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Welcome to Less Wrong! (8th thread, July 2015)

Well, I pulled the trigger yesterday. While it felt great to actually speak my mind and have a real discussion regarding all of these issues (it was actually pretty amazing- no yelling or anyone getting upset- there was actual discourse), I will now be jobless in a month, and I really don’t know the answer to what’s next.

I’m debating between staying in my current area which would be a finance/accounting/operations type of role or just scrapping that whole path and try to go the programming route (close to zero expertise as of now). I’ve spent a lot of time... (read more)

5Viliam10y

You may want to post your question in an Open Thread. Maybe it would be more strategic to skip the current one which already contains over 200 comments, and wait for the new one to appear on Wednesday 19th; so more people will see it. Better than here in a thread that started three weeks ago. I know almost nothing about the situation in "finance/accounting/operations type of role". I have mostly been a programmer, so now my availability bias screams at me that "everyone is a programmer, and everything outside of IT is super rare", which is obviously a nonsense. If there is a website in your country with job offers, perhaps you could try to imagine that you already have 3 years of experience, and look how many opportunities are there for each option and how well they pay. My experience with programming in Java was that about 50% of jobs available are programs for some kind of financial institutions. (But this may be irrelevant for you; I am describing Eastern Europe.) The companies usually need some analyst to talk with the customer and explain their needs to the programmers. If you have a good financial backgroud, this could be the right job for you. Programming could be risky, because it's not for everyone. You should probably try it first in your free time. (Hint: If you don't like programming in your free time, then the job probably is not the right one for you.) Also, after a few years the programmers usually hit the salary ceiling, and want to switch to managers or analysts. (Again, in Eastern Europe; I don't know how universal this is.) If you could start as an analyst, you would be already ahead of me in the IT career, and I am almost twice your age with about 20 years of programming experience. I have a friend who works in IT and makes more money than I do despite being a worse programmer, because he is a specialist: in his case it is finance and databases; also he is willing to travel to a customer in a different country whenever necessary. So the lesso

3Lumifer10y

I thought you had issues with the financial services industry -- if you are an accountant you can work as an accountant in any industry you want including non-profits.

Welcome to Less Wrong! (8th thread, July 2015)

chalime10y90

Yep, I've actually already applied to all three of those places. Vanguard would be my first choice of the three because I could do more outside of focusing strictly on investments, and actually have an advisor type relationship with people. You're right though in that I do have hesitations about being in this industry at all, because:

I am too anti-fee (e.g. why pay a fee on an IRA account at Wealthfront/Betterment? Yes, it’s better than what most people would do on their own, but it’s still not the optimal… I go back and forth on this one, because I do p

chalime10y30

Thanks for the reply Fhuttersly-

Yes, I’ll be honest, my mind is made up. There is no way I can continue to do this every day- it’s just not sustainable.

It’s a little scary because this is already my second job since graduating, and even if I think I have good reasons for leaving, that stuff is not easy to explain.

Welcome to Less Wrong! (8th thread, July 2015)

chalime10y180

Hello LW!

Been lurking for about three years now- it’s time to at least introduce myself. Plus, I want to share a little about my current situation (work problems), and get some feedback on that. I’ll try and give a balanced take, but remember I’m talking about myself here…

First, for background, I’m 23, graduated about a year and a half ago with degrees in finance, accounting, and economics (I can sit still and take tests), and I also played basketball in college (one thing I can definitively say I’m good at is dribbling a basketball).

Brief Intellectual Jo... (read more)

7Vaniver10y

Welcome! So, presumably you're familiar with companies like Vanguard, Wealthfront, and Betterment, which are much more customer-aligned than the rest of the financial services industry. But part of that is spending much less attention on individual clients--and, consequently, employing considerably fewer people, and different sorts of people. (I would expect that Wealthfront needs more web programmers than economists, for example.) You might consider applying at those places, but my suspicion is you'll end up in another field entirely.

3Viliam10y

Maybe someone on LW could recommend you a better job. Either here (but you would have to tell us at least what country are you from) or at a local meetup.

Fluttershy10y110

Hi chalime,

Welcome to LW!

There are many of us here who share your views on the financial services industry, and index funds with low expense ratios have been strongly recommended in nearly all of the financial advice threads posted on LW. I once went to a career information session hosted by a botique wealth management firm myself, and ended up not even sending them my resume because of similar reasons regarding my personal fit with the field, and value of services provided by advisers.

The 80,000 Hours blog has historically mentioned that the good done by ... (read more)

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