nan | 楠木

Went back to THU a couple of times this month, to do campus presentations and stuff. And once again I feel that job-hunting desparation mood in the air.

I think I’m very fortunate to have ended up joining a company that I really like, in an industry that I’m fascinated in. Luck once again played it’s part. If I were to have joined some of the competitors in this industry, I’m not sure if I’d still like it so much. Because this is a people industry, and I am very lucky to have joined a firm with the nicest people.

Enough self-bragging. I just feel that so many students are being very short-sighted in their job-hunting. They are easily attracted by the industries or firms that pay big bucks, and for the extremely few talented individuals who do get hired, perhaps they have no idea what they’re in for. For the last couple of days SLB has again been causing sensations on campus, and all of a sudden it seems every student wants to be a FE. I’m not sure if they’ll indeed like such a tough job. And some expressed their extreme frustration at missing out on the interview, and therefore hastily saying goodbye to a company that they “had been interested in for more than 2 years”.

Hmmm. I actually really wanted to say that might not be such a bad thing. Because the fact is, not many students know a lot about the industries out there. Most of them can’t really tell the difference between some of the commonly called “non-technical” positions, which is a totally ill-defined concept to collectively represent a bunch of professions which have absolutely nothing in common.

Not that you can really blame the students. University education, in terms of preparing students for their careers, has been severely lacking. Which is an understatement in and of itself. If a typical hard-working student spent all his time on his school-work, he would know about zero of all the professional careers out there. And he still has to make a choice when he faces graduation.

And because of this, they jump to the easy conclusion that whichever job pays more must be a superior job. So that puts I-banking at the top of the list. And then consulting. And then some rare technical firms like SLB. And then P&G and the rest of the FMCG industry, as well as the IT firms. And then perhaps, domestic companies.

But this one-dimensional categorization of the careers out there is seriously misleading. Even if you’re capable of joining an I-bank or a consulting firm, you still should not take that offer unless you’re absolutely sure that that’s the career you are really crazy for. And you shouldn’t be crazy about it simply for the money. At the end of the day, the financial compensation you get, is only a small part of the reward of developing a career that you really love.