What’s the worst career advice you’ve received?
Have you been told to prioritize company loyalty, work overtime for recognition, or believe that success is only achieved through university education?
Let’s discuss other bad career advice together! Share your experiences and insights.
#CareerAdvice #BadAdvice #SuccessTips #WorkplaceTips #CareerDevelopment
Whenever I tried talking to my father’s friends, who are in a similar industry as mine, about the current job market and how to tackle it- they couldn’t help but talk about how EASY we have it and how difficult it was for them during the recession to find a job.
WHAT WAS THE ADVICE HERE? NOTHING!
“If you’d have put in more unpaid overtime, maybe your raise would’ve been bigger.” -the Operations Manager from a certain beverage company associated with cherry blossoms and the color teal
I no longer work there after I broke my ankle and they refused my podiatrist’s script asking for two weeks of PT, and instead referred me to the company doctor that said I was “completely fine” and “ready to go back to work”. Currently in my dream role, no broken ankles ever since.
Colleges: Get an economics minor, companies will like to see that you understand the field.
Reality: “So was economics too difficult and you switched over to business management?”
No matter what you have to work.
My grandmother has the mentality that even if your making less than minimum wage and your is literally in danger you better keep that job and dont change it.
“Pound the pavement and drop your resume off unannounced to companies in skyscrapers in Manhattan.” Circa 2008, my father.
In case it wasn’t obvious, all these buildings have a big ole security desk, you can’t go up into any skyscraper unannounced, if you don’t already live or work in said ‘scraper.
When I first started interviewing, I was advised to send thank you messages afterwards (I know some people do this) but in particular — to address them by their salutation and last name (e.g Mr Dicey). I didn’t know any better at the time.
Go to university and the rest will fall into place is the obvious one.
One of my boomer family members always says, when negotiating for salary, to make unrealistic requests. Ask for first class flights for all business travel, negotiate 1 year severance, etc. It was a different time in the 80s.
Tailor your resumes for every application.
Or those useless talks about connecting and networking. Yes, nepotism is useful, of course.
You’ll be rewarded for your loyalty.
Rewarded with a layoff
“Be the first person to arrive in the morning and the last person to leave.”
Or
“It’s not the nicest or easiest person to work with that gets promotions.”
“Be honest, and pick a good trade, you’ll be sought after”. Well that was a damn lie. (Non US btw)
If you work hard you’ll get rewarded. Rewarded with more work.
The worst is people critiquing you for your lack of success landing an offer as if you’re doing something wrong and not understanding what goes into the process and how a great deal of it is out of your control
Don’t go chasing the dollar sign. Just put in the work and you will eventually be rewarded.
From my boomer dad when I discussed how I was job hunting and leaving my shitty job where they overworked and underpaid me by about $20,000
My aunt called me the other day and gave me all the shitty boomer advice at once:
“You need to be more creative and go door to door”
“There must be something wrong with your skills and resume why you can’t get a job”
“You should go back to school”
“Have you reached out to [local celebrity] for help? “(LOL)
“Have you tried [insert million other things I’ve already done]”
I’m tired…
You’re always be poor and working dead end jobs if you don’t have a college degree- said the 50 year old high school teacher in diapers, never married and broke still teaching high school students.
I hear a lot of people say, “Just follow your passion, and you’ll make money.” But it’s important to remember that just loving what you do isn’t always enough. You also need to think about what jobs are needed and make a good plan to turn what you love into a career that can support you.
“Never take a promotion without a raise.”
Take a promotion for free, work it for a year, search for a new job with your updated resume, get a huge pay raise.
Take a small hit now for a big payout later.
“Don’t play politics.”
The “politics” were my coworkers refusing various duties until they were given to me instead, about one per month, wildly understaffing my department, flooding those overtaxed hours with useless meetings, group-sourcing a code of conduct while the person terrorizing me straight up refused to attend the same meetings with impunity… it’s me. I’m the politics. It must be nice to act like politics is some weird hobby or something.
Be mean
Don’t tell your coworkers it’s going to be okay
I wish I was making this up lmao
“You need to take a lower position to get a foot in the door and prove yourself!”
This advice was fine when I was just out of school or may work for someone who’s out of work. But someone actually told me this about six months ago when I got rejected from a job because they hired an internal candidate and the employer offered me a role in the call center instead because I’m currently working in customer service. I had said over multiple rounds of interviews that I was not interested in call center work and wanted to move out of that. So the fact that someone told me I should have taken the call center job and been happy about it when I have now been out of school for 15 years and have other skills was almost offensive.
I can’t even begin to list all the crazy tips I’ve been given in the course of my life.
At school, I was strongly advised to study as far away as possible so that I could become independent. They didn’t mention how handy it is to have family nearby if you need help or have children.
In my youth, it was also considered particularly ambitious to hand in your application in person (instead of sending it in). So I invested time and money travelling to another city where no one wanted to receive my application in person.
I could go on and on …
“volunteer so you don’t have that gap in your CV”.
I did volunteer. Was a very difficult time getting paid for travelling expenses and wasted whatever little money I had getting there and back.
What a joke.
I keep getting told it will all work out for the better and that I shouldn’t be angry about being unjustifiably fired and denied unemployment all because lil miss power trip didn’t like me going on three months with no income and I keep getting told it will all work itself out
“Stop hanging out with losers and make wealthier friends – they’ll help connect you!”
(1) person had never met my friends
(2) most of my friends have masters degrees, idk if that makes me the ‘loser’ with a bachelors
“Look up their LinkedIn and ask them about their career”
Interviewers actually think that’s creepy.
“If recruiters want to call you, unscheduled at 7am, after you were up until 4am, because you had to put your pet to sleep- then you’re just going to have to be ready for that.” ~ my auntie-christ (She’s the worst person I’ve ever met, and she’s my aunt).
C-suite at the end of her career, retired more than a decade early, and believes you have to “earn” the right to have issues in your personal life. She has less empathy than a toaster.
Old rich lady: “Sell your gold jewerlly to pay for a phd abroad”…. my WAT???
Mom: “Accept that minimun wage job. When they see you’re a hardworking employee, they will give you a raise”…. yes, sure.
Dad: “It’s not what a company can do for you, it’s what YOU can do for a company”. Please, no.
Also mom: “Print your CV and go to every company in the city”. I actually did it and half of people was rude to me to make them lost their time. In one company they “offered” me to work for free for a day. In another place there was this old creepy guy who was too overfriendly. Never got a call back from any of them. Funnily enough, my older brother also did it and was hired in the first place he left his CV. Talk about good luck.
When I went to my neighborhood’s employment center, which I’m pretty sure is full of advisors who couldn’t find better jobs themselves, I was told to say during interviews that you’re not interested in the money, but in the opportunity to work for the company. Yeah sure.
the same response that I get from my parents after I complain
“you have to reach out! Thank them for the interview, go to the location! Make yourself known!”
I’ve tried. I check back in after interviews, i’m very open about opportunities. Half of the job descriptions have shit like ‘no emails or personal visits’ due to the sheer number of applicants. They’re the ones ghosting me, not the other way around!
Being rewarded for loyalty and hard work. Couple years ago a full time permanent (rare) position went up in my department. It was between me and another woman. I was always on time, got my work done and got in done well, rarely made mistakes, etc. Woman I was up against was constantly late, always chatting and goofing around with her friends on the team, constant mistakes (that I was often catching/fixing). There was a clique in our department-the ringleader of the clique (a woman 5-6 years older than me) *hated* me. As did her right hand man.
When that position went up they ensured I didn’t get it. The senior staff, who had been there for decades, were shocked when I didn’t get the position. I was too. I had proven myself time and time again. But it came down to a popularity contest (and potential cheating from the other candidate, which my supervisor (who actually wanted me to get the job) suspected but didn’t have hard evidence to confirm). Because my supervisor liked me and recognized my work ethic she convinced her higher up to extend my contract. I had no other job offers lined up despite looking so I took it to pay my bills. The rest of my time was miserable. I was talked about by the clique, excluded, and stepped on. A different department had another contract open up and I jumped on it-I now work in that section. Was just happy to get away from the depression and misery of working there.
I did the work, I did it well and efficiently, and it still wasn’t enough. Only permanent people at my work get full benefits and since I don’t have any family in this province and my parents aren’t rich it was hard to cope with losing out to that as well.
I still work hard but I have zero expectations anymore. I don’t do overtime unless I want to. I do what’s within the realm of my contract and rarely more. While I do like my new team, I’ve learned better. I am looking to switch companies soon because my new section is super short staffed and I’m not sure I can deal with the stress of that much more. Hopefully I can find a company that is actually willing to give full benefits upon hiring. But yeah I will never expect to get anywhere with hard work again. It’s all luck and who likes you best.
My Dad told me to “stick it out” in a job that I absolutely hated with an abusive boss so that I would “have something on my CV”. It was my first job. He wanted me to stay for at least three months so that it would show I could hold down a job lol.
I did exactly that, three months of hell and afterwards, as I was certain I didn’t want to go back into that industry, nobody gave a shit I worked there. Wish I’d just left when I realised it wasn’t for me.
Don’t study history, political science, or agronomy you’ll never get a job. Get a hard science degree and you’ll get a good job. My physics degree has been useless. If I’d studied history I’d at least would have enjoyed the subject.
‘You should only apply to 3-4 jobs per week.’ Absolutely debilitating advice for 2024
Study hard, do your best, always go over and above, work harder than everyone else and you will have a successful career!
(Currently unemployed after taking that advice.)
Take 1 to 2 days off a month. You don’t want work to rely on you too much.
Don’t be friendly with the CEO/Boss It’s better that they don’t know your name.
If you do overtime now, you’ll be thought of when it comes time for raises. (You will be known as they guy that does overtime and everyone else will flake it off to you and 70 hour work weeks.)
[This industry/nonprofit] is built on honesty, so don’t worry about things like putting requests in writing, keeping logs of interactions with HR, or management concerns. We handle that all internally anyways.
Bad advice I followed: “Put in a lot of hard work and hours and you’ll be handsomely rewarded.”
Good advice I ignored: “Make sure you socialize and go to all the work social events – no matter how good or bad you are, the socialization is what will move you up the ladder.”
“You’re majoring in accounting, you’ll never have trouble finding a job!”
lol
LOL
LO FUCKING L
After I had the audacity to be born in the Reagan years and graduate during the Great Recession, all these entry-level financial jobs died and never came back while my popular Millennial Fear Degree got saturated and I was competing with people my parents’ age for $20/hour bookkeeper jobs.
I wound up getting more money and stability writing about taxes than doing them, which was fantastic until the digital media industry went to hell in the past year.
I really wish I’d gotten actual constructive advice about tax-related careers and the pros and cons of working for different size firms, instead of just “you’ll be fine, your major is useful”. Because I wound up with the same instability and shitty pay as going into the arts except I needed liability insurance, continuing education, and wasn’t having any fun.
Any time a company pushes a narrative that you’re all a part of a “family” you should run for the hills. I think the founder of Netflix made a better analogy when he compared the workforce to a sports team.