Denver residents, do you have any job leads?

[lurtsman]

Originally Posted by Tekkie

From another read, you indicated that you and your wife are doing fairly well, maxing out your 401ks and IRAs. Did the degree ultimately pay off?

To answer both questions:

My undergrad was human resource management and general management.

I moved to a small town because it had a great program for my wife, and I was unable to find meaningful work for years. Then I started my own business. While most people didn't want to hire the guy from out of state, they didn't discriminate against my business, in part because I seemed to be just an employee and we made a big deal out of being locally owned. Eventually I found a job working for the feds and was able to run the business while working full time. Then we actually had enough money to keep the bills paid.

One of the greatest skills we learned during that period was how to control costs. When my wife finished her program, her degree actually was a ticket to 50k/year with benefits and employment anywhere she wanted in America. She is an RN and got her BSN from one of the top colleges in the country (for nursing). From that point on, we were doing well.

My job with the federal government ended, position eliminated, but I got on unemployment. It is 100% legal to claim UI while running your own business if you previously also worked a position that was covered by unemployment insurance. If I had the option, I would've kept the job rather than take unemployment. I was able to extend those benefits if I agreed to take additional college courses to make myself more marketable to employers. At the time, I thought it was silly, but tuition was far less than the benefits so I enrolled at a community college and figured I'd still be paid a reasonable wage to study.

Once there, I became friends with the faculty and appreciated the education vastly more than I had during my undergrad. That experience encouraged me to get my MBA. We did some research on where we really wanted to live, and I found a decent MBA program there. We packed up our things and moved. I'm currently working on my MBA and the CFA designation. Ironically, one of the reasons the MBA really wanted me was because of my experience opening and running a business during the recession. That's ironic, because it is a result of the failure of my undergraduate degree to lead to job opportunities.

We are doing well financially now, but I wouldn't say my undergrad degree had paid off. When I formed my own business, I utilized more of the skills I learned from video games than from the classroom. My undergrad program claimed to have job placement assistance, but it was a lie. It turned out they only offered that you if you stayed in the city. They stopped responding to my calls, but occasionally tried to call me to ask for donations. Suffice it said, when I changed my number they were not given the new contact info.

I recommend working for the Feds to anyone that doesn't have a nepotism path available. The pay is lower than private sector, but jobs are more likely to be handled in a meritocracy fashion than they are in the private sector. That doesn't mean it always works that way. Often times it won't. However, by comparison, they are doing vastly better at creating systems to locate and retain talent. Because most of my coworkers also got there through merit, I found the working atmosphere to be spectacular.