Ask HN: Paid Career Advice Services for people in their mid-20s

17 points by user-extended 3 years ago | 29 comments

I'm looking to pay someone to give me advice on what career or life path to take.

I'm 23, dropped out CS my freshman year due to poor test grades, had a rare illness, did Robotics for a semester, couldn't deal with electricity IRL, got a Vocational Degree in Logistics. From Spain.

I'm working a very average 8-5 job, with a terrible commute.

I'm looking to go back to college part-time, but it would take me at least 6 years to graduate, probably. I thought maybe CS again, but since I was so bad at it, and it's not like I've spent these years constantly programming, I don't know.

This is why I am looking to pay someone to give me advice on what life path to pursue. I like tech, but I think I am not smart enough for it. And besides CS, with what other degree would I be able to work in tech?

All Career Coaches I've looked at online seem like they're more for people who are already established in their careers. Not someone like me who's young enough to maybe try something new, but not young enough to be a 18 year old who can "try stuff around" anymore.

I've begun to talk less to friends because I keep comparing myself to them, and I'm the example on who you should not try to be.

Deeply appreciate any ideas.

vmc_7645 3 years ago |

You keep on posting here man, all with different versions of the same question "How can I become better?" without doing much follow up or immediate change/improvement. You're in a state of analysis paralysis.

At the end of the day you have to suck it up and do it yourself. No answer will ever be satisfactory without effort put into it.

user-extended 3 years ago | |

Yes, you're right. I would delete this post, but I cannot anymore.

marmetio 3 years ago |

I think you need to approach this from the opposite direction. Conventional path is study, find a job, network to find a better job. I suggest you first network to find where you'd like end up, and then ask those people for advice on how to get there. It's motivating to see the finish line from the very beginning.

Try to go to free conferences or meetups or networking events, and be honest that you're shopping around for a career change. Some of the people who aren't looking for jobs themselves will probably be intrigued enough to offer decent advice and insight.

You'll get much better and quicker results if you aim for 10x networking and socialization. If it makes you uncomfortable because you feel like a failure, tell people you just felt inspired to do something different. Everyone has that feeling, but few people actually act on it. Don't let their choices hold you back.

mrcolinjohnson 3 years ago |

Get a helpdesk job, work your way up into IT, take on projects as you learn. Youll be a Dev in no time. It doesnt take many special smarts and youll eventually find out that 90+% of people working in tech have no CS degree or educational background in tech. And actually a ton of the work is just "plumbing". Most of the job is not fancy advanced algorithms and almost all of the practical learning takes place on the job. the stuff a person learns in school has almost no relation to actual every day work in tech.

Just get an IT/Helpdesk job and you will have a tech career in a few years. It worked for me, and most of the Devs/SREs/SeniorIT/Networking people I know.

eternalban 3 years ago |

> I've begun to talk less to friends because I keep comparing myself to them, and I'm the example on who you should not try to be.

Definitely stop doing that and that. Having people around you who have their act together is helpful. Remember: monkey see monkey do. And that final expression of your self image is the root of the issue. That will not go away if you cut yourself off from friends, it will only get worse.

This puzzle of an existence is in the main an entirely private and internal affair. Here's an old saw (which is still sharp and of utility): The mind/self can be your friend or your enemy. Time to make friends with your mind/self.

(Never hurts to see a therapist.)

user-extended 3 years ago | |

I am seeing a therapist, for years.

I struggle a lot with jealousy, but it's the fact that most of them are already successful and I've failed so much. I talk to them and the only thing I am reminded of is how much their lives are better than mine.

It's even more depressing when one of them calls me at 9pm to hang out and I'm like I don't WFH unlike you, and my commute is horrible, so sorry, no. It's all I think about when I talk with them.

spigottoday 3 years ago | | |

There is another old saying: don't compare your insides to someone else's outside. Your successful friends could be stressed out nervous wreaks. And there might be people out there that look at you and say: he's got a bad commute but his job don't stress him out and he gets along with and enjoys being with his parents, how cool, I'm jealous. The big question about what to do with your life is important, but it seems like your bad commute is problem you could and should deal with first. It seems like WFH is out of the question but you could ask to come in earlier or later to avoid traffic. If they won't accommodate you find a job with a better commute and or closer to home. You are in a much better position than many people to take that risk. Take some time to reflect on all of the things you have to be grateful for and be kind to your self and protect your self from people who are not kind to you or who try to make themselves feel better by undermining you. Good luck.

bloqs 3 years ago | | |

I felt this way at 23, and this is such a damaging mindset that im only just moving past it at 32. You have been raised in a generation that is somehow even more comparative than mine, which is utterly crazy. What is interesting is, most of the emotionally intelligent people responding to this post, will likely not be the epitome of this website, so its important, if you read any good advice to think it's the norm. The culture of this sector is emotionally undeveloped but technically brilliant.

Often, your position occurs due to a couple of things -

1. Emotional turbulence due to difficult upbringing (remember, simply going to school and feeling low on the social hierachy due to factors out of your control can be a key factor here)

2. Dishonesty. If you at some point have developed lying as a skill to protect yourself from difficult people and circumstances, this absolutely poisons your internal psychology. The part of your brain that handles problem solving (and your brain, generally speaking) will always look for the most efficient way you know to solve a problem. If simply altering reality to fit the desired outcome is done a lot, it becomes the default way you solve things.

Additionally, other people, educators, and society is becoming increasingly based on bullshit, which makes it even harder. People will say things like "you got it lucky" or suggest that "X is talented at Y" when they really have no idea, it can totally confound your ability to make decisions and move forward, and your ability to tell fact from fiction.

All people are generally arranged to be interested in "things" or "people". They are statistically associated with gender but lets ignore that for now.

Make sure when looking at tech that you are interested in the tech itself and not the people in it, or the " idea" of being in tech. You need to be fundamentally interested in things not people to go down the technical route. It is achieveable otherwise, but you will be unremarkable and lag behind which will cause long term stress. My advice is to focus more on understanding yourself, and if you can decide on something you think is worth pursuing then it is worth doing the best job you possibly can at it. Dont compare just try to better yourself over time. We all constantly overestimate what can be done in a year, and underestimate what can be done in 4. Good luck, and do an I PIP NEO personality questionnaire (longer one) it will help form a starting point. https://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/

nextos 3 years ago |

Why do you think you did poorly in your CS degree?

CS schools in Spain, France, Italy, etc. differ greatly in terms of difficulty and quality of teaching. You might thrive now if you choose the right environment?

Some schools in Northern Europe are free and might be a bit more practical. There's also the option to follow a simple 2-year associate degree and then transfer to a real university and get a BSc with a bit of extra coursework.

I recommended this option to a friend who had dropped out of his BSc and he did fine this second time. If you need further info, feel free to contact me. Email is on my profile.

kirso 3 years ago |

I think you are looking for someone to make a decision for you. This is not what career coaches are for. This is usually a quality of bad friends.

You have all your options laid out on the table already. Your interests will change, this world is not static. Your skills might also change given your curiosities and exploration. Your job right now is to gain SKILL & CAREER CAPITAL. What is it?

- Network

- Soft skills

- Hard skills

- Meta skills (learning how to learn, not shitting your pants when shit hits the fan, dealing with your own insecurities etc.)

Consider this:

- You are time rich

- You are a health millionaire (can hustle)

- You are poor money wise

This is a normal situation at your age. Pick a path based on your interest and how much potential it has (please don't go into fax machine business) and go do it. What ever it is... You are probably wrong about it anyways and in 5 years you realise you want to do something else. That's normal. But you need to do something now to land there...

Dip your toes into things, experiment, do and build stuff + read `The defining decade` book.

Good luck!

keiferski 3 years ago |

There are a lot of jobs in tech that don’t involve programming directly. Marketing, technical writing, support, HR, etc. And a variety of different domain-specific jobs that can be described as “product” or “business development.”

From reading your post, I would look into two options:

- Technical writing. It’s a fairly solid career and requires technical knowledge but rarely actual programming skills.

- Get a job at a specific startup that you like. You mentioned logistics, so perhaps a company like Flexport is interesting to you. Learn how to tailor a job application for a single company (e.g. make a page on your personal website talking about how you love their company and have XYZ useful skills) and then apply.

user-extended 3 years ago | |

My biggest issue for those is that I don't have a related degree and I'm based out of Spain, which severely limits my options.

keiferski 3 years ago | | |

You will probably need to get a degree, no matter what your future plans are. I would just figure out the type of company you want to work at, then make a five year plan to get there. At 23, five years can seem like an eternity but 28 is practically the same age, in the eyes of society.

danwee 3 years ago |

Obviously, the answer may not be applicable to you, but here I put myself on your shoes.

- let's see, I'm 23. I'm young. How would I like to see myself when I'm 30? Well, probably with that CS degree I'm talking about, with some years of experience as a profressional programmer as well. Perhaps with some money saved (little, but something). At 30 I would finally be able to actually start making good money because I would have +7 years of experience, and I wouldn't have to worry about getting the degree anymore

- One doesn't need to be smart/intelligent to do programming, I know that for sure. I only need to put hours. Take it seriously, as an adult

- I would rather prefer to start working part-time (so I can earn some money plus work experience) and at the same doing the CS degree. Granted, it's going to be hard, but it's just a matter of perspective: the outcome (me at 30), that's the goal I really want to achieve. Maybe at the beginning (first 1 or 2 years) I would have to leave behind some time-consuming activities that slow me down to achieve my goal (e.g., too much videogames, too much social media, too much whatever...)

- Spain? That means the CS degree takes (on paper) probably 4 years to get. Probably the first years are the worst (maths, physics, electronics), while the last years are the "easiest/more interesting" ones (operating systems, databases, AI). Also, as I get work experience by working part-time, by the time I'm finishing the CS degree everything will look to me very easy to grasp (e.g., "I'm at my 3rd CS year. Lecture = "Relational DBs". Ah well, I have been working with MySQL during the last 2 years at my part-time job, I know what relational DBs are about! This is gonna be fun (and easy)"). So, it will be harder in the beginning (first 2 years), but then you'll have fun

Plan long term. Commit yourself to spend a significant percentage of your time to achieve your long term goals. As for the commute, are you working as a programmer? If so, there is probably remote-only jobs out there in Spain/Europe, find one (use Linkedin, golang.cafe, and similars. Do not use infojobs, monster and similars)

Centigonal 3 years ago |

Read some self-help books. Really.

I recommend Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkman and Mindset by Carol Dweck.

A career coach or counselor will be able to give you information and help you figure out how to achieve your goals, but nobody can actually tell you what YOU want to do with your career, because they don't live inside your head. You yourself have to figure that out.

For me, the tools in the above books have helped me get a better idea of what I want to spend my time doing and how I'm going to try and get there.

Also, commutes suck - maybe make your first goal getting a job closer to home, or a home closer to work?

user-extended 3 years ago | |

I understand that... I have to figure it out by my own, but my dream was always do something related to tech, and I've failed at. Now, I don't know what to do. I'm blank.

Commute-wise, it's just that I'm much more mentally stable when I live with my parents. At first it was about the money, but now it's about having them around.

Thank you for the book recommendations.

Centigonal 3 years ago | | |

> my dream was always do something related to tech, and I've failed at. Now, I don't know what to do. I'm blank.

No, you haven't failed. Everyone has their own journey, and just because your friends have achieved your idea of "success in tech" before you did doesn't make you a failure. You haven't failed until you give up, and the fact that you're making this post means you haven't given up.

Bob Moore started Bob's Red Mill, a massive and successful company, at age 60, after a long career that took him from running a couple unsuccessful gas stations to selling car tires, until he discovered his passion for (of all things) milling grains. It's never too late to find something you're good at and reasonably enjoy.

now you've got to answer these questions:

- Do you still want to do "something related to tech?"

- If Yes: Well tech's that's a big field, and there's a lot of room for people with vastly different skillsets. What subfield do you want to target? how are you going to prove you can get hired in that subfield?

- If No: what other fields do you want to look at? What initially drove you to tech? why are you even interested? Is it intrinsic or extrinsic? You could try doing an Ikagai exercise to identify other fields that might be interesting to you.

You should definitely read Mindset - at least the first two chapters.

_448 3 years ago |

If you like tech but are not good at programming, then I would suggest a very unconventional job of Game tester. Big game companies hire people to play the games they are developing. You could look for a job in that domain.

Alternatively, think of what you would like to do if there were no constraints. Then try to take a course in that area.

Just for motivation purpose, here is a real life example. One of the three people who started DirectX at Microsoft actually started as a support call handler, and later went on to manage the early DirectX team, and then later on a complete business division.

shubb 3 years ago |

Healthygamer.gg run a careers service and specialise in young people.

It's supposed to be a long term thing but they have a first session free deal right now you could use to get what you want in an hour. You'd need to book a block of sessions then get them refunded over email.

Very "discover your values" / fit your personality to your job.

They have a discord run for careers events and discussion groups. Different, less type A vibe than places like r/cscareers.

nprateem 3 years ago |

Relax. Your brain is still growing. Give it a few years, try some different things, stop comparing yourself to others and you'll find your calling.

nateb2022 3 years ago |

You don't need a career coach. Your answer lies inside of you. Your strengths, your weaknesses. They were meant to be. You were made for something. It will be made clear to you. Have faith and carry on. Don't give up.

daniel71l 3 years ago |

I can give you advice and help you overcome many limiting beliefs you have.

I have created a dedicated service to people who want to enter

customname 3 years ago | |

Lmao wtf

daniel71l 3 years ago | | |

Wft sure.... I am engineer that work with other engineers You can laugh as much as you can

But the proof is in the pudding. I do help people

Dont believe?

Id love to talk to you

JSeymourATL 3 years ago |

How to Choose a Career Based on Your Personality > https://hcleadershipessentials.com/blogs/career/how-to-choos...

daniel71l 3 years ago |

I can help you, to find a way forward I have created a service to help people to overcome limiting beliefs, find their own direction

Eventually finding a road into programming or other technical direction

My email is in my profile, lets talk