6 ms·

A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

28 points by Pasanpr 14y ago

Evgeny 14y ago
I wanted 65 hour weeks in a high pressure corporate environment. I wanted the tailored suits, the chance at a high income, the BMW, the prestige, the respect, and the power. I wanted to be someone. Reminds me of a saying You don't need more money to be happy, you need to want less stuff - I saw it on HN, but forgot the author. Maybe the key is to understand that the last sentence (I wanted to be someone) doesn't have anything to do with the other ones. You don't magically become someone by putting on a tailored suit or stuffing your body inside a BMW. Not to forget that someone actually wanting 65 hours of work per week will hardly end up healthy, happy etc.
geerlingguy 14y ago
"I wanted 65 hour weeks in a high pressure corporate environment. I wanted the tailored suits, the chance at a high income, the BMW, the prestige, the respect, and the power. I wanted to be someone. I wanted to be able to afford to donate to charities that are important to me. I was considering children, marriage, the house, all of it. It's not happening." Do people really expect to get something like that by the time they're 30? There are very few industries where that's the norm. Perhaps some of my peers have totally unrealistic expectations! Too many movies, too much TV, and too much time spent reading about other people's lives on Quora. I don't have dreams about my current job that's a good 40-hour week (sometimes 45), lets me drive a used Toyota, and helps me pay a mortgage on a modest home, have a wife and a child, and enjoy a meal out every now and then. I can still save some money for retirement, even if it's just a tiny bit each month. I enjoy my life, and hope for something better, but I work one day at a time to achieve that dream, and I don't complain about it!
- ebiester 14y ago
  "the chance at a high income" That doesn't speak to entitlement to me, but rather just getting on the path that, with hard work, can lead there. The problem is that many are unable to even get their foot in the door. The hope is eventually it will change with the boomers retiring and opening up positions, but there is always the danger that this generation will be skipped. However, the same fear happened to Gen X, that GenX would be skipped over, but after some major growing pains that generation too found their way in. Perhaps instead, the problem is that those who graduate into a recession are leapfrogged by those who graduate into a great market. There are other studies that show the disparity in lifetime earnings based on this.
  - randomdata 14y ago
    I am roughly the same age as this person, and as kids we were told that all we had to do was work hard in school and high incomes would come our way. And so we, generally speaking, did – well over 50% of the Canadian population have achieved an education level higher than high school, and is considered one of the most educated nations. Of course that idea is impossible. High earnings are not an absolute value, only a value greater than a typical income. If we all received high incomes, that income would just become typical, leaving a small group with an even higher income to strive towards. This person is making an average income, which is where you would expect the average person growing up in our generation to be. We cannot all be above average. It is a logical impossibility.
    - michaelochurch 14y ago
      I am roughly the same age as this person, and as kids we were told that all we had to do was work hard in school and high incomes would come our way. Actually, my experience is that high incomes did come our way. Sort-of. The problem is that the price of everything went way up. If you include the fact that career needs now necessitate living in a high-COL area, inflation is much more than the 2% on paper.
    - ebiester 14y ago
      Ah, but there's a problem here. I've seen it with a few of my friends. They graduated college, and couldn't find anything. They took what was available, typically call center jobs. Then, when entry level jobs came in their desired field, they were passed over because their experience was in low skilled positions. Those leaving college are given a free pass since they aren't expected to have experience. However, once you take that low skill position, it's much harder to climb back up.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Do people really expect to get something like that by the time they're 30? If you don't get it when you're 30, then you're not going to get it at 35 or 40. Age without progress decreases opportunities. He's 29 and has shown no progress, and you seem to be surprised that he's expecting progress. We can mock his douchey goals, and perhaps we should, but the fact is that a whole generation was bred for executive positions that are no longer available (and shouldn't exist). What he probably needed to do, in order to pursue his douchey vision of a cushy cigar-smoking executive job, was get an investment banking or management consulting job. Those aren't my favorite industries, but a few years of time in them will open the kinds of doors he wants. The BMW and the fatal heart attack at 45 could be his, if he had made the right moves years ago. However, it's too late for him now. With an empty resume, he can't compete against 22-year-old college grads. That's just how it works. In the Mad Men era, a college degree got you a junior executive job. You became an "account executive" or a marketing person. Sure, you were still someone's bitch-- being at the bottom of the executive-track totem pole-- and you probably had no direct reports, but you were on a track toward something better. Those junior executive jobs are gone. Why? After 3 decades of downsizing, the corporate "fat" has been trimmed. That's probably a good thing, but what it means is that all those junior-executive jobs have been filled by people who used to be senior executives. Companies don't have the slots to take on 22-year-old proteges anymore. Again, it's probably good for the world that we're not generating all these supernumerary "executives" who do nothing but annoy the people doing the actual work, but it's not good for people who were bred (through parental expectations and undergraduate education and, in some cases, graduate degrees) for these positions. Undergraduate college is the liberal arts. (Sciences are liberal arts.) "Liberal" in this sense has nothing to do with political ideology, but rather means "for the free". The contrast is servile arts. It makes me angry when self-righteous Baby Boomers complain about "entitled" Millennials. On Sunday, they write on the Internet about these supposedly entitled schmucks who won't settle for anything less than a career-track job. Then on Monday, they turn down the 27-year-old barista who did take one of those crummy jobs and now has "no relevant work experience". They made and supported this world and they can fucking eat it. The real problem is that the whole concept of "management", in the traditional sense, has become pointless. College breeds you to be one of three things: (A) an academic or researcher, (B) a highly-skilled professional with high autonomy, or (C) a manager. Class A is dying out. Class B is losing autonomy, as the professions are eroded and traditionally intellectual fields (e.g. software engineering) are commoditized in an idiotic lurch toward a manage-or-be-managed corporate world, and class C is becoming obsolete enough that these junior executive jobs don't make sense and have been cut.
dubfan 14y ago
Comments from this article's last appearance on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3991173 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3991173
georgecmu 14y ago
At the age of 29, I've likely forever lost the following opportunities due to cost and probable inability to make up for lost wages and career potential: Seriously? Forever lost is a pretty strong statement. I don't see how any of these opportunities are forever lost just because he's 29 and hasn't had a steady job until now. Millions (billions?) of people manage to get married, have children, study, etc while in objectively far worse situations than this kid ever will be. This article overflows with a sense of entitlement. Reminds me of an editorial from a few years back, where a lawyer (professor?) in Chicago claimed destitution at $400K/yr [1]. [1] http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/09/in-which-mr-deling-responds-to-someone-who-might-be-professor-todd-henderson.html http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/09/in-which-mr-deling-res... PS: Comment from an older thread that expresses my sentiments precisely: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3991666 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3991666
- chc 14y ago
  Are you sure you aren't thinking of the Louisiana Congressman who complained that he had "only $400,000" left over after the costs of running his businesses and feeding his family?
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Actually, I think he's screwed. As a 29-year-old with no work experience, he's at a disadvantage against 22-year-olds with similar empty resumes. When good jobs become available, he won't be able to compete. The real problem is that the kinds of jobs that liberal arts education trains people for are: * academia and research, which have been contracting for 30 years. * autonomous high-skill labor, which has also been getting rarer, and which would require further education on his part. * executive jobs that have since been judged supernumerary and probably don't actually make economic sense. People like him used to get "junior executive" jobs where they might have no direct reports, but were clearly being groomed for something better. (Think Pete Campbell in Mad Men.) Those jobs don't exist anymore and that's probably a good thing, because they don't make sense, but that is exactly what society prepped him for-- something that no longer exists. He's now in the state where he can't get quality work experience because he doesn't have quality work experience. If I were unethical, I might start a business as a "reinvention consultant" and give guys like him a fake work history (shell companies, references, ~3 months of training in the very few things he actually needs to know to be a corporate executive) and a second chance. There will be a lot of demand for that kind of service 5-10 years from now.
cantos 14y ago
$36 000/year Canadian for a single 29 year old person with no debt is far from poor. Especially considering he enjoys his job. If he uses the same entitled tone in interviews its no wonder he has an issue.
- randomdata 14y ago
  In fact, that seems to be right around the average income for a single earner in the country. I wonder why he feels he is so hard up when he is no worse off than at least 50% of the population?
- kareemm 14y ago
  That depends on where you live. Grossing $36k annually in Toronto or Vancouver doesn't go very far. Assume 27k net = $2,250 per month. $800 for rent, $400 for student loan, $300 for food, $300 savings, $200 entertainment, $250 for gas and insurance (assuming you own a car) and you're at 0. And don't even think about getting into the housing market. Maybe the condo market with help from parents or 5-10y savings for a down payment...
  - adamzochowski 14y ago
    Lone Person in Toronto has median of 22k http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/famil107d-eng.htm http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/f... Lone Person in Toronto treated as Family (single parent) has median of 39k http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/famil107c-eng.htm http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/f... I noticed that you put down 300$ into savings, but later, at end of month, you claim that there 0$ left, as if savings evaporated. Other numbers As per housing / condo market I totally agree. Toronto and Vancouver are way overpriced. To anyone interested on Canadian housing market I recommend checking out http://www.greaterfool.ca/ http://www.greaterfool.ca/
  - cantos 14y ago
    Average student loan for an undergraduate degree is 27,000 [1] so on average it would be payed off by that time. I haven't lived in those cities but I would guess public transport is good enough that owning a car is not a requirement, its more like entertainment spending. (I know people who have lived in the GTA without needing a car. I don't know exactly what their rent costs were, possibly a little over $800 but not more than $1000). Sure he will not be getting a home in the immediate future but unless something terrible happens his salary will only go up . In 5 years, when he probably will have a 2 person family judging by his eagerness for marriage, a small home will be within reach. [1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/the-crushing-weight-of-student-debt/article625694/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/the-cru...
fijal 14y ago
If you graduate in 2008 (at the age of 25 I presume) and you come with no professional experience (internships, work during school etc.) you're kind of asking for trouble. Also not that many people have the luxury to not work until 25, consider yourself lucky.
gms7777 14y ago
Now, I'm much more recently out of school than this, but I can't take this guy seriously at all. I had a pick of job offers after I graduated. Granted, I was in an engineering discipline, so perhaps I had it easier, but practically everyone I know from school even in other fields has managed to find decent paying work. I understand that the job market isn't great, but he describes it as if its completely impossible for a recent grad.
contingencies 14y ago
I would suggest that the writer needs to disconnect their self-worth and identity from their temporary employment situation.
Tycho 14y ago
Why the hell would you need to conduct in-depth research into 100+ companies?
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  My guess is that this person is non-technical and applying for executive-track jobs, since that's what "career job" means outside of technology. He has no way to distinguish himself, is at an increasing disadvantage with age, and is applying for junior-executive jobs that are now (due to the long-term downsizing of corporate management) being mostly filled with more senior people.
  - avenger123 14y ago
    I would likely agree that this is what is happening. The big missing piece in all of this is the feedback loop. He has been doing the same process for a long time with no results and instead of questioning his approach he is playing the victim card. He should step back and realize he can't compete at that level. I find that people that sometimes work at small companies tend to take on roles that they may not necessarily have been able to get otherwise. Once they are laid off, they expect to have the same job at another company. What is sometimes lost is that those companies may only hire for that role when the person has an MBA or a particular designation, etc. The person feels they should get the job since they have been doing it already. Well, it just doesn't work that way. You can either keep smashing your head against the wall or just maybe go find yourself something else to smash your head against. In his case, instead of accepting that the jobs he is applying for he is perhaps marginally a fit for, I suspect he continues to apply even after seeing that he only meets perhaps 1 or 2 of the five criteria. Doing so is just stupid. This person's story is the classic and simple case of using old methods of finding a job when these methods just don't work that well anymore. I find it amusing that with all the education that this person has, he doesn't realize that the old methods usually work in a very hot economy. A good classic that is always updated is the What Color Is Your Parachute? book. The approaches described in that book would likely get this person very good results once he starts realizing that he should be a little less ambitious to start in terms of what he is looking for and also change his attitude (ie. drop the victim mentality - nobody owes him anything).

28 points by Pasanpr 14y ago

I wanted 65 hour weeks in a high pressure corporate environment. I wanted the tailored suits, the chance at a high income, the BMW, the prestige, the respect, and the power. I wanted to be someone. Reminds me of a saying You don't need more money to be happy, you need to want less stuff - I saw it on HN, but forgot the author. Maybe the key is to understand that the last sentence (I wanted to be someone) doesn't have anything to do with the other ones. You don't magically become someone by putting on a tailored suit or stuffing your body inside a BMW. Not to forget that someone actually wanting 65 hours of work per week will hardly end up healthy, happy etc.

geerlingguy 14y ago

"I wanted 65 hour weeks in a high pressure corporate environment. I wanted the tailored suits, the chance at a high income, the BMW, the prestige, the respect, and the power. I wanted to be someone. I wanted to be able to afford to donate to charities that are important to me. I was considering children, marriage, the house, all of it. It's not happening." Do people really expect to get something like that by the time they're 30? There are very few industries where that's the norm. Perhaps some of my peers have totally unrealistic expectations! Too many movies, too much TV, and too much time spent reading about other people's lives on Quora. I don't have dreams about my current job that's a good 40-hour week (sometimes 45), lets me drive a used Toyota, and helps me pay a mortgage on a modest home, have a wife and a child, and enjoy a meal out every now and then. I can still save some money for retirement, even if it's just a tiny bit each month. I enjoy my life, and hope for something better, but I work one day at a time to achieve that dream, and I don't complain about it!

ebiester 14y ago
"the chance at a high income" That doesn't speak to entitlement to me, but rather just getting on the path that, with hard work, can lead there. The problem is that many are unable to even get their foot in the door. The hope is eventually it will change with the boomers retiring and opening up positions, but there is always the danger that this generation will be skipped. However, the same fear happened to Gen X, that GenX would be skipped over, but after some major growing pains that generation too found their way in. Perhaps instead, the problem is that those who graduate into a recession are leapfrogged by those who graduate into a great market. There are other studies that show the disparity in lifetime earnings based on this.
- randomdata 14y ago
  I am roughly the same age as this person, and as kids we were told that all we had to do was work hard in school and high incomes would come our way. And so we, generally speaking, did – well over 50% of the Canadian population have achieved an education level higher than high school, and is considered one of the most educated nations. Of course that idea is impossible. High earnings are not an absolute value, only a value greater than a typical income. If we all received high incomes, that income would just become typical, leaving a small group with an even higher income to strive towards. This person is making an average income, which is where you would expect the average person growing up in our generation to be. We cannot all be above average. It is a logical impossibility.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    I am roughly the same age as this person, and as kids we were told that all we had to do was work hard in school and high incomes would come our way. Actually, my experience is that high incomes did come our way. Sort-of. The problem is that the price of everything went way up. If you include the fact that career needs now necessitate living in a high-COL area, inflation is much more than the 2% on paper.
  - ebiester 14y ago
    Ah, but there's a problem here. I've seen it with a few of my friends. They graduated college, and couldn't find anything. They took what was available, typically call center jobs. Then, when entry level jobs came in their desired field, they were passed over because their experience was in low skilled positions. Those leaving college are given a free pass since they aren't expected to have experience. However, once you take that low skill position, it's much harder to climb back up.
michaelochurch 14y ago
Do people really expect to get something like that by the time they're 30? If you don't get it when you're 30, then you're not going to get it at 35 or 40. Age without progress decreases opportunities. He's 29 and has shown no progress, and you seem to be surprised that he's expecting progress. We can mock his douchey goals, and perhaps we should, but the fact is that a whole generation was bred for executive positions that are no longer available (and shouldn't exist). What he probably needed to do, in order to pursue his douchey vision of a cushy cigar-smoking executive job, was get an investment banking or management consulting job. Those aren't my favorite industries, but a few years of time in them will open the kinds of doors he wants. The BMW and the fatal heart attack at 45 could be his, if he had made the right moves years ago. However, it's too late for him now. With an empty resume, he can't compete against 22-year-old college grads. That's just how it works. In the Mad Men era, a college degree got you a junior executive job. You became an "account executive" or a marketing person. Sure, you were still someone's bitch-- being at the bottom of the executive-track totem pole-- and you probably had no direct reports, but you were on a track toward something better. Those junior executive jobs are gone. Why? After 3 decades of downsizing, the corporate "fat" has been trimmed. That's probably a good thing, but what it means is that all those junior-executive jobs have been filled by people who used to be senior executives. Companies don't have the slots to take on 22-year-old proteges anymore. Again, it's probably good for the world that we're not generating all these supernumerary "executives" who do nothing but annoy the people doing the actual work, but it's not good for people who were bred (through parental expectations and undergraduate education and, in some cases, graduate degrees) for these positions. Undergraduate college is the liberal arts. (Sciences are liberal arts.) "Liberal" in this sense has nothing to do with political ideology, but rather means "for the free". The contrast is servile arts. It makes me angry when self-righteous Baby Boomers complain about "entitled" Millennials. On Sunday, they write on the Internet about these supposedly entitled schmucks who won't settle for anything less than a career-track job. Then on Monday, they turn down the 27-year-old barista who did take one of those crummy jobs and now has "no relevant work experience". They made and supported this world and they can fucking eat it. The real problem is that the whole concept of "management", in the traditional sense, has become pointless. College breeds you to be one of three things: (A) an academic or researcher, (B) a highly-skilled professional with high autonomy, or (C) a manager. Class A is dying out. Class B is losing autonomy, as the professions are eroded and traditionally intellectual fields (e.g. software engineering) are commoditized in an idiotic lurch toward a manage-or-be-managed corporate world, and class C is becoming obsolete enough that these junior executive jobs don't make sense and have been cut.

dubfan 14y ago

Comments from this article's last appearance on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3991173 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3991173

georgecmu 14y ago

At the age of 29, I've likely forever lost the following opportunities due to cost and probable inability to make up for lost wages and career potential: Seriously? Forever lost is a pretty strong statement. I don't see how any of these opportunities are forever lost just because he's 29 and hasn't had a steady job until now. Millions (billions?) of people manage to get married, have children, study, etc while in objectively far worse situations than this kid ever will be. This article overflows with a sense of entitlement. Reminds me of an editorial from a few years back, where a lawyer (professor?) in Chicago claimed destitution at $400K/yr [1]. [1] http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/09/in-which-mr-deling-responds-to-someone-who-might-be-professor-todd-henderson.html http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/09/in-which-mr-deling-res... PS: Comment from an older thread that expresses my sentiments precisely: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3991666 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3991666

chc 14y ago
Are you sure you aren't thinking of the Louisiana Congressman who complained that he had "only $400,000" left over after the costs of running his businesses and feeding his family?
michaelochurch 14y ago
Actually, I think he's screwed. As a 29-year-old with no work experience, he's at a disadvantage against 22-year-olds with similar empty resumes. When good jobs become available, he won't be able to compete. The real problem is that the kinds of jobs that liberal arts education trains people for are: * academia and research, which have been contracting for 30 years. * autonomous high-skill labor, which has also been getting rarer, and which would require further education on his part. * executive jobs that have since been judged supernumerary and probably don't actually make economic sense. People like him used to get "junior executive" jobs where they might have no direct reports, but were clearly being groomed for something better. (Think Pete Campbell in Mad Men.) Those jobs don't exist anymore and that's probably a good thing, because they don't make sense, but that is exactly what society prepped him for-- something that no longer exists. He's now in the state where he can't get quality work experience because he doesn't have quality work experience. If I were unethical, I might start a business as a "reinvention consultant" and give guys like him a fake work history (shell companies, references, ~3 months of training in the very few things he actually needs to know to be a corporate executive) and a second chance. There will be a lot of demand for that kind of service 5-10 years from now.

cantos 14y ago

$36 000/year Canadian for a single 29 year old person with no debt is far from poor. Especially considering he enjoys his job. If he uses the same entitled tone in interviews its no wonder he has an issue.

randomdata 14y ago
In fact, that seems to be right around the average income for a single earner in the country. I wonder why he feels he is so hard up when he is no worse off than at least 50% of the population?
kareemm 14y ago
That depends on where you live. Grossing $36k annually in Toronto or Vancouver doesn't go very far. Assume 27k net = $2,250 per month. $800 for rent, $400 for student loan, $300 for food, $300 savings, $200 entertainment, $250 for gas and insurance (assuming you own a car) and you're at 0. And don't even think about getting into the housing market. Maybe the condo market with help from parents or 5-10y savings for a down payment...
- adamzochowski 14y ago
  Lone Person in Toronto has median of 22k http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/famil107d-eng.htm http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/f... Lone Person in Toronto treated as Family (single parent) has median of 39k http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/famil107c-eng.htm http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/f... I noticed that you put down 300$ into savings, but later, at end of month, you claim that there 0$ left, as if savings evaporated. Other numbers As per housing / condo market I totally agree. Toronto and Vancouver are way overpriced. To anyone interested on Canadian housing market I recommend checking out http://www.greaterfool.ca/ http://www.greaterfool.ca/
- cantos 14y ago
  Average student loan for an undergraduate degree is 27,000 [1] so on average it would be payed off by that time. I haven't lived in those cities but I would guess public transport is good enough that owning a car is not a requirement, its more like entertainment spending. (I know people who have lived in the GTA without needing a car. I don't know exactly what their rent costs were, possibly a little over $800 but not more than $1000). Sure he will not be getting a home in the immediate future but unless something terrible happens his salary will only go up . In 5 years, when he probably will have a 2 person family judging by his eagerness for marriage, a small home will be within reach. [1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/the-crushing-weight-of-student-debt/article625694/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/the-cru...

fijal 14y ago

If you graduate in 2008 (at the age of 25 I presume) and you come with no professional experience (internships, work during school etc.) you're kind of asking for trouble. Also not that many people have the luxury to not work until 25, consider yourself lucky.

gms7777 14y ago

Now, I'm much more recently out of school than this, but I can't take this guy seriously at all. I had a pick of job offers after I graduated. Granted, I was in an engineering discipline, so perhaps I had it easier, but practically everyone I know from school even in other fields has managed to find decent paying work. I understand that the job market isn't great, but he describes it as if its completely impossible for a recent grad.

contingencies 14y ago

I would suggest that the writer needs to disconnect their self-worth and identity from their temporary employment situation.

Tycho 14y ago

Why the hell would you need to conduct in-depth research into 100+ companies?

michaelochurch 14y ago
My guess is that this person is non-technical and applying for executive-track jobs, since that's what "career job" means outside of technology. He has no way to distinguish himself, is at an increasing disadvantage with age, and is applying for junior-executive jobs that are now (due to the long-term downsizing of corporate management) being mostly filled with more senior people.
- avenger123 14y ago
  I would likely agree that this is what is happening. The big missing piece in all of this is the feedback loop. He has been doing the same process for a long time with no results and instead of questioning his approach he is playing the victim card. He should step back and realize he can't compete at that level. I find that people that sometimes work at small companies tend to take on roles that they may not necessarily have been able to get otherwise. Once they are laid off, they expect to have the same job at another company. What is sometimes lost is that those companies may only hire for that role when the person has an MBA or a particular designation, etc. The person feels they should get the job since they have been doing it already. Well, it just doesn't work that way. You can either keep smashing your head against the wall or just maybe go find yourself something else to smash your head against. In his case, instead of accepting that the jobs he is applying for he is perhaps marginally a fit for, I suspect he continues to apply even after seeing that he only meets perhaps 1 or 2 of the five criteria. Doing so is just stupid. This person's story is the classic and simple case of using old methods of finding a job when these methods just don't work that well anymore. I find it amusing that with all the education that this person has, he doesn't realize that the old methods usually work in a very hot economy. A good classic that is always updated is the What Color Is Your Parachute? book. The approaches described in that book would likely get this person very good results once he starts realizing that he should be a little less ambitious to start in terms of what he is looking for and also change his attitude (ie. drop the victim mentality - nobody owes him anything).