Career Meltdown?

A friend and I had dinner together a while back, and midway through, we chanced upon the old adage: What’s a nice young Jewish boy got to do to make his grandmother proud? He needs to be a doctor, lawyer, or investment banker and marry a nice Jewish girl.

Well, so much for that. Investment bankers and finance-related fields are feeling the pinch. Law schools are so abundant and have such a low barrier to entry that many graduates have trouble finding jobs (or at least jobs that let them repay their tuition). What about medicine? Traditionally, medicine has been relatively stable in employment opportunities, lifestyle, and compensation. However, with burgeoning health care costs, doctors are being asked to do more with less.

Other attractive and high-status areas for brainiacs to work in include academia and venture capitalism. Well, the number of positions in academia that open up each year is far outstripped by the number of post-docs in search of them. Let’s not even talk about compensation working as a post-doc researcher for the rest of one’s life.

Entrepreneurship? Not here in the Bay Area at least. Venture capital firms are pinching pennies, and getting seed funding is harder than ever.

I guess we can still take consolation in that if everything does go to high hell, we can survive by penny-pinching like Paul Navone. Alternatively, if you live in California, consider becoming a prison warden. With the state of things, it’s going to be a job in high demand.