Bill Becker

Does a Job Define You?

When I first wrote about sales careers 20+ years ago, I said that your job often defines how you feel about yourself. Part of that obviously is impacted on your self-confidence overall but certainly, whether you even have a job impacts how you feel about your self-worth.

Now there is a new study that shows people (men in particular 25-54) are giving up working altogether because of the lack of good-paying jobs. Non-college-educated men have seen their pay shrink by more than 30% since 1980 compared to the average earnings of all other prime-age workers. Their weekly earnings have declined 17%, while those of college-educated men rose by 20%, adjusting for inflation. A big part of that is the decline of manufacturing jobs.

Now that might look like a case for getting a college degree but that’s not necessarily true.  A college degree is no longer a guarantee of a great-paying job. Outside the obvious (medical, engineers, etc.) the notion that you HAVE to have a degree to get a great job simply isn’t true anymore. Technology jobs often focus on professional certifications over college. Plus most tech jobs have tech interviews and even those folks who were self-taught can land a really good job. We all know people who are working in jobs that have nothing to do with their degree. Add in the cost of student loan debt and 2 – 4 years out of your life and a college degree is no longer a slam dunk.

But this isn’t a post about college…it’s about how, for a lot of people (men and women), a job…a good job..can and does define how they see themselves. Whether that’s right or not is not the point…it’s just a fact of life. That is why I evangelize sales careers. No roadblocks to entry and the ability to earn more money than any other job and feel good about yourself.

Happy Selling!