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The real nasty element of all these jobs is that they have basically no path for career advancement. Personal development/career advancement is basically a req

The real nasty element of all these jobs is that they have basically no path for career advancement. Personal development/career advancement is basically a requirement to be happy, so you're basically guaranteed to be miserable in the long run even if for example, you really like cooking or working with children.

dragonwriter 10y ago
Many of the jobs on the list have opportunities for career advancement, but into different jobs, which are more likely to be reported targets of aspirations, even if people are willing to use the listed jobs as stepping stones.
- malandrew 10y ago
  This. Many of those different jobs are not entry level jobs, and you need to wisely pick an entry level job that will best serve as a stepping stone to the work you want to do. For example, many young people aspire to manage, but you first need understand those jobs and processes you want to manage before you can effectively manage them.
  - CuriouslyC 10y ago
    Management is really a separate skill from anything else, you can't learn it by doing non-management jobs. Additionally, the level of competence in a field you need to be able to manage that field is really quite low. For example, something like 8% of college football coaches never played the sport themselves. Even for the coaches that played ball, many of them were bench-warmers at the collegiate level. Assuming you're already a good manager, I think the necessary domain competence required to effectively manage something can easily be picked up fairly quickly with an "assistant manager" apprenticeship under someone with experience managing that area.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > Management is really a separate skill from anything else, you can't learn it by doing non-management jobs. That's a common viewpoint, though I think its untrue in a number of ways. First, management is not a skill, its a function which requires a number of skills. Second, the skills management requires are without exception, or nearly so, not at all unique to management, but each is common to many jobs and non-job tasks humans commonly perform (and, particularly, lots of them are central to many non-management jobs that are analytical and/or administrative in nature.) Third, actual effective management work requires substantial specialized knowledge of the field being managed, in addition to the skills of general management.

dragonwriter 10y ago

Many of the jobs on the list have opportunities for career advancement, but into different jobs, which are more likely to be reported targets of aspirations, even if people are willing to use the listed jobs as stepping stones.

malandrew 10y ago
This. Many of those different jobs are not entry level jobs, and you need to wisely pick an entry level job that will best serve as a stepping stone to the work you want to do. For example, many young people aspire to manage, but you first need understand those jobs and processes you want to manage before you can effectively manage them.
- CuriouslyC 10y ago
  Management is really a separate skill from anything else, you can't learn it by doing non-management jobs. Additionally, the level of competence in a field you need to be able to manage that field is really quite low. For example, something like 8% of college football coaches never played the sport themselves. Even for the coaches that played ball, many of them were bench-warmers at the collegiate level. Assuming you're already a good manager, I think the necessary domain competence required to effectively manage something can easily be picked up fairly quickly with an "assistant manager" apprenticeship under someone with experience managing that area.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Management is really a separate skill from anything else, you can't learn it by doing non-management jobs. That's a common viewpoint, though I think its untrue in a number of ways. First, management is not a skill, its a function which requires a number of skills. Second, the skills management requires are without exception, or nearly so, not at all unique to management, but each is common to many jobs and non-job tasks humans commonly perform (and, particularly, lots of them are central to many non-management jobs that are analytical and/or administrative in nature.) Third, actual effective management work requires substantial specialized knowledge of the field being managed, in addition to the skills of general management.