essay on getting a job

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• Job Application Documents

How to Write a Job Application Essay

Last Updated: April 9, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Shannon O'Brien, MA, EdM and by wikiHow staff writer, Jennifer Mueller, JD . Shannon O'Brien is the Founder and Principal Advisor of Whole U. (a career and life strategy consultancy based in Boston, MA). Through advising, workshops and e-learning Whole U. empowers people to pursue their life's work and live a balanced, purposeful life. Shannon has been ranked as the #1 Career Coach and #1 Life Coach in Boston, MA by Yelp reviewers. She has been featured on Boston.com, Boldfacers, and the UR Business Network. She received a Master's of Technology, Innovation, & Education from Harvard University. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 203,954 times.

Many employers now require a writing sample, or job application essay , to accompany all applications or résumés — even if writing is not a significant part of the position. The goal of the job application essay is to ensure that applicants have the right communication skills for the position offered. Sometimes, potential employers will provide a specific topic or series of questions for your essay to respond to. However, you may also be asked to provide an essay with no guidance whatsoever. Either way, approach the essay seriously so that it highlights the skills and assets you could bring to the company. [1] X Research source

Outlining Your Essay

• If you don't know much about the company, do a little research on it before you start writing. You might look at their website or do a general internet search with the name of the company to see if any news articles or other reports come up. Go beyond the four corners of the job listing so that you understand who will likely be reading your essay.
• If there's anything in the job listing or essay requirements that you don't understand, contact the employer and ask about them. Employers are often impressed by applicants who clarify the employer's intent rather than making assumptions.

• For example, if you're applying for a position in sales, you might want to write an essay about your ability to tailor your pitch to specific clients and close the deal. If you have the ability to be more creative, you might tailor your essay to "sell" yourself directly to the employer.

• For each of your points, think of a specific example you can relate briefly that illustrates the point. For example, if you've described yourself as a "team player," you might include an example of how you came in on your day off to complete some of the more monotonous tasks that no one else wanted to do so a project could be completed ahead of schedule.
• It's a good idea to have more than one example in your outline for each point, even if you only end up using one. That way, if you start writing something and it ends up not working as well as you thought it would, you'll have a back-up handy.
• Brainstorming can be difficult. If you find yourself churning over the same thoughts, stand up and take a break for a few minutes. Step outside or go for a walk to clear your head, then come back to it.

• For example, if you want to describe how you increased sales in a specific quarter, you would want to state specifically how much you increased sales. Your former employer may have sales figures that you could ask them for. You might also have that information in your records.
• Wherever possible, use specific numbers and dates rather than making general statements. It's okay to estimate, but make sure your estimate is conservative. Saying you led your sales team to the highest sales in a quarter is impressive — but only if it's true.

Completing Your Rough Draft

• Think of this paragraph as telling the hiring manager what you're going to tell them in the essay. Outline the points you're going to elaborate on in the essay that back up your theme or thesis statement.
• Sometimes it's best to go back and write your introduction after you've written the body of your essay. That way, you can make sure the introduction provides an outline that matches the body.

• If the employer listed specifically what should be included in your essay, follow their order, since that's what they'll be looking for when they read the essay.
• Write in the first person and make yourself the star of any anecdote you include as an example. Use action verbs to focus on what you did rather than focusing on what happened and how you reacted to it. [7] X Trustworthy Source University of North Carolina Writing Center UNC's on-campus and online instructional service that provides assistance to students, faculty, and others during the writing process Go to source

• For example, if you're writing about your skills as a team player, you might note that you discuss doing routine work that others found monotonous so they had time to work on other parts of a project. You could use that detail to move on to a section describing how you're detail-oriented.

• For example, you might write "My business school education, skills as a team player, and focus on detail make me the best candidate to lead your sales team."

Finalizing Your Essay

• For example, you might start by looking solely at punctuation, then read through again focusing on spelling.
• If you find that you tend to repeat a particular error, go through your essay looking for that error specifically.
• If your grammar isn't particularly strong or you're writing in a language other than your native language, have someone else read over your essay as well.

• If you find that you stumble over a sentence while reading aloud, that's a sign that your writing could be clearer. Work with your text until you have something that you can read aloud with ease.

• If the prospective employer did not specify a length, try to keep your essay under 2 double-spaced pages. Remember that hiring managers are busy and don't have a lot of time to read a long, rambling essay.
• Eliminate all unnecessary words or sentences that aren't relevant to the subject of your essay. The majority of your sentences should be short, declarative sentences with action verbs.
• Apps such as Hemingway ( http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ ) or Grammarly ( https://app.grammarly.com/ ) can help you identify portions of your essay that are more difficult to read. Both of these apps have a free version that you can use to edit your text.

• Working backward is particularly helpful for noticing spelling mistakes, especially hard-to-catch homophone errors, because you're seeing the word out of context.

• It may also help to print your essay in a different font or font size than what you used to type it. This breaks your brain's familiarity with the text, which can make typos and other errors more noticeable. Just remember to change the font back after you print it.

Job Application Essay

Expert Q&A

• Give yourself plenty of time to work on your essay. Ideally, you should plan to work on it over the course of at least two days, so you have the time to set it aside after writing before you move to the editing and proofreading stage. [15] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Unless you're applying for a position in a political or religious organization, avoid including anything in your essay that identifies your political or religious preferences or beliefs. [16] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Avoid using humor, especially sarcasm or ironic humor, as it can be misconstrued in text. Additionally, humor may lead the hiring manager to believe that you aren't serious about the position. [17] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/writing-sample-job-application
• ↑ https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2012/04/30/essay-how-write-good-applications-jobs-or-grants
• ↑ Shannon O'Brien, MA, EdM. Life & Career Coach. Expert Interview. 25 May 2021.
• ↑ https://www.govloop.com/community/blog/government-job-application-essays-made-easy/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/application-essays/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/editing-and-proofreading/
• ↑ https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/proofreading-tips
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/career-transitions/200906/the-dreaded-writing-sample

About This Article

Job application essays can seem scary, but they’re really just an opportunity for you to highlight your skills and explain why you’re suitable for the role. Read the job listing to find out what traits and skills the company is looking for, like time management, working under pressure, and leadership. If you don’t know much about the company, read through its website and do an online search to find articles about its work. In your introduction, you’ll want to to describe yourself and introduce the main points you’ll be making. Then, write a paragraph for each trait or skill. Use real life examples from previous jobs, your recent studies, or extracurricular activities to support your points. For example, you could highlight your leadership skills by talking about a time you led a group project that exceeded your targets. For more tips, including how to write a compelling conclusion for your job application essay, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Job Essay | Importance of Job, How To Choose and Get A Job?

July 1, 2021 by Prasanna

Job Essay: Here is the article on a job essay. The job plays a crucial role in life therefore we are writing a job essay.  It tells you what a job is and how to find a good job for yourself. It defines the role of a job in improving the quality of life and also how you can contribute to the betterment of society. Living a quality life depends on the job you are doing and along with earnings, your satisfaction is equally important in a job you are doing.

A job essay helps you to build your personality to grab a good job. Job essay tells you how to prepare for the interview and face it confidently. There are some questions based on this essay and we have answered them at the end of it. It can be very helpful especially when you have just passed out of college and searching for a good job that suits your profile.

You can read more  Essay Writing  about articles, events, people, sports, technology many more.

Definition Of Job

Work that is done to earn a living is simply called a job. Many people define a job in various ways. Some measure it with high payment, some with fewer working hours and some with good working conditions.

A task that is lucrative and brings satisfaction, energy to labourers are the components that are generally loved by individuals.

What Is A Good Job?

Life has many aspects and one of the most important is having a good job. But what is a good job?  Everyone has a different perspective on defining this term. In this job essay, you will get to know more about it.

A job that is high paying and brings happiness, passion to workers are the factors that are appreciated the most by most people. Because nowadays people want to live a wealthy and luxurious life with a beautiful house and high standard of living. If you are earning well then you can also increase your budget and also save for the future.

How To Choose A Job?

A real job is one which you actually love to do. If you are not enjoying what you are doing then you are just doing the job for the sake of earning a living. Such a job can increase your stress level and makes you unhappy and dissatisfied. Doing what you love can make you contribute to society in a better way and also take your company to new heights. It also makes you comfortable and tries new ideas in your job.

How To Get A Good Job?

In this job essay, we have described a few points to get a decent job. You can surely get one if you strictly follow them–

• Think about the kind of employees you want to hire: You should think on your own about who you would hire if you would have been at the place of your boss. What kind of employees do you want to hire for your company?  Answers to these questions will make you more aware of the qualities to be inculcated in you.
• Be Friendly in nature: If you really want to know how to get a good job then always remember to be friendly with everyone around you. Your organization may employ you for some other job by getting intrigued with your inclination. Always remember to grin.
• Make the first contact: Submitting a resume is not just enough. Be the first person to reach out to step further. Call them and see if you can have a word with the company’s HR. Take this time to enquire about a few things and build good communication.
• Dress Properly: Your dressing should be decent and nice. It is not always compulsory to always wear a suit.
• Come Well Prepared: Always go prepared. Study about the organisation from their website (especially cover things like mission, vision and goals) and also brace yourself with the advanced skill set required for the company. Don’t try to answer a question if you are not sure about the right answer. You should confidently and correctly answer all questions.

Importance Of A Job

Working causes you to feel better and hence in this job essay we have explained why having a job is important in our life. Regardless of whether it’s paid or neglected, a job is indispensable for keeping up great wellbeing. When all is said and done, our physical and emotional wellness improves when we work. Having a job can help your confidence and certainty by giving you reason, and it’s a lot simpler to be content when you feel your value.

The job can likewise help in your recovery if you’ve been experiencing a physical issue or sickness, and diminish the danger of long haul incapacity if you have early re-visitation of work gauges set up.

Job gives you a feeling of personality.  Regardless of what sort of work you’re occupied with, you are adding worth and making a commitment to your job environment. To some extent, your job likewise shapes who you are personally. How frequently have you met somebody and the main thing they ask you is ‘what do you do?’.

It helps you master new abilities while working, you’ll unavoidably get new abilities and develop personally. You may acquire insight with hands-on preparation, which could make you ready for other job openings or future advancement. Keeping a task in your field additionally guarantees you stay refreshed with the most recent patterns in your industry.

You get a chance to meet new individuals and make new companions. People are normally friendly creatures. Going to work offers you the chance to make new companions, and meet individuals you may some way or another run over outside of work. Working with others can improve your certainty and social abilities, and having companions close by consistently makes the everyday routine more fun! This enhances the job environment also.

Working helps you to set yourself up for what’s to come. Working can advance your monetary circumstance and give you the opportunity to carry on with your life how you decide to. Retirement may not be on the cards at this moment, yet preparing for monetary solidness in years to come implies you’ll have the option to help yourself when it’s an ideal opportunity to hang up the boots. We hope you must have got all the answers to your doubts by reading this job essay.

FAQ’s on Job Essay

Question 1. Why do you think a job is important?

Answer: A job is important to earn a living and to fulfill the needs of the family. It is important to live a happy and satisfying life. It is important because it helps to enhance your skills and abilities and hence results in growth.

Question 2. How can you get a good job?

Answer: You should be well prepared to answer all types of questions. You should have a good knowledge of the profile you have applied for.

You should have a good knowledge of the organisation where you have applied. Always go and answer confidently.

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Essay Curve

Essay on My Dream Job – Samples, 10 Lines to 1500 Words

Essay on My Dream Job: Everyone has a dream job in mind, a career that they are passionate about and would love to pursue. In this essay, we will explore the concept of a dream job and what it means to different people. From childhood aspirations to adult career goals, our dreams can evolve and change over time. Whether it’s a creative profession, a fulfilling role in helping others, or a challenging position in a competitive field, our dream job represents our ultimate career goal and the path we strive to follow.

Table of Contents

My Dream Job Essay Writing Tips

1. Start by brainstorming your dream job and why it appeals to you. Consider what aspects of the job excite you, such as the work itself, the environment, the potential for growth, or the impact you could have.

2. Create an outline for your essay, including an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. This will help you organize your thoughts and ensure that your essay flows smoothly.

3. In your introduction, introduce your dream job and explain why it is your ideal career. You can also provide some background information about yourself and your interests to give context to your choice.

4. In the body paragraphs, expand on the reasons why your dream job is important to you. Provide specific examples of how this job aligns with your skills, values, and goals. You can also discuss any relevant experiences or qualifications that have prepared you for this career path.

5. Use descriptive language to paint a vivid picture of your dream job. Describe the day-to-day tasks, the work environment, and the potential challenges and rewards of the job. This will help the reader understand why this career is so appealing to you.

6. Consider addressing any potential obstacles or concerns you may have about pursuing your dream job. This can show that you are realistic and thoughtful in your career aspirations.

7. In the conclusion, summarize your main points and reiterate why your dream job is important to you. You can also discuss how you plan to work towards achieving this goal and what steps you will take to make it a reality.

8. Proofread your essay carefully to check for any spelling or grammar errors. Make sure your writing is clear, concise, and engaging to capture the reader’s attention.

9. Consider seeking feedback from a teacher, mentor, or friend to get a fresh perspective on your essay. They may be able to provide valuable insights or suggestions for improvement.

10. Remember to stay true to yourself and your passions when writing about your dream job. Your enthusiasm and authenticity will shine through in your essay and make it more compelling to read.

Essay on My Dream Job in 10 Lines – Examples

1. My dream job is to become a successful fashion designer. 2. I have always had a passion for creating and designing clothes. 3. I love expressing myself through fashion and creating unique pieces. 4. I envision myself working in a fast-paced and creative environment. 5. I want to collaborate with other talented individuals in the industry. 6. My dream is to have my own fashion line and showcase my designs at fashion shows. 7. I aspire to make a name for myself in the fashion world and inspire others with my work. 8. I am willing to work hard and constantly improve my skills to achieve my dream job. 9. I believe that pursuing my passion for fashion design will bring me fulfillment and happiness. 10. Ultimately, my dream job as a fashion designer represents my desire to turn my creativity into a successful career.

Sample Essay on My Dream Job in 100-180 Words

My dream job is to become a successful entrepreneur. I have always been passionate about starting my own business and creating something innovative that can make a positive impact on society. I envision myself leading a team of dedicated individuals, working together to bring our ideas to life and build a successful company from the ground up.

I believe that being an entrepreneur will allow me to have the freedom to pursue my creative ideas, take risks, and make a difference in the world. I am willing to put in the hard work, dedication, and perseverance required to achieve my goal of becoming a successful entrepreneur.

I am excited about the challenges and opportunities that come with being an entrepreneur, and I am confident that with determination and a strong work ethic, I will be able to turn my dream job into a reality.

Short Essay on My Dream Job in 200-500 Words

My dream job is to become a successful entrepreneur. I have always been fascinated by the idea of starting my own business and being my own boss. I believe that being an entrepreneur would allow me to pursue my passion, take risks, and make a positive impact on the world.

One of the main reasons why I want to become an entrepreneur is because I want to have the freedom to create something that is truly my own. I have always been a creative and innovative thinker, and I believe that starting my own business would allow me to fully express my ideas and bring them to life. I want to be able to build something from the ground up and see it grow and succeed through my hard work and dedication.

Another reason why I am drawn to entrepreneurship is because I want to take risks and challenge myself. I believe that being an entrepreneur requires a certain level of courage and willingness to step outside of your comfort zone. I am not afraid of failure, and I see it as an opportunity to learn and grow. I want to push myself to new heights and see what I am truly capable of achieving.

Furthermore, I believe that being an entrepreneur would allow me to make a positive impact on the world. I want to create a business that not only generates profit but also contributes to society in a meaningful way. Whether it is through creating jobs, supporting local communities, or promoting sustainability, I want to use my business as a platform to make a difference in the world.

In order to achieve my dream job of becoming an entrepreneur, I know that I will need to work hard and stay dedicated. I plan to pursue a degree in business or entrepreneurship to gain the necessary knowledge and skills to succeed in the competitive business world. I also plan to network with other entrepreneurs and seek mentorship from successful business leaders to learn from their experiences and insights.

Overall, my dream job of becoming an entrepreneur is driven by my passion for creativity, innovation, and making a positive impact on the world. I am excited about the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead, and I am committed to working hard to turn my dream into a reality. I believe that with determination, perseverance, and a clear vision, I can achieve my goal of becoming a successful entrepreneur and building a business that I am truly proud of.

Essay on My Dream Job in 1000-1500 Words

My Dream Job

Everyone has a dream job that they aspire to have one day. For some, it may be to become a doctor and save lives, while for others, it may be to become a famous actor or musician. As for me, my dream job is to become a successful entrepreneur and run my own business.

Ever since I was young, I have always been fascinated by the idea of starting my own business and being my own boss. I have always had a passion for creativity and innovation, and I believe that being an entrepreneur would allow me to express my ideas and bring them to life. The thought of creating something from scratch and seeing it grow and succeed is what drives me to pursue this dream job.

One of the main reasons why I want to become an entrepreneur is the freedom and flexibility that comes with it. I have always been someone who values independence and autonomy, and I believe that being an entrepreneur would allow me to have control over my own destiny. I would be able to set my own schedule, work on projects that I am passionate about, and make decisions that align with my values and beliefs. This level of freedom is something that I find extremely appealing and motivating.

Another reason why I want to become an entrepreneur is the opportunity to make a positive impact on the world. I believe that as an entrepreneur, I would have the ability to create products or services that can solve real-world problems and improve people’s lives. Whether it is developing a new technology that can revolutionize an industry or creating a social enterprise that gives back to the community, I want to use my skills and resources to make a difference in the world.

In addition to the freedom and impact, I am also drawn to the potential financial rewards that come with being an entrepreneur. While money is not the sole motivator for me, I recognize that running a successful business can be financially rewarding. I want to be able to provide for myself and my family, as well as have the financial stability to pursue my passions and interests. By being an entrepreneur, I would have the opportunity to build wealth and create a legacy for future generations.

To achieve my dream job of becoming an entrepreneur, I know that I will need to work hard and be dedicated to my goals. I understand that starting a business is not easy and that there will be challenges and obstacles along the way. However, I am willing to put in the time and effort to learn the necessary skills and knowledge to succeed. I am constantly seeking out opportunities to expand my network, gain experience, and develop my entrepreneurial mindset.

One of the steps that I have taken towards achieving my dream job is pursuing a degree in business administration. I believe that having a solid foundation in business principles and practices will be essential for me to succeed as an entrepreneur. I am currently taking courses in marketing, finance, and management to gain a better understanding of how businesses operate and how to effectively run a company.

In addition to my academic pursuits, I have also been gaining practical experience by working on various entrepreneurial projects. I have started a small online business selling handmade crafts and have learned valuable lessons about marketing, customer service, and business operations. I have also participated in business competitions and pitch events to hone my presentation skills and receive feedback from industry professionals.

Looking towards the future, I envision myself running a successful business that is known for its innovative products and exceptional customer service. I see myself leading a team of talented individuals who are passionate about the company’s mission and values. I want to create a work environment that fosters creativity, collaboration, and personal growth for all employees.

I also hope to use my success as an entrepreneur to give back to the community and support causes that are important to me. Whether it is through charitable donations, volunteering, or mentorship programs, I want to make a positive impact on society and inspire others to pursue their own dreams.

In conclusion, my dream job of becoming an entrepreneur is driven by my passion for creativity, independence, and making a difference in the world. I am committed to working hard, gaining experience, and continuously learning in order to achieve my goals. I believe that with dedication, perseverance, and a clear vision, I can turn my dream job into a reality and create a successful business that leaves a lasting legacy.

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What’s the point of education? It’s no longer just about getting a job

Researcher for the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project; and Online Teacher at Education Queensland's IMPACT Centre, The University of Queensland

Disclosure statement

Luke Zaphir does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Queensland provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

View all partners

This essay is part of a series of articles on the future of education.

For much of human history, education has served an important purpose, ensuring we have the tools to survive. People need jobs to eat and to have jobs, they need to learn how to work.

Education has been an essential part of every society. But our world is changing and we’re being forced to change with it. So what is the point of education today?

The ancient Greek model

Some of our oldest accounts of education come from Ancient Greece. In many ways the Greeks modelled a form of education that would endure for thousands of years. It was an incredibly focused system designed for developing statesmen, soldiers and well-informed citizens.

Most boys would have gone to a learning environment similar to a school, although this would have been a place to learn basic literacy until adolescence. At this point, a child would embark on one of two career paths: apprentice or “citizen”.

On the apprentice path, the child would be put under the informal wing of an adult who would teach them a craft. This might be farming, potting or smithing – any career that required training or physical labour.

The path of the full citizen was one of intellectual development. Boys on the path to more academic careers would have private tutors who would foster their knowledge of arts and sciences, as well as develop their thinking skills.

The private tutor-student model of learning would endure for many hundreds of years after this. All male children were expected to go to state-sponsored places called gymnasiums (“school for naked exercise”) with those on a military-citizen career path training in martial arts.

Those on vocational pathways would be strongly encouraged to exercise too, but their training would be simply for good health.

Read more: Guide to the classics: Homer's Iliad

Until this point, there had been little in the way of education for women, the poor and slaves. Women made up half of the population, the poor made up 90% of citizens, and slaves outnumbered citizens 10 or 20 times over .

These marginalised groups would have undergone some education but likely only physical – strong bodies were important for childbearing and manual labour. So, we can safely say education in civilisations like Ancient Greece or Rome was only for rich men.

While we’ve taken a lot from this model, and evolved along the way, we live in a peaceful time compared to the Greeks. So what is it that we want from education today?

We learn to work – the ‘pragmatic purpose’

Today we largely view education as being there to give us knowledge of our place in the world, and the skills to work in it. This view is underpinned by a specific philosophical framework known as pragmatism. Philosopher Charles Peirce – sometimes known as the “father of pragmatism” – developed this theory in the late 1800s.

There has been a long history of philosophies of knowledge and understanding (also known as epistemology). Many early philosophies were based on the idea of an objective, universal truth. For example, the ancient Greeks believed the world was made of only five elements: earth, water, fire, air and aether .

Read more: Where to start reading philosophy?

Peirce, on the other hand, was concerned with understanding the world as a dynamic place. He viewed all knowledge as fallible. He argued we should reject any ideas about an inherent humanity or metaphysical reality.

Pragmatism sees any concept – belief, science, language, people – as mere components in a set of real-world problems.

In other words, we should believe only what helps us learn about the world and require reasonable justification for our actions. A person might think a ceremony is sacred or has spiritual significance, but the pragmatist would ask: “What effects does this have on the world?”

Education has always served a pragmatic purpose. It is a tool to be used to bring about a specific outcome (or set of outcomes). For the most part, this purpose is economic .

Why go to school? So you can get a job.

Education benefits you personally because you get to have a job, and it benefits society because you contribute to the overall productivity of the country, as well as paying taxes.

But for the economics-based pragmatist, not everyone needs to have the same access to educational opportunities. Societies generally need more farmers than lawyers, or more labourers than politicians, so it’s not important everyone goes to university.

You can, of course, have a pragmatic purpose in solving injustice or creating equality or protecting the environment – but most of these are of secondary importance to making sure we have a strong workforce.

Pragmatism, as a concept, isn’t too difficult to understand, but thinking pragmatically can be tricky. It’s challenging to imagine external perspectives, particularly on problems we deal with ourselves.

How to problem-solve (especially when we are part of the problem) is the purpose of a variant of pragmatism called instrumentalism.

Contemporary society and education

In the early part of the 20th century, John Dewey (a pragmatist philosopher) created a new educational framework. Dewey didn’t believe education was to serve an economic goal. Instead, Dewey argued education should serve an intrinsic purpose : education was a good in itself and children became fully developed as people because of it.

Much of the philosophy of the preceding century – as in the works of Kant, Hegel and Mill – was focused on the duties a person had to themselves and their society. The onus of learning, and fulfilling a citizen’s moral and legal obligations, was on the citizens themselves.

Read more: Explainer: what is inquiry-based learning and how does it help prepare children for the real world?

But in his most famous work, Democracy and Education , Dewey argued our development and citizenship depended on our social environment. This meant a society was responsible for fostering the mental attitudes it wished to see in its citizens.

Dewey’s view was that learning doesn’t just occur with textbooks and timetables. He believed learning happens through interactions with parents, teachers and peers. Learning happens when we talk about movies and discuss our ideas, or when we feel bad for succumbing to peer pressure and reflect on our moral failure.

Learning would still help people get jobs, but this was an incidental outcome in the development of a child’s personhood. So the pragmatic outcome of schools would be to fully develop citizens.

Today’s educational environment is somewhat mixed. One of the two goals of the 2008 Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians is that:

All young Australians become successful learners, confident and creative individuals, and active and informed citizens.

But the Australian Department of Education believes:

By lifting outcomes, the government helps to secure Australia’s economic and social prosperity.

A charitable reading of this is that we still have the economic goal as the pragmatic outcome, but we also want our children to have engaging and meaningful careers. We don’t just want them to work for money but to enjoy what they do. We want them to be fulfilled.

Read more: The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians: what it is and why it needs updating

And this means the educational philosophy of Dewey is becoming more important for contemporary society.

Part of being pragmatic is recognising facts and changes in circumstance. Generally, these facts indicate we should change the way we do things.

On a personal scale, that might be recognising we have poor nutrition and may have to change our diet. On a wider scale, it might require us to recognise our conception of the world is incorrect, that the Earth is round instead of flat.

When this change occurs on a huge scale, it’s called a paradigm shift.

The paradigm shift

Our world may not be as clean-cut as we previously thought. We may choose to be vegetarian to lessen our impact on the environment. But this means we buy quinoa sourced from countries where people can no longer afford to buy a staple, because it’s become a “superfood” in Western kitchens.

If you’re a fan of the show The Good Place, you may remember how this is the exact reason the points system in the afterlife is broken – because life is too complicated for any person to have the perfect score of being good.

All of this is not only confronting to us in a moral sense but also seems to demand we fundamentally alter the way we consume goods.

And climate change is forcing us to reassess how we have lived on this planet for the last hundred years, because it’s clear that way of life isn’t sustainable.

Contemporary ethicist Peter Singer has argued that, given the current political climate, we would only be capable of radically altering our collective behaviour when there has been a massive disruption to our way of life.

If a supply chain is broken by a climate-change-induced disaster, there is no choice but to deal with the new reality. But we shouldn’t be waiting for a disaster to kick us into gear.

Making changes includes seeing ourselves as citizens not only of a community or a country, but also of the world.

Read more: Students striking for climate action are showing the exact skills employers look for

As US philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues, many issues need international cooperation to address . Trade, environment, law and conflict require creative thinking and pragmatism, and we need a different focus in our education systems to bring these about.

Education needs to focus on developing the personhood of children, as well as their capability to engage as citizens (even if current political leaders disagree) .

If you’re taking a certain subject at school or university, have you ever been asked: “But how will that get you a job?” If so, the questioner sees economic goals as the most important outcomes for education.

They’re not necessarily wrong, but it’s also clear that jobs are no longer the only (or most important) reason we learn.

Read the essay on what universities must do to survive disruption and remain relevant.

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Persuasive Essay About Getting A Job

People need jobs for their survival. There are many kinds of jobs around the world. Finding a job, which will suit you, is not an easy way at all. In addition, keeping a job fixed is hard to control. People can choose their favorite jobs with enough skills and abilities. It is so hard to get your favorite job because in there are many people who want to be employed like me. I need to have lots of skills to get employed. I had an experience for finding jobs and when I studied first year in the university. Battambang is a city with many famous universities. I attended one of the universities here and my major was Information Technology. When I was studying in first year, I would like to have a job to get experience because most of the companies employed people who had lots of experience at work. So, first …show more content…

My body was shaking because of fear. I tried to control not to be panicked, but I was getting increasingly nervous when approaching to the contest. My mind was empty like I forgot everything. While I was giving the test, I read the questions again and again two or three times. The time was running really slow for me. In short writing test had finished with nothing left in my mind because in the paper I did not remember what I had written. “How funny am i?” I said to myself. Beside that I had two minutes for relax before the interview. My interviewers tested me by letting me teach English for one hour. First, I was nervous but when introducing started with students I was free to speak and start my teaching. I felt comfortable with them and they liked me as well. For me this hour seemed short in to be staying with the students. Finally, my writing test and interview finished with smile that I could not forget because it was my first time teaching with joy. After that I met with my teacher who is the director of the organization. He said that he would let me know if I was

Blue Collar Brilliance Mark Rose Analysis

We think that without an education, we won’t have a job. We think that the smarter you are, the more money you have. Different people are good at different things you put them to work and it clicks right away and you love your job you’re not going to think of it as a job it’s going to be a hobby you get paid for. You’ll never work a day in your life if you enjoy your job. That’s what people should be looking for something that you enjoy doing.

Persuasive Essay About Working At Walmart

Save money. Live better. Working for the one of the largest and most lucrative companies on the face of the planet can be difficult at times. More often than not every time you walk in to a Walmart you will not recognize anyone in there. Screaming red faced babies that can’t have what they want and befuddled customers asking questions that I don’t know the answer to are an everyday occurrence.

Early College Persuasive Essay

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Freshman 15 Persuasive Essay

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The first attempt and success to climb Mt. Everest occured in 1953. Since then, almost 4,000 people have been able to scale the mountain, but over 230 people have not been able to climb it successfully. There is a chance of accident or death when climbing this mountain or any dangerous activity. All people should should have the right to rescue services even if they knowingly put themselves at risk because there is always a chance of an accident happening, rangers are there to save people in danger, and there are rescue vehicles being produced to be used in case of an emergency.

Persuasive Essay For Paying For College

Paying for college isn 't a simple process, but with the right resources, you can support your education in the best possible way. Let’s take a moment to figure out what options you have. As you prepare to go off to college, it’s very important to remember that the prices you might see listed for colleges is not the price you will have to pay. Most students will see these sticker prices and won’t even try applying for them.

College Is Not Worth The Cost Essay

Why College isn 't Worth the Cost When you grow up, you get pressured into believing that college is the only way to succeed. However,there are other options unless you want to waste your time and money on something that you 're not so sure about in the future. College is not worth the money you’re supposed to pay for. College isn’t worth the cost because many students do not complete college, College is expensive and there is no time for a job, you can achieve your goals without college With the right mindset and motivation, you can achieve any of your goals without going the complicated way.

Persuasive Essay On The American Dream

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Persuasive Essay On Illegal Immigration

There are a lot of controversial issues surrounding this country. Whitin all those controversial issues there 's the “issue” of illegal immigration. I 'm sure we 're all familiar with the term “illegal immigration”. We’re always told about how bad it is. Don 't get me wrong, it is bad but it 's not done with the intention of hurting someone else but to try and change their future.

Persuasive Essay On Minimum Wage

Since the Great Depression, there has been a minimum wage in America, but this minimum wage has changed 22 times since the Great Deprnbession. Many people say minimum wage should stay at $7.25 like it has been since 2009. Meanwhile, other people believe that minimum wage should be $15.00 so they can have more money to live comfortably. People think that a higher minimum wage will help, but it will hurt more people than it will help. If America makes the minimum wage $9.00, people will no longer be in poverty and it will make the economy balance out.

Minimum wage and poverty With everything going on with the Walmart workers picketing for fifteen dollars an hour wages, the topic is widely discussed with many people taking many different sides. The essay “Raising the Minimum wage will reduce poverty” By Sharon Parrott and Jason Furman, They go into how they think the minimum wage should be raised in order to decrease poverty in america, Of course there are reasons to raise it and reasons to not raise it. Yet with the multitude of reasons for and against it, it’s hard to make a decision that makes everybody content, Some of the reasons not to raise it include, Raising it can make prices for everyday items go up, Why go and spend thousands of dollars on college when you could get a decent job right out of high school, and Why let workers who work at unskilled jobs make as much if not more than the military. Some reasons for minimum wage raising is, The fact that the cost of living is higher means people can’t survive with minimum wage without federal care, And just helping people get back on their feet when they couldn’t find a job. The reasons Minimum wage shouldn’t be raised outweigh the reasons it should.

Persuasive Essay: The Minimum Wage Struggle

The Minimum Wage Struggle Money is an essential object to acquire in the society we live in. Various places demand a high monthly rate in order to occupy a premise, along with the stress of utility bills that may not be included. Aside from living costs there are many other factors which must be calculated when budgeting on a day to day basis. Overall, the survival rate tends to increase due to so many responsibilities that need to be upheld, as well as costs being raised. This rise in both the cost of living as well as the need for higher wages proves that the standard of minimum wage needs a major increase.

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Equal pay is something women have fought over for a long time, but still haven’t got it. Just because women have only a little less experience as they have to take care of children doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get the same salary. Equal pay is favorable since it boosts the economy, makes the company look better, and helps everyone. Why would equal pay boost the economy, though? Foremost of all, women spend a sizable portion of their income, which leads to higher demand.

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However, I was also extremely scared. I was thinking about how my classes would go? Are my teachers nice? Am I gonna have classes with my friends? After I ate breakfast, I got in the car with my mom and met up with my best friend Kalliee so we could at least walk in together because we didn 't have any classes together.

Msc Project Management Personal Statement Sample

The university is connected with local and international business, industry and commerce; the teachers are attached to those and often bring in hands-on experience to prepare students with the requirements for latest employment standards. The tuition integrates soft skills, cognitive skills, employability and career skills so that graduates are confident to start their career immediately after

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You Don’t Need a College Degree to Land a Great Job

Four social media strategies you can use to stand out.

Not having a college degree shouldn’t diminish your chances of securing a good job. One of the best ways to move forward is to create a strong social media presence. It will help you stand out, get noticed by potential employers, and find a job you want.

• Start by auditing your social media profiles. Make sure your profile picture looks professional and real. When you share your work experiences, ensure that they match your résumé. Don’t hesitate to include any additional details about your jobs (such as additional responsibilities, awards, etc.) that you couldn’t fit on your résumé.
• Pay attention to the people you follow. Connect with industry leaders and potential employers, especially on platforms like LinkedIn. Like, share, and respond to their updates.
• Prove your passion. Follow hashtags and discussions and stay abreast with the latest industry news. Focus on the content you share, write, and post. When you see an interesting topic, repost the articles and share your commentary or thoughts.
• Finally, learn new skills and show them off on social platforms. Did you just learn Adobe Illustrator? Share a certification or a new project you completed as part of the course. Know that you don’t have to be an expert to share your skills. If you’re a self-taught baker, you can create interesting video content using Instagram Reels and TikTok to share your knowledge.

In the 19th century, Horace Mann, a pioneer of American public schools, famously called education the “ great equalizer of the conditions of men .” But for decades now, the education system has revealed — and amplified — existing social inequalities.

• JM Jeff Mazur is the executive director for  LaunchCode , a nonprofit aiming to fill the gap in tech talent by matching companies with trained individuals. As one of the winners of the  2017 MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge , LaunchCode has been recognized for expanding “the tech workforce by providing free coding education to disadvantaged job seekers.” Jeff lives in St. Louis with his wife and twin girls.

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Looking for a Job Essay (Critical Writing)

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Places to look for a job.

It is the dream of every student to find a well paying job after graduating from college. Times are hard, opportunities are few, and one must really hunt for desired jobs. This paper seeks to enlighten job seekers on the areas to look for jobs. Five potential areas will feature prominently in the paper.

College internships have often translated to permanent jobs. In this regard, students need to take their internships seriously. A survey carried out by WetFeet.com revealed that 45 percent of students who had previously engaged in internship received appointment letters to permanent jobs in 2003 (Randinelli, 2004).

The easiest way to convert internship into a permanent job is by working diligently on the tasks allocated regardless of the amount of pay during internship.

Secondly, it is crucial to solicit for feedback from superiors and other staff members during the internship (Randinelli, 2004). It is important for the intern to network as much as possible during the internship. In addition, it is significant to keep in touch with employees and superiors on completing the internship (Randinelli, 2004).

Cold calling is another way of looking for jobs (Randinelli, 2004). It involves sending resumes to any company that interests the job seeker. The job seeker does not wait for advertisements but randomly sends resumes to different companies.

It is important to contact the person who actually hires employees by sending resumes directly to them (Randinelli, 2004). Later on, the job seeker should call the person in charge to enquire on any progress or vacancy.

Another way of seeking for job is enrolling in a career center (Randinelli, 2004). This method has produced about 12 percent of all job appointments by way of interviews in the college. These centers coordinate on campus job placements by various companies and offer programs designed to assist students match up with potential employers.

The centers receive resumes from potential employees and key them in a database from which employers pick those that fit their need. The career centers have job advertisements from time to time. In addition, the centers assist the job seekers in drafting quality resumes. Some centers specialize in distinct disciplines making it easier for corporations to locate potential employees based on the discipline (Randinelli, 2004).

The internet is another area through which one can seek a job. The internet sites contain thousands of advertisements of job opportunities in various corporations (Randinelli, 2004). It is easy to seek for a job of choice on the internet by typing the preferred job. These online jobs are usually more detailed as they include the company profile and personalized methods of placing an application.

Job sites have the option of subscribing to updates, which the subscriber receives automatically through their email address on a fixed period like weekly, daily or monthly (Randinelli, 2004). Other than uploading one’s resume through customized templates on companies’ websites, the same websites display existing vacancies and the job seeker easily applies for the job through a template (Randinelli, 2004).

Every job seeker must be aggressive and patient. Various places assist the job seeker in getting jobs or applying for such jobs. As such, the job seeker should acquaint himself with such places like the internet, internships, and career centers and be ready to cold call with the aim of securing a position in a company.

Randinelli, T. (2004). The Ultimate Job Search Guide. Career Watch , 44-47.

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IvyPanda. (2019, June 3). Looking for a Job. https://ivypanda.com/essays/looking-for-a-job/

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How to Write a Job Application Essay

• By Valentin Berard

Careers that require a lot of writing- like memos, emails, letters, and press releases will come with a requirement to present an essay during application. The requirement is meant to test your skills to deliver to the role, especially your communication skills. Get the best paper from easy writer online  to help you secure the job.

A job application essay will come with the same requirements as what you wrote in class. However, you must tweak it a little so that it stands out among all the other applicants. Before looking at how to write the essay, it might help to analyze what is expected from the essay.

A job application essay will accompany all other documents including your transcripts, certificates, resume, and cover letter. In most cases, the essay does not exceed two pages but the length will depend on the skills required for the job and the level of job you are applying for. While the essay in class showed your academic prowess, the application essay seeks to examine your professional competence.

Job application essays will also differ based on positions. The position may determine the extent of writing you will be required to make as well as the depth you will cover the subject of your writing. You will write such essays often unless the company has head-hunted you to work for them.

Here are expert tips on how to write a captivating job application essay.

Pre-writing stage

Do not jump into writing yet. The best place to begin is checking applications made by previous successful candidates. Such applications may be found on the website of the recruiting company or the organization where you are invited to work.

Analyze the features that made the successful candidates earn these positions. While you should not copy their style, you have an idea of the minimum requirement. You must match their level of writing and surpass it to stand a chance of securing the job.

Read the prompt of the essay you are required to write. Look at the features that the hiring authority expects to see from your paper. Identify the keywords that should be included in your paper based on the prompt. The most common keywords are specific skills you will be bringing to the position. Some of these skills are based on your creativity while others rely on your technical expertise.

A sample will help you to write a better essay. The company may provide one on their website. You may also order one from online writing services. It gives you an idea of what you are expected to produce to make writing easier.

Choosing a topic for your job application essay

Companies give you the freedom to choose a topic or subject for your essay. Consider that freedom as an advantage as well as a disadvantage. It is an advantage because you will settle for your favorite subject. On the reverse, the topic might not resonate with the recruiting panel. Either way, the topic must meet the following requirements

• Stand out- you will be competing with thousands of other applicants for the position. The application essay must be unique enough to capture the attention of the vetting panel. Avoid the obvious topics and ideas that have nothing new to offer.
• Interesting- human resource practitioners have a lot of work perusing through thousands of applications and cover letters. Do not make their work more boring by choosing a mundane topic. Craft a title that arouses their curiosity such that they will want to read your paper above all others.
• Relevant- it is one of the most important considerations when writing a job application essay. The entire exercise seeks to expose your competence. The essay must, therefore, cover a topic that is relevant to the position you are applying for.
• Precise- narrow down the essay to cover a specific area. A person reading the topic should have an idea of what to expect in the body of your paper by just looking at the title. A specific title also allows you to get deeper into the subject instead of covering it on the surface.

Some companies will give a topic for the essay. Review the topic thoroughly to avoid misunderstanding. This is a more delicate situation because you have to stand out over everyone else. The body of your essay will make the difference and earn you the position.

Structure of a job application essay

As stated above, the essay takes a similar structure to that of the essays you have been writing in class. The essay should have an introduction, body, and conclusion.

The introduction should be no more than two paragraphs. Pay a lot of attention to your words because you will be setting the pace for your essay. Demonstrate competence and understanding of the subject to give the reader a reason to go beyond the introduction.

The body contains all the information you need to support the subject of your essay. The body should capture facts, citations, and data reinforcing the assertions you are making. The length of the body of your application essay will depend on the instructions provided as well as the complexity of the topic you are handling.

The body makes or breaks an essay. Since you have less than two pages to make your point, use clear and precise language. Demonstrate a deeper understanding of the subject in the body of the paper.

The conclusion takes one or two paragraphs, depending on the entire length of your essay. Like in all other writing, do not introduce new information here. Use the conclusion to make a memorable and resounding statement about the subject you were handling.

The HR department may prescribe a unique structure based on the skills under assessment. Adhere to these instructions because they will be used to shortlist the essays to be considered in the final assessment. Even the ability to follow instructions and execute them accurately is under review as you write your paper.

Drafting a job application essay

You probably have more time and leeway when drafting a job application essay than when working on a class project. Take advantage and deliver a better essay. Since every other applicant is enjoying the advantage, the bar will be higher.

Develop an outline for your essay based on the points you wish to explore in your paper. The ideas you capture in your outline must be strategically organized. You will probably be addressing three to four points. Organize them in an order that helps you to make a strong statement.

Read thoroughly about the subject of your essay application essay. Your technical knowledge will, especially, be under scrutiny. The only way you can demonstrate competence is by capturing the technical aspects that relate to the job you are applying for in your essay.

The research will be guided by the prompt for the essay and the job description for the position you want to occupy. Look for information guided by the keywords you extract from these two places. It is the only way you can capture the imagination of the panel that will also be reviewing hundreds of other applications.

• Writing help tools

Use writing help tools to make it easier to complete your paper as well as improve its quality. The writing tools assist with typing, editing, citation, and referencing. You may also use note-organization tools to create a database for all the resources you will need to deliver an excellent essay.

Editing tools are especially helpful when writing a job application essay. They clear the paper of any errors that may mislead a reader or misrepresent your idea. Most of the tools are available free of charge or at a reasonable fee.

• Time management

How much time do you have to write the essay and how does it affect the quality of the paper you submit? Well, the quality of time you dedicate to writing the paper will be more important than the amount of time available. Dedicate quality time to help you produce a captivating paper.

Choose to write your essay at a time when your body and mind are at an optimal performance level. You will be more insightful to capture the imagination of the reader. Consider writing the essay at a desk that is free of distraction. Such an environment allows you to focus on your points and deliver the most captivating discussion.

Make an impression

A job application essay tests more than your academic prowess. It is especially interested in your communication skills. However, the paper must be above reproach. Here is a summary of how to make an impression and win the job using the essay

• Adhere to the instructions provided in the prompt
• Be unique so that the essay stands out
• Display your technical knowledge of the subject matter under discussion
• Submit the paper as early as possible to improve your chances

The best job application essay is informed by the instructions provided. It demands creativity but you must be within the limits provided by the prompt. Use a template as well as samples to get the structure right. Edit the essay before submission and do not go past the deadline during submission.

This article was guest written by guest author, Adrian Lomezzo . Adrian is a freelance writer who has been exploring the main strategies of marketing and teaching students to get new skills for 5 years. He also offers insights on entrepreneurship for college students. Adrian aims to help students to prepare better for life after college.

Valentin Berard

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• Seeking an Administrative Job

Getting Into the Admission Office

By  W. Kent Barnds

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Don’t let the movie fool you: a profession in college admissions is compelling, challenging and sometimes very competitive. In the last few months, I received two notes from aspiring admissions counselors who had read an essay I’d written about hiring college admissions officers. Both were leaving another profession, and they clearly demonstrated an understanding of and passion for college admissions work. While I was admittedly pleased they found the piece I’d written helpful, I was even more excited by their sincere interest in working in a profession I love dearly. However, they also conveyed to me a frustration. Both thought they had the qualities to make good admissions officers and yet were struggling to "get a look" from admissions offices that were hiring. I was sympathetic to their plight, because I could see their passion and could picture both being successful. Moreover, I started to question whether I was so out of touch with the qualities that make for a great admissions officer. As I got to know each aspiring counselor, I started to think about my own approach to someone applying for an admissions position after working in another field. How would I react? How would I treat their résumé and cover letter? What would I want to see? What reassurances could they provide? As I thought more about this and the challenges that might be encountered by those trying to break into college admissions later in their career, I developed the following recommendations for those seeking to enter the field. Be direct in your cover letter. In addition to providing a description of your background, describe why you wish to make a change. Don’t dance around it; be direct. Furthermore, emphasize your understanding of the aspects of college admissions work beyond working with students during transition. Let people know you understand that there are expectations for travel away from home and family, long hours, and pressure to achieve specific goals. If possible, connect certain parts of your previous job to the work you anticipate doing in admissions. For example, if deadlines and working independently have been core parts of your job, tie those experiences to what admissions officers do. In addition, identify realistic salary expectations in your cover letter. I think this is important because I’ve made decisions in the past about candidates thinking we’d not be able to afford someone who has worked in another profession. (I know now I was wrong in a number of cases). Rethink your résumé. If you are like most people, your résumé describes what you’ve done and most likely is geared toward people familiar with your profession. This is deadly. If you’ve worked in journalism or social work, and all of your positions and experiences are described in terms understood by journalists and social workers, most admissions people will question your focus on admissions. Think about ways you can more directly tie your work experiences toward what a college admissions counselor does. One way to do this is to provide a skill summary as part of your résumé, to more clearly illustrate how skills you’ve developed in your work directly relate to college admissions. Join the regional association for college admissions counseling (ACAC). The regional ACACs, affiliates of the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC), present an excellent avenue to demonstrate your seriousness about being involved in the profession. In addition, many offices of admissions advertise openings in newsletters and websites produced by the regional ACAC, which means you’ll know about job positions. You may even think about joining a standing committee. Why? It’s a great way to make connections and there is no question that relationships really matter when it comes to hiring in college admissions. Contact a nearby office of admissions and ask if you can shadow some of the experiences. Reach out to an admissions office and explain your interest in learning more about the profession. Ask if you can attend a college night with a counselor, or sit in on an afternoon’s worth of admissions interviews. You might even ask if you can sit in on an admissions committee meeting. Most deans and directors I know probably wouldn’t mind conducting an informational interview about contemporary college admissions. You will need to be sensitive to the time of year, so as not to be a burden. There may be other ways you can volunteer time to an office of admissions. This level of interest (in admissions we call it "demonstrated interest") will give you a better understanding of and connections with the world of college admissions. Volunteer with a community-based organization (CBO) that focuses on college-bound preparation. If you can’t shadow or volunteer in an admissions office, you might think about volunteering for a CBO. Such organizations are going to play a larger role in the college admissions and selection process, and connections with specific CBOs might be attractive to admissions offices that are hiring counselors. Beware: you might be seduced by the great work of a CBO, which would not be a bad thing at all. Volunteer for your alma mater’s recruitment network. Many colleges and universities invite interested alumni to participate in recruitment to supplement office initiatives. Investigate which opportunities are available, and find out how you can volunteer. You could probably cover a college night, write or call admitted students, or even host an event in your home. Whatever the possibilities, if you are genuinely interested in admissions, you’ll participate. While these suggestions cannot guarantee a job or even "a look" in college admissions, they can be helpful for aspiring counselors looking for a deeper connection with a great profession. P.S. I recently received a follow-up note from one of the individuals informing me that she had since secured a position in graduate school admissions.

Survey: Experiential Learning Helps Young People Identify Career Paths

New research from Gallup indicates high school students find career-connected learning useful and want more informati

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Part 1: We reviewed over 60 studies about what makes for a dream job. Here’s what we found.

On this page:.

• Introduction
• 1 Where we go wrong
• 2.1 Money makes you happier, but only a little
• 2.2 Don't aim for low stress
• 3.1 1. Work that's engaging
• 3.2 2. Work that helps others
• 3.3 3. Work you're good at
• 3.4 4. Work with supportive colleagues
• 3.5 5. Work that doesn't have major negatives
• 3.6 6. Work that fits with the rest of your life
• 4 Should you just follow your passion?
• 5.1 You could be more successful
• 5.2 It's the right thing to do
• 6 Conclusion
• 7 Apply this to your own career

We all want to find a dream job that’s enjoyable and meaningful, but what does that actually mean?

Some people imagine that the answer involves discovering their passion through a flash of insight, while others think that the key elements of their dream job are that it be easy and highly paid.

We’ve reviewed three decades of research into the causes of a satisfying life and career, drawing on over 60 studies, and we didn’t find much evidence for these views.

Instead, we found six key ingredients of a dream job. They don’t include income, and they aren’t as simple as “following your passion.”

In fact, following your passion can lead you astray. Steve Jobs was passionate about Zen Buddhism before entering technology. Maya Angelou worked as a calypso dancer before she became a celebrated poet and civil rights activist.

Rather, you can develop passion by doing work that you find enjoyable and meaningful. The key is to get good at something that helps other people.

Watch this video or read the full article (20 minutes). If you just want the raw research, see the evidence review .

The bottom line

To find a dream job, look for:

• Work you’re good at.
• Work that helps others.
• Supportive conditions: engaging work that lets you enter a state of flow, supportive colleagues, lack of major negatives like unfair pay, and work that fits your personal life.

Table of Contents

• 2.2 Don’t aim for low stress
• 3.1 1. Work that’s engaging
• 3.3 3. Work you’re good at
• 3.5 5. Work that doesn’t have major negatives
• 5.2 It’s the right thing to do
• 8 Want to come back later?: Get the guide as a free book

Where we go wrong

The usual way people try to work out their dream job is to imagine different jobs and think about how satisfying they seem. Or they think about times they’ve felt fulfilled in the past and self-reflect about what matters most to them.

If this were a normal career guide, we’d start by getting you to write out a list of what you most want from a job, like “working outdoors” and “working with ambitious people.” The bestselling career advice book of all time, What Color is Your Parachute , recommends exactly this. The hope is that, deep down, people know what they really want.

However, research shows that although self-reflection is useful, it only goes so far.

You can probably think of times in your own life when you were excited about a holiday or party — but when it actually happened, it was just OK. In the last few decades, research has shown that this is common: we’re not always great at predicting what will make us most happy, and we don’t realise how bad we are. You can find an overview of some of this research in the footnotes. 1

It turns out we’re even bad at remembering how satisfying different experiences were. One well-established mistake is that we often judge experiences mainly by their endings: 2 if you missed your flight on the last day of an enjoyable holiday, you’ll probably remember the holiday as bad.

The fact that we often judge the pleasure of an experience by its ending can cause us to make some curious choices. Prof Dan Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness

This means we can’t just trust our intuitions; we need a more systematic way of working out which job is best for us.

The same research that proves how bad we are at self-reflection can help us make more informed choices. We now have three decades of research into positive psychology — the science of happiness — as well as decades of research into motivation and job satisfaction. We’ll summarise the main lessons of this research and explain what it means for finding a fulfilling job.

Two overrated goals for a fulfilling career

People often imagine that a dream job is well paid and easy.

In 2015, one of the leading job rankings in the US, provided by CareerCast , rated jobs on the following criteria: 3

• Is it highly paid?
• Is it going to be highly paid in the future?
• Is it stressful?
• Is the working environment unpleasant?

Based on this, the best job was: actuary. 4 That is, someone who uses statistics to measure and manage risks, often in the insurance industry.

It’s true that actuaries are more satisfied with their jobs than average, but they’re not among the most satisfied. 5 Only 36% say their work is meaningful, 6 so being an actuary isn’t a particularly fulfilling career.

So the CareerCast list isn’t capturing everything. In fact, the evidence suggests that money and avoiding stress aren’t that important.

Money makes you happier, but only a little

It’s a cliche that “you can’t buy happiness,” but at the same time, better pay is people’s top priority when looking for new jobs . 7 Moreover, when people are asked what would most improve the quality of their lives, the most common answer is more money. 8

What’s going on here? Which side is right?

A lot of the research on this question is remarkably low quality. But several major studies in economics offer more clarity. We reviewed the best studies available , and the truth turns out to lie in the middle: money does make you happy, but only a little.

For instance, here are the findings from a huge survey in the United States in 2010:

People were asked to rate how satisfied they were with their lives on a scale from 1 to 10. The result is shown on the right, while the bottom shows their household income.

You can see that going from a (pre-tax) income of $40,000 to $80,000 was only associated with an increase in life satisfaction from about 6.5 to 7 out of 10. That’s a lot of extra income for a small increase.

This is hardly surprising — we all know people who’ve gone into high-earning jobs and ended up miserable.

But this result may be too optimistic. If we look at day-to-day happiness, income seems even less important. “Positive affect” is whether people reported feeling happy yesterday. The left axis of the chart below shows the fraction of people who reported “yes.” This line goes flat around $50,000, showing that beyond this point, income had no relationship with day-to-day happiness in this survey.

The picture is similar if we look at the fraction who reported being “not blue” or “stress free” yesterday.

These lines are completely flat by $90,000. Beyond this point, income had no relationship with how happy, sad, or stressed people felt.

We think there’s a good chance this result is an error, and day-to-day happiness does continue to increase with income, at least a little bit.

More recent data supports the idea that day-to-day happiness increases with income, even beyond $90,000 a year — though it found that day-to-day happiness increases more slowly than life satisfaction. 9

In 2023, Kahneman looked again at his old data, and noticed that a high proportion of people reported (nearly) maximum happiness scores. This could have caused a flattening of the curve despite actual increases in happiness. 10

Everything we’ve covered above is only about the correlation between income and happiness. But the relationship might be caused by a third factor. For example, being healthy could both make you happier and allow you to earn more. If this is true, then the effect of earning extra money will be even weaker than the correlations above suggest.

Finally, $90,000 of household income is equivalent to an individual income of only $48,000 if you don’t have kids. 11

To customise these levels for yourself, make the following adjustments (all pre-tax):

• The $48,000 figure was for 2009. Due to inflation, it’s more like $68,000 in 2023.
• Add $25,000 per dependent who does not work that you fully support.
• Add 50% if you live in an expensive city (e.g. New York or San Francisco), or subtract 30% if you live somewhere cheap (e.g. rural Tennessee). You can find cost-of-living calculations online, like this one .
• Add more if you’re especially motivated by money (or subtract some if you have frugal tastes).
• Add 15% in order to be able to save for retirement (or however much you personally need to save in order to maintain the standard of living you want).

As of 2023, the average college graduate in the United States can expect to make about $77,000 per year over their working life, while the average Ivy League graduate earns over $120,000. 12 The upshot is that if you’re a college graduate in the US (or a similar country), then you’ll likely end up well into the range where more income has little effect on your happiness.

(Read much more about this evidence .)

Don’t aim for low stress

Many people tell us they want to find a job that’s not too stressful. And it’s true that in the past, doctors and psychologists believed that stress was always bad. However, we did a survey of the modern literature on stress , and today, the picture is a bit more complicated.

One puzzle is that studies of high-ranking government and military leaders found they had lower levels of stress hormones and less anxiety, despite sleeping fewer hours, managing more people, and having higher occupational demands. One widely supported explanation is that having a greater sense of control (by setting their own schedules and determining how to tackle the challenges they face) protects them against the demands of the position.

There are other ways that a demanding job can be good or bad depending on context:

This means the picture looks more like the following graph. Having a very undemanding job is bad — that’s boring. Having demands that exceed your abilities is bad too: they cause harmful stress. The sweet spot is where the demands placed on you match your abilities — that’s a fulfilling challenge.

Instead of seeking to avoid stress, seek out a supportive context and meaningful work, and then challenge yourself.

(See our evidence survey on stress for more information. )

What should you aim for in a dream job?

We’ve applied the research on positive psychology about what makes for a fulfilling life and combined it with research on job satisfaction to come up with six key ingredients of a dream job. (If you want to dig into the evidence in more depth, see our evidence review .)

These are the six ingredients.

1. Work that’s engaging

What really matters is not your salary, status, type of company, and so on, but rather what you do day by day and hour by hour.

Engaging work is work that draws you in, holds your attention, and gives you a sense of flow. It’s the reason an hour spent editing a spreadsheet can feel like pure drudgery, while an hour spent playing a computer game can feel like no time at all: computer games are designed to be as engaging as possible.

What makes the difference? Why are computer games engaging while office admin isn’t? Researchers have identified four factors:

• The freedom to decide how to perform your work.
• Clear tasks , with a clearly defined start and end.
• Variety in the types of tasks.
• Feedback , so you know how well you’re doing.

Each of these factors has been shown to correlate with job satisfaction in a major meta-analysis (r=0.4), and they are widely thought by experts to be the most empirically verified predictors of job satisfaction.

That said, playing computer games is not the key to a fulfilling life (and not just because you won’t get paid). That’s because you also need…

2. Work that helps others

The following jobs have the four ingredients of engaging work that we discussed. But when asked, over three quarters of people doing them say they don’t find them meaningful: 13

• Revenue analyst
• Fashion designer
• TV newscast director

These jobs, however, are seen as meaningful by almost everyone who does them:

• Fire service officer
• Nurse / midwife
• Neurosurgeon

The key difference is that the second set of jobs seem to help other people . That’s why they’re meaningful, and that’s why helping others is our second factor.

There’s a growing body of evidence that helping others is a key ingredient for life satisfaction. People who volunteer are less depressed and healthier. A meta-analysis of 23 randomised studies showed that performing acts of kindness makes the giver happier. 14 And a global survey found that people who donate to charity are as satisfied with their lives as those who earn twice as much. 15

Helping others isn’t the only route to a meaningful career, but it’s widely accepted by researchers that it’s one of the most powerful.

(We explore jobs that really help people in the next part of the guide , including jobs that help indirectly as well as directly.)

3. Work you’re good at

Being good at your work gives you a sense of achievement, a key ingredient of life satisfaction discovered by positive psychology.

It also gives you the power to negotiate for the other components of a fulfilling job — such as the ability to work on meaningful projects, undertake engaging tasks, and earn fair pay. If people value your contribution, you can ask for these conditions in return.

For both reasons, skill ultimately trumps interest. Even if you love art, if you pursue it as a career but aren’t good at it, you’ll end up doing boring graphic design for companies you don’t care about.

That’s not to say you should only do work you’re already good at — but you do want the potential to get good at it.

(We have a whole article later in the guide about working out what you’re good at, and another on how to invest in your skills .)

4. Work with supportive colleagues

Obviously, if you hate your colleagues and work for a boss from hell, you’re not going to be satisfied.

Since good relationships are such an important part of having a fulfilling life, it’s important to be able to become friends with at least a couple of people at work. And this probably means working with at least a few people who are similar to you.

However, you don’t need to become friends with everyone, or even like all of your colleagues. Research shows that perhaps the most important factor is whether you can get help from your colleagues when you run into problems. A major meta-analysis found “social support” was among the top predictors of job satisfaction (r=0.56).

People who are disagreeable and different from you can be the people who’ll give you the most useful feedback, provided they care about your interests. This is because they’ll tell it like it is, and have a different perspective. Professor Adam Grant calls these people “ disagreeable givers .”

When we think of dream jobs, we usually focus on the role. But who you work with is almost as important. A bad boss can ruin a dream position, while even boring work can be fun if done with a friend. So when selecting a job, will you be able to make friends with some people in the workplace? And more importantly, does the culture of the workplace make it easy to get help, get feedback, and work together?

5. Work that doesn’t have major negatives

To be satisfied, everything above is important. But you also need the absence of things that make work unpleasant. All of the following tend to be linked to job dis satisfaction.

• A long commute, especially if it’s over an hour by bus.
• Very long hours.
• Pay you feel is unfair.
• Job insecurity.

Although these sound obvious, people often overlook them. The negative consequences of a long commute can be enough to outweigh many other positive factors.

6. Work that fits with the rest of your life

You don’t have to get all the ingredients of a fulfilling life from your job. It’s possible to find a job that pays the bills and excel in a side project; or to find a sense of meaning through philanthropy or volunteering; or to build great relationships outside of work.

We’ve advised plenty of people who have done this. There are famous examples too — Einstein had his most productive year in 1905, while working as a clerk at a patent office.

So this last factor is a reminder to consider how your career fits with the rest of your life. 16

Before we move on, here’s a quick recap of the six ingredients. This is what to look for in a dream job:

• Engaging work that lets you enter a state of flow (freedom, variety, clear tasks, feedback).
• Supportive colleagues.
• No major negatives, like long hours or unfair pay.
• A job that fits your personal life.

(Read more about our evidence for these six ingredients .)

How can we sum this all up?

Should you just follow your passion?

“Follow your passion” has become a defining piece of career advice.

The idea is that the key to finding a great career is to identify your greatest interest — “your passion” — and pursue a career involving that interest. It’s an attractive message: just commit to your passion, and you’ll have a great career. And when we look at successful people, they are often passionate about what they do.

Now, we’re fans of being passionate about your work. The research above shows that intrinsically motivating work makes people a lot happier than a big paycheque.

However, there are three ways “follow your passion” can be misleading advice.

One problem is that it suggests that passion is all you need. But even if you’re deeply interested in the work, if you lack the six ingredients from above, you’ll still be unsatisfied. If a basketball fan gets a job involving basketball, but works with people they hate, receives unfair pay, or finds the work meaningless, they are still going to dislike their job.

In fact, “following your passion” can make it harder to satisfy the six ingredients, because the areas you’re passionate about are likely to be the most competitive, which makes it harder to find a good job.

A second problem is that many people don’t feel like they have a career-relevant passion. Telling them to “follow their passion” makes them feel inadequate. If you don’t have a “passion,” don’t worry — you can still find work you’ll become passionate about.

And the third problem is that it can make people needlessly limit their options. If you’re interested in literature, it’s easy to think you must become a writer to have a satisfying career, and ignore other options. It’s also easy to have the idea that your “one true passion” will be immediately obvious, and eliminate options that aren’t immediately satisfying.

But in fact, you can become passionate about new areas. If your work helps others, you practice to get good at it, you work on engaging tasks, and you work with people you like, then you’ll become passionate about it. The six ingredients are all about the context of the work, not the content. Twenty years ago, we would never have imagined being passionate about giving career advice, but here we are, writing this article.

Many successful people are passionate, but often their passion developed alongside their success, and took a long time to discover, rather than coming first. Steve Jobs started out passionate about Zen Buddhism. He got into technology as a way to make some quick cash . But as he became successful, his passion grew, until he became the most famous advocate of “doing what you love.”

In reality, rather than having a single passion, our interests change often, and more than we expect . Think back to what you were most interested in five years ago, and you’ll probably find that it’s pretty different from what you’re interested in today. And as we saw above, we’re bad at knowing what really makes us happy.

This all means you have more options for a fulfilling career than you think.

A quick aside before we go on. If you’re finding this guide useful, we’d really appreciate it if you could share the article on Twitter , and help us reach more people.

Do what contributes

Rather than “follow your passion,” our slogan for a fulfilling career is: get good at something that helps others. Or simply: do what contributes .

We highlight “get good” because if you find something you’re good at that others value, you’ll have plenty of career opportunities, which gives you the best chance of finding a dream job with all the other ingredients — engaging work, supportive colleagues, lack of major negatives, and fit with the rest of your life.

You can have all the other five ingredients, however, and still find your work meaningless. So you need to find a way to help others too.

If you prioritise making a valuable contribution to the world first, you’ll develop passion for what you do — you’ll become more content, ambitious, and motivated.

This is what we’ve found in our career advising. For instance, Jess was interested in philosophy as an undergraduate, and considered pursuing a PhD. The problem was that although she finds philosophy interesting, it would have been hard to make a positive impact within it. Ultimately, she thought this would have made it unfulfilling. Instead, she switched into psychology and public policy, and became one of the most motivated people we know.

“80,000 Hours has nothing short of revolutionised the way I think about my career.” Read Jess's story

To date, thousands of people have made major changes to their career path by following our career advice. Many switched into a field that didn’t initially interest them, but that they believed was important for the world. After developing their skills, finding good people to work with, and finding the right role, they’ve become deeply satisfied.

Here are two more reasons to focus on getting good at something that helps others.

You could be more successful

If you make it your mission to help others, then people will want to help you succeed.

This sounds obvious, and there’s now empirical evidence to back it up. In the excellent book Give and Take , Professor Adam Grant argues that people with a “giving mindset” end up among the most successful. This is both because they get more help, and because they’re more motivated by a sense of purpose.

One caveat is that givers also end up unsuccessful if they focus too much on others, and burn out. So you also need the other ingredients of job satisfaction we mentioned earlier, and to set limits on how much you give.

It’s the right thing to do

The idea that helping others is the key to being fulfilled is hardly a new one. It’s a theme from most major moral and spiritual traditions:

Set your heart on doing good. Do it over and over again and you will be filled with joy. – Buddha A man’s true wealth is the good he does in this world. – Muhammad Love your neighbour as you love yourself. – Jesus Christ Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

What’s more, as we’ll explain in the next article, as a college graduate in a developed country today, you have an enormous opportunity to help others through your career. Ultimately, this is the real reason to focus on helping others — the fact that it’ll make you more personally fulfilled is just a bonus.

To have a dream job, don’t worry too much about money and stress, and don’t endlessly self-reflect to find your one true passion.

Rather, get good at something that helps others. It’s best for you, and it’s best for the world. This is the reason we set up 80,000 Hours — our mission is to help you find a career that contributes.

But which jobs help people? Can one person really make much difference? That’s what we’ll answer in the next article.

Apply this to your own career

These six ingredients, especially helping others and getting good at your job, can act as guiding lights — they’re what to aim for to find in a dream job long term.

Here are some exercises to help you start applying them.

• Practice using the six ingredients to make some comparisons. Pick two options you’re interested in, then score them from 1 to 5 on each factor.
• When have you been most fulfilled in the past? What did these times have in common?
• Imagine you just found out you’re going to die in 10 years. What would you spend your time doing?
• Can you make any of our six factors more specific? For example, what kinds of people do you most like to work with?
• Now, combine our list with your own thoughts to determine the four to eight factors that are most important to you in a dream job.
• When you’re comparing your options in the future, you can use this list of factors to work out which is best. Don’t expect to find an option that’s best on every dimension; rather, focus on finding the option that’s best on balance.

Take a break

Ask the author a question about this article on Twitter .

Read next: Part 2: Can one person make a difference? What the evidence says.

Continue →

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Notes and references

We’re unsure how robust all of these findings are be in light of the replication crisis , and haven’t found any more recent work replicating these findings.

In particular, we’re concerned about Gilbert’s prominent rejection of the existence of the replication crisis , published in Science in 2016. A convincing response to Gilbert was also published in Science in 2016 , and we enjoyed this blog summarising the issue by Columbia statistician Andrew Gelman.

So we expect Gilbert has overstated the findings. Nevertheless, we think the broader point that we can’t simply trust our intuition about these matters is correct. ↩

For instance, Kemp et al. (2008) found that the peak–end rule was “not an outstandingly good predictor,” and that the most memorable or unusual moments (not necessarily the most intense moments) were more relevant predictors of recalled happiness. This suggests the “peak” is less relevant than the end.

The peak–end rule predicts approximately the correct level of happiness, but the correlations of the peak–end average with the overall recalled happiness are generally lower than those obtained by considering the participants’ happiness in the most memorable or most unusual 24-h period… Remembered overall happiness seems to be better predicted by end happiness than by peak or trough happiness, and the comparative failure of the peak–end rule appears to stem more from the peak than from the end.

That said, a 2022 meta-analysis looking at 58 independent studies, with a cumulative sample size of around 12,500 people, found “strong support” for the peak–end rule.

The peak-end effect on retrospective summary evaluations was: (1) large (r = 0.581, 95% Confidence Interval = 0.487–0.661), (2) robust across boundary conditions, (3) comparable to the effect of the overall average (mean) score and stronger than the effects of the trend and variability across all episodes in the experience, (4) stronger than the effects of the first (beginning) and lowest intensity (trough) episodes, and (5) stronger than the effect of the duration of the experience (which was essentially nil, thereby supporting the idea of duration neglect). ↩

Archived link , retrieved 2-March-2016.

We’re using CareerCast’s 2015 rankings because we want to compare these rankings with measurements of job satisfaction and meaningfulness. The most recent large survey on job satisfaction and meaningfulness that we could find was conducted by Payscale ( archived link , retrieved 17-August-2022), with data collected from 2.7 million people between 6-November-2013 and 6-November-2015.

CareerCast’s 2021 methodology is largely unchanged and described here .

Archived link , retrieved 27-September-2022. ↩

Archived link , retrieved 2-Mar-2016.

Actuary dropped to ninth place in the 2021 rankings.

Archived link , retrieved 5-Dec-2022. ↩

In the more recent 2021 CareerCast survey , actuary was no longer top, but it was still ranked in the top 10.

BBC summary , Archived link , retrieved 15-April-2017. ↩

http://www.payscale.com/data-packages/most-and-least-meaningful-jobs/full-list . ↩

The survey was a self-administered web survey. There are a number of possible sources of bias. For example, if this survey was paid (it’s unclear from the Gallup methodology), this may have introduced bias. That said, Gallup did weight samples to correct for nonresponse by adjusting the sample to match the national demographics of gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, and region.

Archived link , retrieved 16-Feb-2023. ↩

When individuals are asked what would most improve the quality of their lives, the most common response is a higher income

Judge, Timothy A., et al. “The relationship between pay and job satisfaction: A meta-analysis of the literature.” Journal of Vocational Behavior 77.2 (2010): 157-167.

http://www.panglossinc.com/documents/Therelationshipbetweenpayandjobsatisfaction.pdf ↩

• A 2021 study found that wellbeing does rise with income, even above $75,000 a year . However, it found that this, like life satisfaction, was approximately logarithmic — as an individual’s income increases, their wellbeing increases at a slower and slower rate. As a result, above $75,000 a year, the wellbeing increases are very small. The study also found that, as income increased, wellbeing rose more slowly than life satisfaction (which was also approximately logarithmic). Read a critical review of the study . A later analysis of the data revealed that the happier people were, the less their returns diminished. The happiest people continued to become happier with incomes of over $100,000, but the least happy people see almost no benefit of this income on their happiness. ↩

“The critical observation is that Fig. 1A shows the distribution of happiness to be markedly lopsided. In the range of high incomes, in particular, the average reported positive affect is 89% of a perfect score (equivalent to 2.67 on a 0 to 3 scale) and the average of two not-blue items is 81% of the maximum. For example, on average, each dichotomous positive affect item distinguishes between a happier 89% of people and a less happy 11% of people, while the composite report combines three such items. We know, of course, that happy people are not all equally happy. In MK’s experience sampling data, for example, the distribution of happiness was approximately normal. The high density of maximum scores in the KD items indicates that the items do not adequately discriminate among degrees of happiness—there is a ceiling effect.

An example illustrates the relevance of a ceiling effect to the naming of a variable. Imagine a test of cognitive functioning which consists of items that most elderly patients pass easily, with a few exceptions due to inattention or momentary confusion. Such a test would rightly be considered a measure of dementia: the number of items failed is an indication of the severity of dementia, but the scale does not discriminate among levels of normal cognitive functioning because most normal people get the same perfect score. A similar argument implies that KD’s affect items are best interpreted as measures of unhappiness.” ↩

Standard conversion rates are the following:

• A single individual has an equivalence score of 1.
• A single extra adult adds another equivalence score of 0.5.
• Adding a young child to this adds an equivalence score of 0.3, while a teenager costs another 0.5.

As a result, a couple can achieve the same lifestyle as an individual with 50% more income; a couple with a young child can achieve the same lifestyle as an individual with 80% more income; a couple with a teenager require an income twice as high.

These are approximations, but reasonable ones used by international organisations. They are described here by the UK Institute for Fiscal Studies . (The IFS table gives conversion rates from a childless couple to a household. Dividing by 0.67 — the conversion rate to a single individual — will give you the numbers we listed above.)

For the sake of simplicity we will assume that on average across their adult lives people are in a household with an adult couple and a child. This is just an average — some people will be single, while some will be supporting multiple children, at least for some of their lives.

Using this approximation means that a single individual requires about 1/1.9 = 53% as much as a typical household, averaged over their adult lives, to achieve the same standard of living.

In this case, 53% of $90,000 for a household represents $47,700 for an individual. ↩

Source: Carnevale, Anthony P., Ban Cheah, and Emma Wenzinger. “ The college payoff: More education doesn’t mean more earnings ” (2021).

A bachelor’s degree holder earns, at the median, $2.8 million during a lifetime, which translates into average annual earnings of about $70,000.

This figure was for 2021, but wages have grown since then. In January 2021, average wages per hour in the US were $29.92 and were $33.03 in January 2023. That’s growth of 10%, which suggests that the average college graduate now earns $77,000. This is likely an overestimate, because college graduate earnings have been growing slower than average earnings since 2021. Source: FRED Economic Data , “Average Hourly Earnings of All Employees: Total Private (CES0500000003)”, retrieved 5-Feb-2017. This growth matches roughly what we’d expect from inflation, which was about 10% over the period , and wages tend to lag inflation in high-inflation periods like 2021–23.

Mean earnings for US Ivy League graduates

It’s hard to find comparable data for just Ivy League graduates. Payscale found a median mid-career salary of over $135,000, where mid-career is defined as over 10 years.

Archived link , retrieved 23 Feb 2023.

Our guess is that the Payscale data is too high, because people with higher incomes will be more likely to fill out the survey. On the other hand, income only peaks after 20–30 years, so the figure for 10+ years probably underreports the overall average. Moreover, the median will be less than the mean.

Overall, we’re pretty confident that the mean lifetime average for Ivy League graduates is over $120,000.

If you want to estimate your future income, then you should also account for future wage growth (which has been about 2% historically). We ignore this here, and only estimate current income. ↩

http://www.payscale.com/data-packages/most-and-least-meaningful-jobs/least-meaningful-jobs

http://www.payscale.com/data-packages/most-and-least-meaningful-jobs/most-meaningful-jobs

http://www.payscale.com/data-packages/most-and-least-meaningful-jobs/methodology ↩

These 27 studies, some of which included multiple control conditions and dependent measures, yielded 52 effect sizes. Multi-level modeling revealed that the overall effect of kindness on the well-being of the actor is small-to-medium (δ = 0.28). The effect was not moderated by sex, age, type of participant, intervention, control condition or outcome measure. There was no indication of publication bias. ↩

• This is the study we quoted: Aknin, Lara, Christopher P. Barrington-Leigh, Elizabeth W. Dunn, John F. Helliwell, Robert Biswas-Diener, Imelda Kemeza, Paul Nyende, Claire Ashton-James, Michael I. Norton (2010). “Prosocial Spending and Well-Being: Cross-Cultural Evidence for a Psychological Universal.” Harvard Business School Working Paper 11-038. Link . Though there is some evidence that part of the reason for the correlation is that happier people give more. See: Boenigk, S. & Mayr, M.L. J Happiness Stud (2016) 17: 1825. doi:10.1007/s10902-015-9672-2. Link . For a more comprehensive review of the question, see Giving without sacrifice , by Andreas Mogensen, Giving What We Can Research, Archived Link , retrieved 6 April 2017. ↩
• For example, if you’re considering having children, you’ll want to consider paths that provide a good balance for you and your family — we had a whole podcast episode about how to think about this in an evidence-driven way with economist Emily Oster . ↩
• You can get more accurate information on what you enjoy over time by rating your happiness at the end of each day. That way you don’t need to rely on unreliable memory. ↩

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Student Opinion

Should All High School Students Have Part-Time Jobs?

What can teenagers learn from working?

By Shannon Doyne

Have you ever had a part-time job? If so, where did you work and what did you do? If not, do you want to have this experience by the time you graduate from high school? Why or why not?

What do you think teenagers can learn from working?

In the Opinion essay “ The Best Extracurricular May Be an After-School Job ,” Pamela Paul, a columnist who worked multiple jobs in high school during the late 1980s, presents an argument for why students today should work:

Lots of American teenagers need to work after school to help support their families. But there’s a case to be made that those who don’t need to work should get a job anyway. Conditions couldn’t be more optimal. Unemployment, close to a 50-year low , has made the kinds of jobs well suited to kids — no prior experience, minimum wage, part-time — more widely available. Yet fewer teenagers work nowadays than a generation ago. The share of teenagers in the work force has risen from a low of roughly a quarter in 2010 to about a third of older teenagers holding down a job of one kind or another since the pandemic. But when I was in high school in the late 1980s, around half of 16- to 19-year-olds held jobs. Gen X parents who grew up working after-school shifts at the local drugstore often lament the fact that their own children haven’t always had the same opportunities. Many instead favor an array of extracurricular activities that burnish their college applications, like student government and peer tutoring. This may be a mistake even for those parents and kids more concerned about college admissions than about what happens after that. Consider that having an afternoon job cultivates skills like time management and instills a sense of independence and personal responsibility — attributes that many college administrators say some students today lack . But after-school jobs teach more concrete lessons as well. Personally, I learned more from working outside school — starting with three afternoons a week when I was 14 and ending with three jobs juggled, seven days a week, my senior year of high school — than I did in the classroom.

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Application Essays

What this handout is about.

This handout will help you write and revise the personal statement required by many graduate programs, internships, and special academic programs.

Before you start writing

Because the application essay can have a critical effect upon your progress toward a career, you should spend significantly more time, thought, and effort on it than its typically brief length would suggest. It should reflect how you arrived at your professional goals, why the program is ideal for you, and what you bring to the program. Don’t make this a deadline task—now’s the time to write, read, rewrite, give to a reader, revise again, and on until the essay is clear, concise, and compelling. At the same time, don’t be afraid. You know most of the things you need to say already.

Read the instructions carefully. One of the basic tasks of the application essay is to follow the directions. If you don’t do what they ask, the reader may wonder if you will be able to follow directions in their program. Make sure you follow page and word limits exactly—err on the side of shortness, not length. The essay may take two forms:

• A one-page essay answering a general question
• Several short answers to more specific questions

Do some research before you start writing. Think about…

• The field. Why do you want to be a _____? No, really. Think about why you and you particularly want to enter that field. What are the benefits and what are the shortcomings? When did you become interested in the field and why? What path in that career interests you right now? Brainstorm and write these ideas out.
• The program. Why is this the program you want to be admitted to? What is special about the faculty, the courses offered, the placement record, the facilities you might be using? If you can’t think of anything particular, read the brochures they offer, go to events, or meet with a faculty member or student in the program. A word about honesty here—you may have a reason for choosing a program that wouldn’t necessarily sway your reader; for example, you want to live near the beach, or the program is the most prestigious and would look better on your resume. You don’t want to be completely straightforward in these cases and appear superficial, but skirting around them or lying can look even worse. Turn these aspects into positives. For example, you may want to go to a program in a particular location because it is a place that you know very well and have ties to, or because there is a need in your field there. Again, doing research on the program may reveal ways to legitimate even your most superficial and selfish reasons for applying.
• Yourself. What details or anecdotes would help your reader understand you? What makes you special? Is there something about your family, your education, your work/life experience, or your values that has shaped you and brought you to this career field? What motivates or interests you? Do you have special skills, like leadership, management, research, or communication? Why would the members of the program want to choose you over other applicants? Be honest with yourself and write down your ideas. If you are having trouble, ask a friend or relative to make a list of your strengths or unique qualities that you plan to read on your own (and not argue about immediately). Ask them to give you examples to back up their impressions (For example, if they say you are “caring,” ask them to describe an incident they remember in which they perceived you as caring).

Now, write a draft

This is a hard essay to write. It’s probably much more personal than any of the papers you have written for class because it’s about you, not World War II or planaria. You may want to start by just getting something—anything—on paper. Try freewriting. Think about the questions we asked above and the prompt for the essay, and then write for 15 or 30 minutes without stopping. What do you want your audience to know after reading your essay? What do you want them to feel? Don’t worry about grammar, punctuation, organization, or anything else. Just get out the ideas you have. For help getting started, see our handout on brainstorming .

Now, look at what you’ve written. Find the most relevant, memorable, concrete statements and focus in on them. Eliminate any generalizations or platitudes (“I’m a people person”, “Doctors save lives”, or “Mr. Calleson’s classes changed my life”), or anything that could be cut and pasted into anyone else’s application. Find what is specific to you about the ideas that generated those platitudes and express them more directly. Eliminate irrelevant issues (“I was a track star in high school, so I think I’ll make a good veterinarian.”) or issues that might be controversial for your reader (“My faith is the one true faith, and only nurses with that faith are worthwhile,” or “Lawyers who only care about money are evil.”).

Often, writers start out with generalizations as a way to get to the really meaningful statements, and that’s OK. Just make sure that you replace the generalizations with examples as you revise. A hint: you may find yourself writing a good, specific sentence right after a general, meaningless one. If you spot that, try to use the second sentence and delete the first.

Applications that have several short-answer essays require even more detail. Get straight to the point in every case, and address what they’ve asked you to address.

Now that you’ve generated some ideas, get a little bit pickier. It’s time to remember one of the most significant aspects of the application essay: your audience. Your readers may have thousands of essays to read, many or most of which will come from qualified applicants. This essay may be your best opportunity to communicate with the decision makers in the application process, and you don’t want to bore them, offend them, or make them feel you are wasting their time.

With this in mind:

• Do assure your audience that you understand and look forward to the challenges of the program and the field, not just the benefits.
• Do assure your audience that you understand exactly the nature of the work in the field and that you are prepared for it, psychologically and morally as well as educationally.
• Do assure your audience that you care about them and their time by writing a clear, organized, and concise essay.
• Do address any information about yourself and your application that needs to be explained (for example, weak grades or unusual coursework for your program). Include that information in your essay, and be straightforward about it. Your audience will be more impressed with your having learned from setbacks or having a unique approach than your failure to address those issues.
• Don’t waste space with information you have provided in the rest of the application. Every sentence should be effective and directly related to the rest of the essay. Don’t ramble or use fifteen words to express something you could say in eight.
• Don’t overstate your case for what you want to do, being so specific about your future goals that you come off as presumptuous or naïve (“I want to become a dentist so that I can train in wisdom tooth extraction, because I intend to focus my life’s work on taking 13 rather than 15 minutes per tooth.”). Your goals may change–show that such a change won’t devastate you.
• And, one more time, don’t write in cliches and platitudes. Every doctor wants to help save lives, every lawyer wants to work for justice—your reader has read these general cliches a million times.

Imagine the worst-case scenario (which may never come true—we’re talking hypothetically): the person who reads your essay has been in the field for decades. She is on the application committee because she has to be, and she’s read 48 essays so far that morning. You are number 49, and your reader is tired, bored, and thinking about lunch. How are you going to catch and keep her attention?

Assure your audience that you are capable academically, willing to stick to the program’s demands, and interesting to have around. For more tips, see our handout on audience .

Voice and style

The voice you use and the style in which you write can intrigue your audience. The voice you use in your essay should be yours. Remember when your high school English teacher said “never say ‘I’”? Here’s your chance to use all those “I”s you’ve been saving up. The narrative should reflect your perspective, experiences, thoughts, and emotions. Focusing on events or ideas may give your audience an indirect idea of how these things became important in forming your outlook, but many others have had equally compelling experiences. By simply talking about those events in your own voice, you put the emphasis on you rather than the event or idea. Look at this anecdote:

During the night shift at Wirth Memorial Hospital, a man walked into the Emergency Room wearing a monkey costume and holding his head. He seemed confused and was moaning in pain. One of the nurses ascertained that he had been swinging from tree branches in a local park and had hit his head when he fell out of a tree. This tragic tale signified the moment at which I realized psychiatry was the only career path I could take.

An interesting tale, yes, but what does it tell you about the narrator? The following example takes the same anecdote and recasts it to make the narrator more of a presence in the story:

I was working in the Emergency Room at Wirth Memorial Hospital one night when a man walked in wearing a monkey costume and holding his head. I could tell he was confused and in pain. After a nurse asked him a few questions, I listened in surprise as he explained that he had been a monkey all of his life and knew that it was time to live with his brothers in the trees. Like many other patients I would see that year, this man suffered from an illness that only a combination of psychological and medical care would effectively treat. I realized then that I wanted to be able to help people by using that particular combination of skills only a psychiatrist develops.

The voice you use should be approachable as well as intelligent. This essay is not the place to stun your reader with ten prepositional phrases (“the goal of my study of the field of law in the winter of my discontent can best be understood by the gathering of more information about my youth”) and thirty nouns (“the research and study of the motivation behind my insights into the field of dentistry contains many pitfalls and disappointments but even more joy and enlightenment”) per sentence. (Note: If you are having trouble forming clear sentences without all the prepositions and nouns, take a look at our handout on style .)

You may want to create an impression of expertise in the field by using specialized or technical language. But beware of this unless you really know what you are doing—a mistake will look twice as ignorant as not knowing the terms in the first place. Your audience may be smart, but you don’t want to make them turn to a dictionary or fall asleep between the first word and the period of your first sentence. Keep in mind that this is a personal statement. Would you think you were learning a lot about a person whose personal statement sounded like a journal article? Would you want to spend hours in a lab or on a committee with someone who shuns plain language?

Of course, you don’t want to be chatty to the point of making them think you only speak slang, either. Your audience may not know what “I kicked that lame-o to the curb for dissing my research project” means. Keep it casual enough to be easy to follow, but formal enough to be respectful of the audience’s intelligence.

Just use an honest voice and represent yourself as naturally as possible. It may help to think of the essay as a sort of face-to-face interview, only the interviewer isn’t actually present.

Too much style

A well-written, dramatic essay is much more memorable than one that fails to make an emotional impact on the reader. Good anecdotes and personal insights can really attract an audience’s attention. BUT be careful not to let your drama turn into melodrama. You want your reader to see your choices motivated by passion and drive, not hyperbole and a lack of reality. Don’t invent drama where there isn’t any, and don’t let the drama take over. Getting someone else to read your drafts can help you figure out when you’ve gone too far.

Taking risks

Many guides to writing application essays encourage you to take a risk, either by saying something off-beat or daring or by using a unique writing style. When done well, this strategy can work—your goal is to stand out from the rest of the applicants and taking a risk with your essay will help you do that. An essay that impresses your reader with your ability to think and express yourself in original ways and shows you really care about what you are saying is better than one that shows hesitancy, lack of imagination, or lack of interest.

But be warned: this strategy is a risk. If you don’t carefully consider what you are saying and how you are saying it, you may offend your readers or leave them with a bad impression of you as flaky, immature, or careless. Do not alienate your readers.

Some writers take risks by using irony (your suffering at the hands of a barbaric dentist led you to want to become a gentle one), beginning with a personal failure (that eventually leads to the writer’s overcoming it), or showing great imagination (one famous successful example involved a student who answered a prompt about past formative experiences by beginning with a basic answer—”I have volunteered at homeless shelters”—that evolved into a ridiculous one—”I have sealed the hole in the ozone layer with plastic wrap”). One student applying to an art program described the person he did not want to be, contrasting it with the person he thought he was and would develop into if accepted. Another person wrote an essay about her grandmother without directly linking her narrative to the fact that she was applying for medical school. Her essay was risky because it called on the reader to infer things about the student’s character and abilities from the story.

Assess your credentials and your likelihood of getting into the program before you choose to take a risk. If you have little chance of getting in, try something daring. If you are almost certainly guaranteed a spot, you have more flexibility. In any case, make sure that you answer the essay question in some identifiable way.

After you’ve written a draft

Get several people to read it and write their comments down. It is worthwhile to seek out someone in the field, perhaps a professor who has read such essays before. Give it to a friend, your mom, or a neighbor. The key is to get more than one point of view, and then compare these with your own. Remember, you are the one best equipped to judge how accurately you are representing yourself. For tips on putting this advice to good use, see our handout on getting feedback .

After you’ve received feedback, revise the essay. Put it away. Get it out and revise it again (you can see why we said to start right away—this process may take time). Get someone to read it again. Revise it again.

When you think it is totally finished, you are ready to proofread and format the essay. Check every sentence and punctuation mark. You cannot afford a careless error in this essay. (If you are not comfortable with your proofreading skills, check out our handout on editing and proofreading ).

If you find that your essay is too long, do not reformat it extensively to make it fit. Making readers deal with a nine-point font and quarter-inch margins will only irritate them. Figure out what material you can cut and cut it. For strategies for meeting word limits, see our handout on writing concisely .

Finally, proofread it again. We’re not kidding.

Other resources

Don’t be afraid to talk to professors or professionals in the field. Many of them would be flattered that you asked their advice, and they will have useful suggestions that others might not have. Also keep in mind that many colleges and professional programs offer websites addressing the personal statement. You can find them either through the website of the school to which you are applying or by searching under “personal statement” or “application essays” using a search engine.

If your schedule and ours permit, we invite you to come to the Writing Center. Be aware that during busy times in the semester, we limit students to a total of two visits to discuss application essays and personal statements (two visits per student, not per essay); we do this so that students working on papers for courses will have a better chance of being seen. Make an appointment or submit your essay to our online writing center (note that we cannot guarantee that an online tutor will help you in time).

For information on other aspects of the application process, you can consult the resources at University Career Services .

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Asher, Donald. 2012. Graduate Admissions Essays: Write Your Way Into the Graduate School of Your Choice , 4th ed. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press.

Curry, Boykin, Emily Angel Baer, and Brian Kasbar. 2003. Essays That Worked for College Applications: 50 Essays That Helped Students Get Into the Nation’s Top Colleges . New York: Ballantine Books.

Stelzer, Richard. 2002. How to Write a Winning Personal Statement for Graduate and Professional School , 3rd ed. Lawrenceville, NJ: Thomson Peterson.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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IELTS Essay: Choosing a Job

by Dave | General Training | 0 Comment

This is an IELTS writing task 2 sample answer from the general training exam on the topic of choosing a job.

Jobs come up all the time in the general training exam!

Please consider supporting my efforts to creative high quality IELTS materials for students around the world by signing up for my Patreon (and so you won’t miss out on any of my exclusive IELTS Ebooks)!

Some people say young people should be completely free to choose their future job but others think young people must be more realistic in their choice.

Discuss both views and give your own opinion.

Many are of the view that young people should prioritise pragmatic career choices over their passions. In my opinion, youth is an opportunity to follow pursuits with a low probability of success.

Many parents in particular are heavily invested in the idea of security. This is often the case if they had a difficult upbringing or were born into times of national upheaval. For example, many parents in Vietnam who grew up immediately after the American War, are still scarred by their experiences of deprivation. As a result, it is a common refrain in Vietnam these days for young people to complain about how much control their parents have over their choice of a major or career. Most students consequently work in safe, tedious fields like finance, banking, advertising, and law. They have job security and a basic floor on their earning potential in the event of an economic downturn.

However, failing at a particular career path early in life does not foreclose future success. Most can major in a subject they love, work for several years in that field and the likely results will either be some degree of success or modest failure. If they fail, it is possible to move on in one’s twenties to study or work towards a safer, more lucrative position. This attempt is also justified by the rare instances of tremendous achievement including famous actors, directors, singers, and other artists. Therefore, choosing a career freely can be vindicated by the combination of potential fame, less transcendent but still respectable jobs, and the ability to transition to a new career before middle age.

In conclusion, the allure of security does not outweigh the myriad advantages of freely choosing a career one. Parents and students should both heed this advice or risk regretting the missed opportunity.

1. Many are of the view that young people should prioritise pragmatic career choices over their passions. 2. In my opinion, youth is an opportunity to follow pursuits with a low probability of success.

• Paraphrase the essay topic.
• Write a clear opinion. Read more about introductions here .

1. Many parents in particular are heavily invested in the idea of security. 2. This is often the case if they had a difficult upbringing or were born into times of national upheaval. 3. For example, many parents in Vietnam who grew up immediately after the American War, are still scarred by their experiences of deprivation. 4. As a result, it is a common refrain in Vietnam these days for young people to complain about how much control their parents have over their choice of a major or career. 5. Most students consequently work in safe, tedious fields like finance, banking, advertising, and law. 6. They have job security and a basic floor on their earning potential in the event of an economic downturn.

• Write a clear topic sentence with a main idea at the end.
• Explain your main idea.
• Begin a specific example.
• Develop it.
• Continue developing it by stating the results.
• Finish developing the example.

1. However, failing at a particular career path early in life does not foreclose future success. 2. Most can major in a subject they love, work for several years in that field and the likely results will either be some degree of success or modest failure. 3. If they fail, it is possible to move on in one’s twenties to study or work towards a safer, more lucrative position. 4. This attempt is also justified by the rare instances of tremendous achievement including famous actors, directors, singers, and other artists. 5. Therefore, choosing a career freely can be vindicated by the combination of potential fame, less transcendent but still respectable jobs, and the ability to transition to a new career before middle age.

• Write a new topic sentence with a new main idea at the end.
• Explain your new main idea.
• Develop a hypothetical example.
• Keep adding specific detail.
• Conclude with a strong statement.

1. In conclusion, the allure of security does not outweigh the myriad advantages of freely choosing a career one. 2. Parents and students should both heed this advice or risk regretting the missed opportunity.

• Summarise your ideas and repeat your opinion.
• Add a final thought. Read more about conclusions here .

What do the words in bold below mean?

Many are of the view that young people should prioritise pragmatic career choices over their passions . In my opinion, youth is an opportunity to follow pursuits with a low probability of success.

Many parents in particular are heavily invested in the idea of security . This is often the case if they had a difficult upbringing or were born into times of national upheaval . For example, many parents in Vietnam who grew up immediately after the American War, are still scarred by their experiences of deprivation . As a result , it is a common refrain in Vietnam these days for young people to complain about how much control their parents have over their choice of a major or career. Most students consequently work in safe, tedious fields like finance , banking , advertising , and law . They have job security and a basic floor on their earning potential in the event of an economic downturn .

However, failing at a particular career path early in life does not foreclose future success . Most can major in a subject they love, work for several years in that field and the likely results will either be some degree of success or modest failure . If they fail, it is possible to move on in one’s twenties to study or work towards a safer , more lucrative position . This attempt is also justified by the rare instances of tremendous achievement including famous actors, directors, singers, and other artists. Therefore, choosing a career freely can be vindicated by the combination of potential fame , less transcendent but still respectable jobs , and the ability to transition to a new career before middle age .

In conclusion, the allure of security does not outweigh the myriad advantages of freely choosing a career one. Parents and students should both heed this advice or risk regretting the missed opportunity .

many are of the view some think

prioritise pragmatic career choices value a safe job

passions what they love

opportunity chance

follow pursuits try to do

low probability not much of a chance of

in particular especially

heavily invested put a lot into

idea of security concept of safety

often the case usually

difficult upbringing bad childhood

born into were kids when

times of national upheaval bad part of a country’s history

immediately after following

scarred traumatised

experiences of deprivation times of trauma

as a result consequently

common refrain usually said

complain not happy about

control have power over

consequently as a result

safe security

tedious fields boring jobs

finance related to money

banking related to banks

advertising ads for products

law legal field

job security safe employment

basic floor minimum

earning potential how much they can make

in the event of an economic downturn if the economy crashes

failing at a particular career path early in life not succeeding early on with a job

foreclose future success prevent success later

major in study

likely results probably will happen

some degree of success to an extent going well

modest failure small failure

move on do something new

twenties 20s

work towards try to

safer more secure

lucrative position rich job

attempt try

rare instances sometimes

tremendous achievement great success

vindicated justified

combination altogether

potential fame possibly being a celebrity

less transcendent not as great

still respectable jobs good employment

transition change to/move on

middle age 40 – 55 years old

allure attraction

outweigh stronger than

myriad advantages many benefits

heed listen to

advice suggestion

risk regretting afraid they will have wished they did it

missed opportunity chance you didn’t take

Pronunciation

ˈmɛni ɑːr ɒv ðə vjuː   praɪˈɒrɪˌtaɪz prægˈmætɪk kəˈrɪə ˈʧɔɪsɪz   ˈəʊvə   ˈpæʃənz ˌɒpəˈtjuːnɪti   ˈfɒləʊ pəˈsjuːts   ləʊ ˌprɒbəˈbɪlɪti   ɪn pəˈtɪkjʊlə   ˈhɛvɪli ɪnˈvɛstɪd   aɪˈdɪə ɒv sɪˈkjʊərɪti ˈɒf(ə)n ðə keɪs   ˈdɪfɪkəlt ˈʌpˌbrɪŋɪŋ   bɔːn ˈɪntuː   taɪmz ɒv ˈnæʃənl ʌpˈhiːvəl ɪˈmiːdiətli ˈɑːftə skɑːd   ɪksˈpɪərɪənsɪz ɒv ˌdɛprɪˈveɪʃən æz ə rɪˈzʌlt ˈkɒmən rɪˈfreɪn   kəmˈpleɪn   kənˈtrəʊl   ˈkɒnsɪkwəntli   seɪf ˈtiːdiəs fiːldz   faɪˈnæns ˈbæŋkɪŋ ˈædvətaɪzɪŋ   lɔː ʤɒb sɪˈkjʊərɪti   ˈbeɪsɪk flɔː   ˈɜːnɪŋ pəʊˈtɛnʃəl   ɪn ði ɪˈvɛnt ɒv ən ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪk ˈdaʊntɜːn ˈfeɪlɪŋ æt ə pəˈtɪkjʊlə kəˈrɪə pɑːθ ˈɜːli ɪn laɪf   fɔːˈkləʊz ˈfjuːʧə səkˈsɛs ˈmeɪʤər ɪn   ˈlaɪkli rɪˈzʌlts   sʌm dɪˈgriː ɒv səkˈsɛs   ˈmɒdɪst ˈfeɪljə muːv ɒn   ˈtwɛntɪz   wɜːk təˈwɔːdz   ˈseɪfə   ˈluːkrətɪv pəˈzɪʃən   əˈtɛmpt   reər ˈɪnstənsɪz   trɪˈmɛndəs əˈʧiːvmənt   ˈvɪndɪkeɪtɪd   ˌkɒmbɪˈneɪʃən   pəʊˈtɛnʃəl feɪm lɛs trænˈsɛndənt   stɪl rɪsˈpɛktəbl ʤɒbz trænˈsɪʒən   ˈmɪdl eɪʤ əˈljʊə   aʊtˈweɪ   ˈmɪrɪəd ədˈvɑːntɪʤɪz   hiːd   ədˈvaɪs   rɪsk rɪˈgrɛtɪŋ   mɪst ˌɒpəˈtjuːnɪti

Vocabulary Practice

Remember and fill in the blanks:

M______________________w that young people should p_________________________________s o_____r their p___________s . In my opinion, youth is an o_______________y to f_________________s with a l_____________________y of success.

Many parents i_________________r are h________________d in the i_________________________y . This is o________________e if they had a d_____________________g or were b_______________________________________l . For example, many parents in Vietnam who grew up i__________________r the American War, are still s___________d by their e_________________________n . As a________t , it is a c_______________n in Vietnam these days for young people to c____________n about how much c__________l their parents have over their choice of a major or career. Most students c_______________y work in s_____e, t_________________s like f___________e , b__________g , a____________g , and l__w . They have j_____________y and a b___________r on their e______________________l i___________________________________n .

However, f_____________________________________________________e does not f___________________________s . Most can m__________n a subject they love, work for several years in that field and the l_______________s will either be s________________________s or m__________________e . If they fail, it is possible to m__________n in one’s t____________s to study or w________________s a s_______r , more l____________________n . This a____________t is also justified by the r__________________s of t_________________________t including famous actors, directors, singers, and other artists. Therefore, choosing a career freely can be v______________d by the c______________n of p_______________e , l__________________________t but s________________________s , and the ability to t________________n to a new career before m_______________e .

In conclusion, the a_________e of security does not o___________h the m___________________________s of freely choosing a career one. Parents and students should both h______d this a________e or r____________________g the m____________________________y .

Listening Practice

Learn more about this topic in the video below and practice with these activities :

Reading Practice

Read more about this topic and use these ideas to practice :

https://jobs.washingtonpost.com/article/4-signs-it-s-time-to-choose-a-new-career-path/

Speaking Practice

Practice with the following speaking questions from the real IELTS speaking exam :

Work  1 (Model answer available on my  Patreon )

• Do you work or are you a student?
• Do you like your current job?
• In the future, do you want to change jobs?

Writing Practice

Practice with the related topic below and then check with my sample answer:

When a person spends most of his or her time working a job with little job satisfaction, their life loses meaning.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

IELTS Essay: Job Satisfaction

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Getting A Job As A Teenager

Want an edge over one’s peers throughout the rest of one’s life? Get a job during one’s teenage years. Working at this critical, busy time can lead to many benefits throughout one’s teenage years and throughout the rest of one’s life. Working as a teenager can teach a person to have the skills needed to be successful as an adult searching for a career and be an overall better person. Having a job during this time, can additionally, help show one what path he/she wants to go in life. Juggling all of the responsibilities as a teenager can be overwhelming. There are many disadvantages to having a job as a teenager like not having time for anything. Moreover, in spite of the hardships of working as a teenager, the benefits of learning workplace skills for one’s future far exceed the troubles. Everyone is going to have annoying hardships thrown at them no matter what they do or where they are in life. Learning the skills to be able to handle these “crap situations” is a great skill to have, not only for working as an adult, but also as being a human-being that is, consequently, going to go through trials in his/her life. Nevertheless, while working as a teenager, no matter where one works, that person is going to go through hard times while working. I have, personally, experienced this while working at a prom dress retail shop. Mothers of a daughter looking for a dress would ask for my manager, all the time, implying I am instructed and do not know what I am doing; I have two

Essay on It's Time to Lower the Working Age to 13

I can’t count how many teens I know who don’t feel comfortable around other people. A lot of them get nervous when someone starts talking to them because, maybe, they’re not around people who they are familiar with. By getting a job when they are younger, they can have a chance to be around people more like them, and they’d develop people skills because of their added confidence. This added confidence could help them succeed in many of life’s challenges that require them to speak their minds about their opinions and feelings. Therefore, jobs at an early age can help build confidence and make more friends. And who wouldn’t want more friends?

Persuasive Essay : Should Teenagers Get Jobs

Everyone has thought about getting a job, even if they do not have one, and the argument of whether or not teenagers should get jobs or not, is a very controversial issue. The biggest issue people see with teenagers getting jobs is that it will affect grades and participation at school, which can be true, but the key to anything is to make sure that it is done in moderation. Obviously it is true that if there is a teenager trying to work five days a week, and balance school, they will most likely struggle in school. This is especially true if they work long hours. On the other hand, if they only work for three days a week, and only a few hours each day, they can get the benefits of having a job as a teenager, and still be able to focus in school. Experts even say that having a summer job can help prevent the “educational backsliding that happens between school years for high school students” (Belsner 1), which is something that many students struggle with, because unless students study over the summer, they usually forget some of the things they learned the year

Teens At Work By Anne Michuad

After reading the articles, "Teens at Work" and "Teens Need Jobs, Not Just Cash" it is overwhelmingly obvious that teens should get jobs. According to "Teens at Work" by Anne Michuad, the national unemployment rate is high for adults, but even higher for teenagers. Adolescents do not have to get jobs, however, these young ones should be able to. Having a job has many benefits. Youngsters should be allowed to obtain employment so they will be able to gain independence, responsibility, and so they can benefit their families.

Analysis Of Working At Mcdonald's By Amitai

Having a job as a teen is a great involvement for them to find their own potentials. Even as just working at fast-food places. It might not seem like the most educated job but it does teach teenagers real life situations that they might never learn in school. Such as communicating well with others. It can be learned in school, but teenagers are only communicating with the same type of people every day.

Teenagers 'Work Can Have Downsides'

In the article Teenagers’ Work Can Have Downsides”by Jerald G Bachman describe how teens who are in high school that have jobs developed poor academic performances “ they're more likely to be involved in a variety of problems ” Jerald began the “Monitoring the Future “ project that monitored teens in high school and from college who had jobs and discovered a drop in the high school teens academics and made connections between long hours and problems behaviors are symptoms of issue like poor adjustments to school and greater interest in short term gratification .They encouraged for student to follow what they call a sweet spot a job that requires relatively few hours per week during the school year fewer hours the better.Student that have

Mc Jobs: Fast Food Nation

As an example, ¨Instead of relying on a small, stable, well-paid, well-trained workforce, the fast-food industry seeks out part-time, unskilled workers who are willing to accept low pay. Teenagers have long been the perfect candidates for these jobs. They usually don't have a family to support. And their youthful inexperience makes them easier to control than adults¨ (p. 27, lines 189-193). This proves, these teenagers have so much potential to be working in better jobs that they can get the biggest bang for their buck.

Certified Nursing Assistant

Most jobs require working with others and at times dealing with difficult customers. Getting a job teaches teens to develop good people skills. It is important for me to remain patient when caring for the elderly. I have to encourage them to be independent as possible even when it takes extra time. For example, when transporting residents I have to allow them to transport themselves although I could get them where they need to go much quicker. I also deal with people who are not always the friendliest. I have been cussed at and even hit trying to care for elders at the nursing home but I have learned to stay patient during those situations. It is not always easy but when I feel myself getting upset or frustrated I remind myself that these people are dependent on me to take care of them. Getting a job teaches teens to work well with others which is a necessary life

Analysis: Is It Fair To Pay Teens Less Than Adults

Teens work to help them gain work experience for jobs that they will take in the future. “Clark is a 16 year old who talks about how working experience can help teens like him to succeed in their career” (“Africa News Service” 1). Working experience can build a sense of confidence for teens . “Many teens talk about how having a chance to work makes them confident as a human being” (Scherer 1). Teens want work experience so they can improve in their weak points. “Bailey talks about how she was very shy, but until she started working she had become more open towards people” (2). Teens getting working experience and equally treated will help them be confident and grow up to be a good example of an

Working At Mcdonald's Analysis

Amitai Etzioni argues in his article, “Working at McDonald’s”, fast-food restaurants just as McDonald’s, are not beneficial for teenagers in the long room. They don’t learn the correct skills that they have to in order to achieve in life. Such as skills like “self-reliant, work-ethics-drive, be productive teenagers" or have opportunities for entrepreneurship. The jobs that they are being hired at only consist of a twenty minutes or less training to get the job done. Besides the fact that they are not learning any useful skill, the jobs are taking over their school work. Which causes some teenagers to drop out of school instead. They prefer making money than sitting in a classroom learning about a subject they are not interested in.

Homelessness Is A Major Problem In The United States

Youth unemployment is a major problem in the United States and has decreased in the past five years. Many teenagers are unable to find jobs, so they cannot gain experience in the workforce.

Minimum Wage Should Increase Unemployment

We live in a society where roles are reversed, and where people wants fast and efficiency. At the age of fifteen or younger, many young adults have children. Also, many young adults are the acting parent for their siblings. These teens are without experience searching for a job to improve their situation. With the opportunity of a job, they have the funding to take care of their child/children, or their

Teenagers On After-school Jobs Essays

     When many people apply for an important job, the employer will most likely choose the person who has the most working experience. People who have had a job since their teenage years will know how to deal with the stress and the work better than new people. They will be able to cope with job-related problems. This reason is very significant for teenagers who choose not to go to college, and their only reason for getting employed is experience. Yet, the most important reason is that jobs keep teenagers away from violence.

Curfews Should Be Against The Law

Teenagers need money to pay for gas, a car, insurance and stuff like that, so they have to work and some jobs require them to work late. Teenagers also play a very important role to businesses because they are willing to work for minimal wage, young workers, , and energetic. Taking young workers away

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  Nowadays, students love to have part-time jobs. Their parents approve it easily as they are said to gain experience from working. However, having a job is a big responsibility for a student. Before, teenagers at their age were working to help their family because of poverty. Nevertheless, they were actually eager to study and learn at school for their future. It was not the same as the teenagers nowadays where they are more likely competing to each other to have a job. Most of the

Why Teenagers Should Have Part Time Jobs

Having a job can be very beneficial to students, there can also be some risks, but the benefits outweigh the risks.That is why teenagers in highschool should have part-time jobs. Here are some benefits and some risks with having a job as a teenager in highschool. With jobs there are usually some risks but there are also benefits, for example; you could get hurt while working. However, there are many benefits like having some money in your pocket, or having more responsibilities.

Related Topics

• Adolescence

The 10 Best Websites to Find Academic Writing Jobs

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If you're a student looking for some extra dough, academic writing is one of the best ways to encash your skills. At the same time, it enhances your knowledge and helps you grow as a learner. In fact, it's not just for students; you can do it full-time if you are a professional writer.

Having the freedom to work from home, at your own pace, and having opportunities to grow are just a few perks of this job. So, if you are ready to delve deeper, let's look at ten great websites for finding academic writing jobs.

1. WritingCreek

WritingCreek is one of the best academic writing sites to work with if you are a beginner. It has a simple and free-of-cost hiring process, which usually takes 24 to 48 hours to complete. Once the team approves your account, you can start bidding and earning straight away. It offers a rate of $4.00 per page to beginners and up to $12.00 to experts.

The site lets you choose the subjects you are proficient in and has a regular stream of academic tasks with short and long deadlines. WritingCreek gives you the liberty to choose your tasks and work at your own pace, and its support team is always available for a live chat whenever you need them.

It also helps you enhance your skills as its in-house editors give feedback on the papers accepted by the client, offering useful tips for improvement. WritingCreek usually pays twice a month through different payment methods like Payoneer and PayPal without deducting any extra charges. You can also check out these technical writing jobs if you have the expertise.

2. EssayShark

You can get started on EssayShark within a week after taking and passing its test. If you are a college student and have solid writing skills, this platform can help you earn a decent amount to aid you in your studies. The site lets you bid on papers that fall under your subject area.

You can choose your preferred subjects in advance to get relevant tasks and can chat with the customers directly to discuss the details of the paper. EssayShark pays you twice a month, and along with the pay, it also offers bonuses and rewards if the customers give you good ratings because of your timely submissions and high-quality work.

3. Writers.ph

Being among the top academic writing websites, this platform targets professional-level writers and researchers to work for them. It usually takes 24 to 48 hours to review your application, and once approved, you can start working immediately. The site gets projects from all around the world and has a constant flow of work. It also offers 24/7 support to help you with any issues that you might face.

In addition, Writers.ph offers job promotions based on your performance, leading to status improvement and increased pay rates. It also has proofreading, editing, and presentation-related tasks, along with academic paper writing. Also, check out these great smartphone apps for freelance writers .

4. LancerHop

LancerHop provides you with multiple fields to work in. It hires academic writers, web developers, editing experts, web content writers, copywriters, editing experts, and bloggers. The hiring process is similar to that of other academic writing websites, where you need to create a profile, and after passing the test, you can start working.

It creates a dashboard where the system assigns you tasks. All of your information regarding payment, task completion, and editing is available on the dashboard. The platform allows you to set flexible timings for your work by choosing from different time zones and also flexible working days like weekdays only.

5. Academia Research

Academia Research offers you decent pay rates and career growth opportunities in the academic writing field. The registration process requires a test to get selected. Once the team approves your account, you start at a General level, where the pay is $3.00 per page for high school and college level papers.

You can move on to Advanced, Premium, and First Class levels to get paid $2.00 per page for master's and Ph.D. level papers. The site has a variety of tasks with flexible deadlines related to different subjects and education levels. It pays you twice a month through the payment method of your choice.

6. Essay Service

This platform provides you with an easy-to-use website with a mobile-friendly interface to let you access your account from anywhere. Moreover, it has an efficient system for competitive bidding that also offers a price negotiation facility.

Essay Service helps you build a career and a network, and you can share your professional portfolio with your clients and other contacts, helping you expand your customer base in the process. You also get a 24/7 online support system to guide you at each step.

You can withdraw money every 48 hours through Skrill or wire transfer. In addition, it lets you stay connected through SMS, email, and push notifications without needing to go online.

7. Writers Labs

Writers Labs provides you with a variety of opportunities, including academic writing, article writing, and essay writing. Its pay rates are pretty decent, varying from $5.00 to $26.00 for one page, and it also offers a 2% to 4% bonus on high efficiency.

You get a list of tasks on the site and can choose from those tasks based on your preference and availability. In addition, its support team is there to guide you through the process to help you get started. Check out these ways to source clients as a freelance writer .

8. Write My Essay Online

Write My Essay Online is a platform suitable for both academic writing beginners and experts. The website has a regular influx of tasks and helps you get assignments in the areas of your interest.

Registration on this website is free, much like on most sites on this list, and it has flexible work timing, allowing you to choose your projects as per your desire. Through bidding, you can decide your own rates and get paid twice a month.

9. Academic Minds

Academic Minds provides numerous services to help you unleash your academic writing potential. You have the option of taking up multiple roles, like tutoring, marking work, writing essays and dissertations, and editing. The website is UK based and helps international students in excelling in their academic tasks.

You can start bidding once your account is completely set up, and there is a potential to earn as much as $4000.00 per month through dissertations and tutoring. You can also showcase your online writing portfolio on these free platforms .

10. WriterBay

WriterBay provides you with projects and assignments in numerous fields. It has a free lifetime membership that offers a platform where you can get long-term work.

After registering with WriterBay, you can manage the workload at your own pace. In addition, it offers competitive pay and opportunities for personal growth. Most of its services are similar to those offered by other sites on this list.

Find Your Next Academic Job Through These Sites

Academic writing jobs provide a valuable opportunity for learning and growth. It is a huge field of work that allows you to earn and grow in your career.

Most of the websites shared above help you earn well and offer flexible timings for easier management. You can choose one or more of these sites to move forward while enjoying the rewards from the comfort of your home.

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IELTS Writing Task 2/ Essay Topics with sample answer.

Ielts essay 244 - university education to help graduates get better jobs, ielts writing task 2/ ielts essay:, some people believe the aim of university education is to help graduates get better jobs. others believe there are much wider benefits of university education for both individuals and society..

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