Friday, December 1, 2017

"Glamor" fields are vulnerable to predation


I feel like a cold bastard for bringing this up.  I waited to see if anybody else would point it out, but so far nobody else has.

Glamor jobs
Glamor jobs are high visibility job that have the illusion of creative control.  Any job in media, acting, modeling, politics and the like are all "glamor" jobs.  You could probably even call jobs in psychology "glamor" jobs.

Consider psychology for a minute.  United States universities graduate approximately 100,000 students with degrees in some kind of psychology.  In total, there are 90,000 jobs in the United States that require a psychology degree.  If  4% of the employees retire or leave the field every year, then there are 3,600 job openings for those 100,000 graduates.

How about acting and modeling?  In New York City or LA you can advertise that you are auditioning for red-headed, massively bosumed Amazons with one brown eye and one green eye and you will have scores of candidates standing in line at your door the next morning.  As for garden variety gorgeous blondes or brunettes and you will have them by the gross (144).  All of them painfully beautiful.  All of them capable of memorizing their lines and reciting in any regional accent you care to request.

The implacable forces of supply-and-demand create an environment where job candidates are expected to "differentiate" themselves from the herd. 

And, gentle reader, what assets do those actresses and actors (yes, men too) and psych majors have with which to differentiate themselves?  Sexual acts.

If you care to hand-over-hand your way back to a root-cause then you are likely to find yourself in college career counseling offices.  And if you keep digging you will find yourself looking at how student aid is apportioned.  The universities are simply following the money and the government is indiscriminately throwing it out of the helicopter.

There is no attempt to synchronized supply with demand.  There is no reality check that throttles back loans to students who are pursuing low-percentage careers or who have demonstrated that they cannot perform in remedial, college classes.  The money just keeps gushing.

I know that it sounds like I am blaming the victims.  That is not my intention.  My intention is to figure out how we got here and what can be changed.  The only thing the victims are guilty of is listening to shills who told them what they wanted to hear:  "Go with your dream.  There are TONS of jobs out there in...."

Those of us who counsel otherwise are deemed "Dream killers" and accused of calling those we would advise "stupid" or "ugly".  We are told "You hurt my feelings!" when we try to point out the math.

2 comments:

  1. As Hunter S Thompson used to say: "Buy the ticket, take the ride". You don't get to be taken seriously if you claim naivete and victimhood just because the ride wasn't as advertised. You risked, you lost.

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