Current Events > How do people with college degrees still end up working for Amazon?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I know a guy who has a degree in finance and he graduated with a really good GPA

The result? He still never worked a day in the finance world and still ended up working in an Amazon warehouse for a living

what the hell? cant a finance degree get him anything better than that?

I expected someone with a finance degree to work in a big time job with the banking industry. Even at least accounting with a small firm. Or even marketing/advertising. He couldnt even at least make it to HR in the finance world?

He really couldnt do better than Amazon?

With the crazy competition these days, I don't find it surprising

College is a scam

He Definitely could do better. Guessing he was in a financial situation where he just needed a job.

Also working at Amazon isn't all bad.
Factory and delivery are shit jobs but I know people happy in the software engineering and cloud engineering side. Met a cute girl that worked in HR on a first class flight once and she was happy there.

You can do much better with a finance degree.

Basically can't wait around unemployed, then get latched to a soul sucking job that makes constant job hunting harder.

Funnily enough I know people that work in accounting at Amazon that have art degrees.

Raikuro posted...

Basically can't wait around unemployed, then get latched to a soul sucking job that makes constant job hunting harder.

Relatable

The job at Amazon likely pays better

I majored in accounting but work more in finance and desperately trying to find a different job with a different company. 80% of my options are temp positions that might hire permanent if you massively overwork for the almost minimum wage pay. If someone needs something more stable they have to get really lucky or "know someone".

Its not what you know; its who you know. That person probably doesnt have a network.

^good god its like that? cant even get by on skill and merit anymore?

Too tired after a day at Amazon to look for work

Likely he didn't start job hunting until post graduation, and vastly underestimated the entry barrier and competition until it was to late.

Another barrier people don't realize is the post grad cost. Pretty much working temp, or even as a unpayed intern for a time before you can breach into a permanent position. All while paying for Housing, and living expanses. And this is assuming you manage to find either in a timely manner.

Which most not a trust fund baby or of wealthy family can usually pass.

I hear that some positions in Amazon actually pay decently.

Amazon would have to pay me a fortune for me to work there though.

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

I hear that some positions in Amazon actually pay decently.

Amazon would have to pay me a fortune for me to work there though.

only in the corporate side

he works in the warehouse as a package sorter and he makes almost nothing

AzNDarkSamurai posted...

only in the corporate side

he works in the warehouse as a package sorter and he makes almost nothing

Oh well that's probably more due to a lack of viable job opportunities

AzNDarkSamurai posted...

^good god its like that? cant even get by on skill and merit anymore?

I mean, you can, but it's not easy and having a degree really doesn't demonstrate skill and merit when half the population has one.

The college scam keeps adding up.

now you need to work for free before you graduate for several years just to be considered for a job you will be competing against the entire world

More and More places are becoming employment deserts where Its either fast food (for minimum wage or maybe a bit more), Walmart or Amazon (if your lucky to have a fulfillment center nearby). People gotta eat and get shelter.

Alot of white collar jobs have also delegated hiring to computers where your resume doesnt even get put in front of human eyes for things out of both HR and your control. Which also piggybacks thats there are 20-100 other people potentially going after the same IT, accounting, or management job.

We are in an odd loop as a society right now.

Societal failure

If I hadn't done a good interview at the fortune 500 I'm interning at -- which only happened because they rebooted their intern program post-covid at the last minute and I applied -- then I would be working at a gas station this summer. There's a ton of circumstance and happenstance that goes into employment.

ToadallyAwesome posted...

More and More places are becoming employment deserts where Its either fast food (for minimum wage or maybe a bit more), Walmart or Amazon (if your lucky to have a fulfillment center nearby). People gotta eat and get shelter.

Alot of white collar jobs have also delegated hiring to computers where your resume doesnt even get put in front of human eyes for things out of both HR and your control. Which also piggybacks thats there are 20-100 other people potentially going after the same IT, accounting, or management job.

We are in an odd loop as a society right now.

this.
do not believe the scam that you dont need a degree now. Every white collar job goes through the same HR assholes and automated scanning systems that look for a very specific kind of degree, internship, GPA and keywords in order to pass the filter

College degree itself is lost all lot of use. What people need to do in college is to get those internships and build a connection with companies. Or make friends with people with such connections.

If you're not going to school for medicine you're wasting your time.

LightHawKnight posted...

College degree itself is lost all lot of use. What people need to do in college is to get those internships and build a connection with companies. Or make friends with people with such connections.

I heard that you cant even get those internships if you dont have friends in the right places

AzNDarkSamurai posted...

I know a guy who has a degree in finance and he graduated with a really good GPA

Did he go to one of Canada's top business schools?

^nope

so damn, basically any decent job has to be gift wrapped to you via connections?

its a shame because companies miss out on a lot of potential good talent because of that

With a BSME and EIT I still had to work in retail for 1.5 years.

Imo my mistake in hindsight was prioritizing academics over networking on the campus. A bunch of the guys who hardly did anything on a project landed their jobs sooner.

^damn

no wonder why a lot of people in big time jobs dont seem smart

Idk. It's basically happened to me.

I graduated with a STEM degree. I couldn't even get shitty lab jobs paying like three dollars more than minimum wage to give me an interview. I put in hundreds, no, thousands of applications for a variety of jobs (tech, administration, lab work, etc.). I had like... four, maybe five interviews in six and a half years.

I have a crappy job now. It's production-based pay. If I don't produce, I don't get paid. The rate is double minimum wage, but I'm struggling even though I'm really good at it. I wanted to move to a cheaper area, but my manager pretty explicitly told me they'd fire me if I moved out of city limits even though the work is 100% remote.

I'm really depressed. I don't have a car, so my odds of getting a better job are non-existent. I barely make enough money to keep a roof over my head. Any time I talk to my mom about it, she tells me to just apply at Amazon. She genuinely doesn't understand that "working at Amazon" is doing back-breaking labor for the same amount of money I'm making now. She also just scoffs when I talk about my job hunting trouble and says I'm "just not doing it right."

I did everything I was supposed to. I worked my ass off to get a "real" degree. I had the highest GPA in my major. I minored in CIS (basically the intersection of programming and business). I moved to the nearest big city where all the big boy jobs were. I constantly applied for jobs. Tailored my resume. Tailored my cover letters. I had professionals completely rework my resume multiple times. And it didn't get me shit.

So, I don't know how it happens even though it happened to me.

Messed up, and you know that Amazon is under paying their workers too

how old are you tc how is this news

because that's what they apply for

AzNDarkSamurai posted...

I heard that you cant even get those internships if you dont have friends in the right places

Nepotism & Connections are a IRL problem.

Whom you know is more important than what degree you have or if you have the talent.

Sadly that's reality.

Instead of people being given the time to show that they're capable, they have all these BS barriers to entry.

_Rinku_ posted...

I'm really depressed. I don't have a car, so my odds of getting a better job are non-existent. I barely make enough money to keep a roof over my head. Any time I talk to my mom about it, she tells me to just apply at Amazon. She genuinely doesn't understand that "working at Amazon" is doing back-breaking labor for the same amount of money I'm making now. She also just scoffs when I talk about my job hunting trouble and says I'm "just not doing it right."

I did everything I was supposed to. I worked my ass off to get a "real" degree. I had the highest GPA in my major. I minored in CIS (basically the intersection of programming and business). I moved to the nearest big city where all the big boy jobs were. I constantly applied for jobs. Tailored my resume. Tailored my cover letters. I had professionals completely rework my resume multiple times. And it didn't get me shit.

So, I don't know how it happens even though it happened to me.

A lot of people experience the same. College really can get fucking hard. Whether it be academics, or cobbling up the funding and time, and yeah it's a real slap in the face to work your ass off and land in the same spot as others who didn't. You kinda get directionless.

Unfortunately I don't have a surefire way out, and I do see it from the opposite side of the spectrum from the hiring perspective. Our last hires were good. Hired without a cover letter or tailored resume, but if I was fully in charge of hiring, I do look for it because I know what effort could've been behind it. I've written countless cover letters hoping they were my best shot at making up for my near-empty resume. I understand what goes into that if someone goes out of their way to include it. I sadly get it when people who tried to help me could only do so much.

One problem can be a certain company just has more specific needs. As much as you can pitch your soft skills and willingness to learn, they need someone who can get going much sooner than later. Sometimes you are overqualified as in, a company rightfully can foresee they're just a stepping stone. Again, if I was calling the shots, I told myself would want a moldable person for an entry role instead of someone experienced that can just be walking out the door sooner than later. I did get my way on a recent hire.

I won't lie, that was a lot (a lot) of work to bring them up to speed, seriously hurt my productivity, but they turned out really good. It's not just the proficiency at the job, but character that in turn yields the resulting proficiency. IMO they're better to work with than most in my department. They approach the work more intelligently, even on things they don't know.
This person isn't holding any college or trade degree, or relevant experience prior.

It's like freaking Blade Runner when Ryan Gosling discovers that a replicant could actually produce offspring.

CelestialVoices posted...

how old are you tc how is this news

This is news because I thought that people can still get jobs easily and switch jobs easily in their fields if they are qualified

I'm going back to college lol

AzNDarkSamurai posted...

This is news because I thought that people can still get jobs easily and switch jobs easily in their fields if they are qualified

You make this topic twice a week lol

There's a high demand for blue collar jobs and not so high demand for career level white collar jobs. Well, correction there was but now many companies are realizing they over-hired and are now "correcting" themselves by doing layoffs. This is particularly true for many tech software based companies that I deal with.

It's a shitty situation, but most people get their jobs from networking and knowing the right person at the right time. There are some job positions at my CPA firm that are never posted and only get filled by people telling others from word of mouth. In order to land the job I got after college, I networked and sucked people's toes (figuratively, but sometimes it felt literally) to get to where I'm at. It also involved being overworked and a lot of luck.

In between jobs are a thing TC especially after your done school.

Prestoff posted...

(figuratively, but sometimes it felt literally)

But what if it was literal?

Would you have sucked Toes to get to where you are now?

Kamen_Rider_Blade posted...

But what if it was literal?

Would you have sucked Toes to get to where you are now?

Honestly, I probably would have... as terrible as that sounds. Being able to get a high paying career level entry job straight out of college is a fucking dream.

When I was networking while in college, the CPA firm that everyone wanted to get in were only hiring 4 accountants at the time for the position and I did almost everything I can to make myself stand out. With a big stroke of luck, the Partner at the firm also collected 8 tracks like me and we were able to become friends that way. Even with all my accolades and experience, I had a big feeling it was because of my very niche hobby that helped me stand out from the crowd that ultimately got the job... as shitty as that sounded. Little did I know the job would've overworked me for a good 4-5 years until I was able to work more comfortably as a Senior Manager. I have a better work/life balance now, and it's very helpful because I have a baby girl who is turning 11 months and are expecting another girl in the next couple of months. And yes, I recognize I'm very privilege's to be in the situation I'm at.

Kamen_Rider_Blade posted...

But what if it was literal?

Would you have sucked Toes to get to where you are now?

I would, but only if they were female and attractive lol

My current tech job pays a bit less than average but I'm glad to have it anyways. It took several months after graduating to land something because of my lack of networking coupled with the initial spike of covid cases.

^yeah I can imagine COVID ruined a lot of plans

Blue_Thunder posted...

I would, but only if they were female and attractive lol

If it was a guy's toes, and they were ugly smelly toes at that?

Because college is a scam and most of our generation fell for it. We were basically sold tickets to a sold-out show and then got turned away at the gate without a refund.

Thats one way of looking at it.

Payzmaykr posted...

Because college is a scam and most of our generation fell for it. We were basically sold tickets to a sold-out show and then got turned away at the gate without a refund.

Thats one way of looking at it.

damn that legit hurts