Personal Finance- Careers

The very nature of the "career" has changed over the past generation. Loyalty of employers to employees, and vice versa, declined during the 1980s and 1990s. With the exception of government positions, teaching, military careers, or the like, it became increasingly common for people to switch companies a few times or more during the course of their careers. Unfortunately, during the boom of the late 1990s, new college graduates, even with math or math-related degrees from highly rated universities were informed they were at a disadvantage when applying for the entry to junior level positions they were targeting owing to their lack of "experience." These companies were not interested in investing any significant amount of training into these highly intelligent young people who had followed society's "rules" and focused on their well-rounded studies while in college. Ironically, the young people who ultimately had the advantage were the less studious C-level college students, who barely passed their humanities classes, but stayed awake extremely late in their dorm rooms, engaging in such activities as computer games, experimenting with various cutting-edge computer technology and software, or other similar endeavors. Meanwhile, the very process of applying for employment changed rapidly. Up through the early 1990s, a motivated qualified job-seeker (especially with a strong college degree) who scanned through the Sunday classified section of the newspaper, cutting out all relevant job postings, and applied by sending an updated resume with appropriate cover letter to every job for which he was a good match could reasonably expect to be called in for interviews and secure employment within weeks to perhaps a few months. Each such job posting attracted perhaps a few dozen applicants, if that. By the late 1990s, online job postings replaced newspapers as the more effective method of accessing job openings. A single search engine had the capability of immediately accessing many individual newspapers or job listings, combined with the convenience of allowing keyword searches. This initially seemed to simplify the job search process. However, from 1999 on, as the internet increasingly became the primary method of applying for employment, employers became less receptive to being contacted by job seekers through any other means. "No phone calls" appeared frequently on job postings. Even at job fairs, recruiters could increasingly be heard to advise most job seekers to "apply online" and provide them with the company's career website. The "Great Recession" or "Not So Great Depression" (however you prefer to term it) struck in full force from 2007 through 2009, severely affecting the careers, job prospects, and financial well-being of a large proportion of the American population. An overly simplistic analysis would attribute the resulting and subsequent long-term unemployment and underemployment- 2 to 5 years in many cases- of even highly educated Americans to this period of extreme economic weakness. However, a more thorough analysis- as pointed out by spokespeople in the National Employment Council- would consider the developments of the prior 15 years, particularly the factors enumerated above.