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Lumifer comments on Open thread, Jan. 12 - Jan. 18, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: Gondolinian 12 January 2015 12:39AM

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Comment author: Lumifer 12 January 2015 08:50:54PM 2 points [-]

I don't think I currently have any skills I could be paid money to do?

That seems to be a problem. I think you should fix it.

If you can't come up with a convincing answer as to why an employer should hire you, chances are the employer won't bother to think one up for you.

What sort of marketable skills might one have, as an undergraduate student without previous work experience, that I should be trying to think of?

That's basically the question of which job should you get post-college :-) There is a large variety of possible skills -- from accounting to website creation.

Comment author: RowanE 12 January 2015 09:23:54PM 3 points [-]

This graduate scheme at Aldi, which I would be way out of my depth with and I mostly remember because it's absurdly well-paid for an entry level graduate position, $62,000 in 'murican-money, doesn't ask for anything that I would actually think of as a skill that you could be paid money to do. You need a 2:1 degree, a driver's license, and a certain package of personal virtues and personality traits. There are a lot of things like that for graduates, and it's mostly those things that I'm looking at, with the issue being a lot of choice and difficulty identifying which ones are better than others.

Comment author: Lumifer 12 January 2015 09:39:14PM 2 points [-]

doesn't ask for anything that I would actually think of as a skill that you could be paid money to do

Managing people and logistics is a very desirable and highly-paid skill.

Comment author: RowanE 12 January 2015 10:13:47PM 2 points [-]

That's a skill you learn while you're on the scheme, the applicants don't need to have the skill already, they need to have the personality traits and qualities that would enable them to quickly learn how to be managers. A qualified, experienced manager, someone who could list "managing people and logistics" among the things they can do that people might pay them to do, would not be an appropriate applicant for the scheme and could probably find better management positions that weren't entry-level.