Never understand why people do degrees that have no career prospects.
Actually, whilst even an arts degree has limited entry level positions available to it, a surprising number of higher up managerial positions just the presence of a degree (doesn't matter what area) can be enough to tip the balance into your favour.
Of course there are also a large number of people whom are doing arts degrees simply because they said "Well I've finished year 12, uni seems to be the next logical step" and they end up doing a degree for the sake of doing something.
If I was going to start offering career advice, my advice would be simple.
1. Work out where you want to be in 5 years (hell do what I did, and even have the desk you want picked out) and work out where you want to be in 10, and work out the best path which will get you there. Don’t fall into the trap of “well you need to have xyz qualification to do this”. Look at what the real qualifications / jobs / skills are the stepping stones to get from A to B to C to 5 years. (Edit: Ask employers, not uni's / TAFE's. Often what employer's want, and what Uni's / TAFE's are teaching can be worlds apart, I for one would probably not hire a student straight out of Uni after doing a CS degree, since they would have learned languages which are of no use to me, I would however consider a person whom has just spent 6 months reading C# books and writing C# programs in their spare time but was missing a degree)
2. Depending on the field you are going into Uni degrees / TAFE diploma’s are worth about 6 months of actual on the job work. Use them as stepping stones for getting into the entry level position, not as the guiding star for your entire career (despite what the uni will tell you). That leads nicely onto
3. Be careful about taking a step back. I did contracting for many years, and one of the guiding stars was that your last contract dictated your worth in the next. In saying this, yes you will pick up bad contracts from time to time (I’ve been unfortunate to have had 2).
4. Don’t be afraid of taking a sideways step from time to time. I’m in my current position now because in 2006 I was not afraid of taking a sideways step, and as a conservative estimate, I’m probably around 40 to 50% better off as a result compared to had I simply continued down the path I was.
5. Learn how to network. The last time I put in a job application was in 2005. I’ve held several jobs since then, each one the manager specifically asked for me. Technically I never even put in a job application for my first job either. The interview was simply a formality so that HR could see a form ticking the right check boxes. All that was done via the power of networking. You don’t need to join networking groups. You don’t need to jump on the latest fad to do it. All you really need to do is build up a collection of contacts, have coffee / lunch with them once in a while, and really listen to what they have to say. As funny as it seems, the very best contacts to have are those in supporting industries of the industry you are interested in. Since those guys often speak to loads of people in the industry you are interested in, and whilst a person already in the same industry may know when a position opens up in their company, a person in a supporting industry will know of positions opening up in any company they directly do business with.
Just whilst talking about latest fads with networking, yes I have linked in, no I rarely check it. No I don’t consider my “contacts” on linked in as real contacts. The reason is pretty simple, last year I attempted to set up coffee / lunch meetings with most of the contacts on my contacts list. I was able to do so with whom I would call the “usual suspects”, aka the people whom I would have had coffee / lunch with, with or without linked in helping me.
Also, despite what some other contractors / workers will tell you, recruiters are valuable. Yes you'll no doubt hear the word leeches be thrown about with them, and it's true some of them very much so are, but often they are also the gate keepers. They are the ones who'll decide to send your resume to a company. Do more than blindly send resumes via seek. Have coffee / lunch with them, get to know them on a personal level. That way when the see a job which you'd be perfect for, they will go and send your resume in, rather than luck of the draw against the other 100,000 resumes they have on their database.
6. Be the guy whom puts your hand up for the more difficult project, be the guy whom is willing to learn about xyz just because it’ll help the company. I personally trace a lot of my current success to my willingness to take on a project, which was both difficult and required me to learn a lot. Which the bosses needed done ASAP, and my willingness to do so been noticed by the right people. If you just turn up at work and coast through, you’ll always be the guy whom just coasts through without ambition.
7. Finally, have fun. Wake up each and every Monday morning looking forwards to the week ahead. (Yes I realize the irony of writing this on a Monday morning). There is nothing worse than getting up each morning dreading what you are doing, and just counting down the minutes until 5pm.
Like others have said it's not all glamorous. My best mate is a chemical engineer/business manager for a major mining company. He's been flying all over the world business/first class for 10 years and it now a chore for him. He hates getting on planes to fly overseas. After enough flying it just becomes another plane and another airport. It's only on holidays when frequent flying comes into play and you have status to get some decent perks.
