resource for figuring these things out.

BlueInGreen44 said:

 

Everyone tells me, "You like cars, you should be a mechanic!" 

I hear this a lot as well and It's profoundly annoying. Working on cars is my hobby. Why would I want to take one of the only things I enjoy in this world and ruin it by making it a 9-5 job?

I like women too, that doesn't mean I should be a gynecologist.

I would say do not accept anyone's suggestion to "follow your passion," because that's pretty much BS. You should pursue whatever you were educated in, or were trained to do, unless you have neither. But I think you've had some. So if you have an education or training, use it and excell in it. I had my own epiphany in 1972, and that changed my life successfully ... ultimately not where I planned to go, but where I was destined to go. That's important to know. I could only have done that on my own. So my recommendation to you is, evaluate what you've done, your education, what you've learned, where you're working now, and yes, what you'd like to be be when you grow up, and how you can you leverage that to move on. Make as much s'carole as you can for the next thirty or forty years. Doesn't matter relatively speaking, how much that is. But if you work hard you'll no doubt be successful. Do the best that you can do. And most importantly, you can do this without asking strangers on a forum how to plan your life. You'll only get a thousand conflicting suggestions. But only you can solve your dilemma. Have faith in yourself and do it. Believe me, I was in your situation forty-five years ago and followed this philosophy ... well, ahem, also with a strong hobby in the stock market, and I ended up very well. But that's another thread for this forum, isn't it?

Headhunters, job boards, LinkedIn, etc. are tools. It is easy to get caught up in minutia of using the tools. I work inside HR departments on a regular basis have access to a lot of information. I have also gotten very good at finding work in the "fast paced dynamic environment" of Silicon Valley. 

There are three key things you need to learn in order to find your next gig.

1. How to use your personal and professional networks

2. How to tell your story on a resume, a LinkedIn profile, or in an interview so that hiring managers can see what you are capable of doing.

3. How/Where to find supportive people to encourage you and hold you accountable for the actions you need to take. (hint: not your spouse)

These are skills that took me a while to learn and I am still refining them. I could write book about each one

In reply to Gary :

Thanks, man.  That's encouraging.

Same to everyone else who's posted here.  Thanks for sharing your experiences and ideas.