Amazon Pays College Grads NOT to Work for Them, Mass Hiring and Mass Layoffs? (DF#88)

Ryan: [00:00:00] I literally was a bartender. I was living in North Carolina. I hated my life. And I was like, I don't know what I want to do. I had a degree, I didn't have debt, which I was lucky about. I was fortunate about that because, especially since I worked all the way through college, so I was fine there, but I was like bartending.

I was like, fuck, this sucks man. And I was like, what am I gonna do?

Aloha folks and welcome back to Degree Free where we teach you how to get hired, no degree needed. We are your hosts, Ryan and Hannah Maruyama.. It is great to have you guys back. 

Hannah: Welcome back. Welcome back. We are stoked to have you back on the podcast with us as always. And if you want to learn how to get hired degree free, no degree needed, you are gonna wanna run not walk over to degreefree.co/newsletter to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

That is gonna help you do that. 

Ryan: And we are super excited because today we are doing something completely different, something completely new. 

Hannah: We went a little crazy. 

Ryan: We [00:01:00] are experimenting with a new format of the podcast. Usually what happens a little peak behind the curtain of how we do these episodes is we kind of get listener feedback plus our own ideas, and we come up with a bunch of topics and then we just do research on these topics and fill out an outline.

I mean, there is like a lot of. Preparation that goes behind it. But normally, and it's not only so formal, but it's just one topic, right? Like our episodes are like one topic, one topic, one topic.

Hannah: It's like a book report. It feels like a book report. 

Ryan: And so what we wanted to do was something a little bit different.

We're doing more of a variety show style. There little bit of news in here, little bit of things that both of us have seen. What's nice about this for us is that usually when we come in here to record the episodes, we have both already looked at the outlined and we've already like, okay, that's what we're gonna talk about.

That's what we're gonna talk about. 

Whereas in this episode, it's kind of fun for both of us, because other than the headlines here, I haven't read or discussed [00:02:00] any of the things that we're gonna talk about with you. So you found some things and I found some things, and we haven't discussed that yet. And so we're gonna talk about it in the show and, hopefully you guys like it.

If you guys have any feedback. On this episode, definitely let me know. Connect with me on LinkedIn, send me a note and just be like, Hey, I really liked that episode, or I really hated it. Right? And then tell me what you, and then don't just do that and tell me what you hated and tell me what you liked and that's more helpful.

Hannah: And then, I think. What's fun about these two that we were trying to capture is that Ryan and I live and breathe this stuff, and so most of the time in our house it's he and I finding headlines like this and going, oh, can you believe that? How unbelievable is this? Wait, what are they doing?

What's going on? And we talk about this kind of stuff all day and so that's what we're kind of, what we're trying to capture in this episode too, is like our normal day-to-day conversations where we talk. The stuff that's going on and how it affects the degree free movement and how it affects people who are trying to get jobs without buying degrees.

And that's what we're gonna bring to you right now. 

Ryan: Absolutely. 

We're really trying to make this podcast for you [00:03:00] folks and make it really good. So, like I said, feedback is always welcome and without any further ado.

Hannah: All right, so I wrote this headline. This is the first headline. It is Crazy Town Record hiring and mass layoffs at the same time.

So if you have been on LinkedIn, and I know you Ryan, have been on LinkedIn lately, but if you've been on LinkedIn lately, all you cannot scroll LinkedIn without seeing extremely long, extremely dramatic posts from tech workers who have been laid off of their jobs. I'm not unsympathetic to this, but they are very, very long and very, very, There's a lot of emotions.

Things are running high. People are bearing a lot of things. People are talking a lot about a lot of things. They're trashing a lot of tech companies for laying them off. And something that's interesting is that the amount of layoff posts I've seen, it seems like everybody's losing their jobs. Right? And then it's also, it's, I'm sure it's click bait two because it's all the, tech layoffs, mass tech layoffs, like tech sector decimated a recession, everything like that.

But [00:04:00] if you look on LinkedIn, it looks like. Everybody and their mother have all been laid off. What the numbers say though is that, that is not what happened. So US employers cut a hundred thousand do jobs in January. Okay. That's a lot. It's not a little bit, there's quite a few, but they also added over half a million different jobs.

So Boeing, for instance, is hiring 10,000 people. Chipotle just announced plans to hire 15,000 people and then obviously the trades are really suffering, right? Nobody can find an HVAC tech. Nobody can find electricians. Nobody can find plumbers. W. , it's probably common knowledge now, but there's about to be a massive trade shortage as all of the boomers who are, as all the boomers and gen Xers.

That's the ones below, 

I have no idea.

Anyway, people over 40 who are in the trades. They are retiring and they're retiring, and there's not enough skilled people to take their places, and because of that, we are at great risk for not having enough tradespeople. So tradespeople, a lot of tradespeople are making six figures right now because there's only so many [00:05:00] people with the hands to do what they can do.

Now, not only that, the airlines. All of the airlines, which we know cuz last year. I think it was mid last year, but all of the airlines dropped. Delta was the last holdout. Every single commercial airline in the US has dropped their degree requirements. If you wanna be a pilot and you thought you needed a college degree to do it, you do not just thought that should be said.

But there is not a single airline now that requires a college degree in order to fly a plane, which makes sense because a piece of paper is not gonna help you fly a plane. 

Ryan: You know it's gonna help you fly a plane. 

Hannah: What ?

Ryan: Experience flying planes. 

Hannah: You know, that seems really unrealistic cuz do you really want somebody who's uneducated flying a plane?

Ryan: Yeah, exactly. Well, it makes sense that they're dropping it because becoming a pilot and going to flight school is in and of itself expensive, costly of both time and money and so there are a lot of pilots out there. that do not have college degrees because they opted to [00:06:00] literally go a different route.

Right? 

And so they went and they picked up a skill that for a lot of places it could cost the same amount of money per year as college. So then why are they gonna go to college? Like they already know how to do their skill.

Hannah: Yeah. But if they can't appreciate a Jackson Pollock painting, how are they supposed to put that puppy on the ground?

Really what I need to know. I need all of my pilot. To have a thorough appreciation for 19th century feminist literature. It's very important. , I can't get on that plane unless I know. 

Ryan: So I kind of wanted to cut in here. I'm not sure what your point is or where you're going with that, but I did want to cut in and just say, you know, the thing about the LinkedIn and seeing it everywhere and the reason why it's pervasive, I mean, there's a couple of things.

One, if it bleeds, it leads, right? And so it's news. And so [00:07:00] they're not gonna report on, everybody's doing fantastic because negative news does better than positive news. And then not only that, but LinkedIn is such a, there's not a lot of creators on LinkedIn. There are not a lot of people that are creating content and putting content out in the world because it's a professional forum.

You sit listening to this. When's the last time that you posted on LinkedIn? And I know for a lot of people it is gonna be never. Right? Or every once in a while or the answer is when I'm looking for a job. Right? And then what a lot of people do, what most people do on LinkedIn is. they want to show off for their boss and they just want to like, okay, I am here.

I have a personal connection with all of these people. I'm just gonna comment. And what's happening is when these people are getting laid off, they're making these laid off posts so that there's more visibility, that they're [00:08:00] looking and they're open to work and then other people comment on it and the way that LinkedIn works is more comment, all social media, but especially LinkedIn.

If you comment on it, it's gonna show it to all of your followers and all of your connections. So it will help them get more exposure but literally, due to that social network aspect and that social web, you're starting to see those posts more often. 

Hannah: All right. Well it, because I, I do remember you weren't telling me about the way LinkedIn still works like that, which is funny.

This is kind of off to the side, but is it meta that does not work like that anymore? Or didn't? 

Ryan: Well, I mean, TikTok doesn't work like that, 

Hannah: But meta no longer works on who you know. 

Ryan: Yeah. I think, well, they're trying or they tried, but I'm not sure I know that from TikTok. You just look at their algorithm.

It doesn't matter how many followers you have. By the way, you guys should all follow us on TikTok. 

Hannah: Yeah. or fun on there .

Ryan: At degree free.

Hannah: Spicy.

Ryan: Yeah. But it doesn't matter how many followers you have on there, if you make good content, you, that content gets served to other people. .Whereas like Facebook and Instagram, they've [00:09:00] become more pay walls and walls, gardens you have to pay to play.

Like the organic reach on those things are very, very low.

Hannah: But LinkedIn, if you're commenting, you now get shown to whoever it was. Interacted with your post. 

Ryan: Yeah, exactly. 

Okay. 

Hannah: All right. Good to know. Well, folks, if you're looking to strategically get a job after being laid off, maybe commenting on people's posts is a good way to do that.

So in that vein, I have some theories about why it's been so, why this group of people has been so loud, or why it seems. I think maybe a better way to phrase it would be, I have some opinions, I have some theories about what's going on with the tech layoffs and people have asked about this on TikTok too, but I think, and it definitely seems to me that this group of people were HR recruiters, marketing, basically excess on technical teams, right?

They had overstaffed product people. Over. They had overstaffed operations people. Basically anybody's a cost center and you don't need recruiters in a down market because you're not hiring. You don't need HR in a down [00:10:00] market because you're not onboarding people and so they get cut a lot of, I'm sure a lot of people disagree with me on that, but it's just the way people cut people when the market goes down.

Ryan: The thing is, the argument there is that you, in order to run a company well, like an amazing company, you need amazing people and. Definitely one. A hundred percent true. The point is that, yeah, those things are cost centers. I mean, if you're not hiring people, why do you need recruiters? 

Hannah: Yeah. They're the first ones to go. 

Ryan: I mean, maybe it's not fair. Maybe it is. I don't know. You know what I mean? But like just. Logic that out. It's like, well, your job is to hire people, to find people to put into the pipeline, to hire them, and to create these amazing teams but we're having literally exactly the opposite of that problem.

We have too many of you and we need to cut people.

Hannah: And it happens. It's just things go up. Things go down. As much as that's not maybe a consolation for people, but it, I will say if you are in HR or you are in marketing, or you are a [00:11:00] recruiter, now is a good time to scale up. You know when you get laid off, immediately after you get laid off, , you should be learning a new skill that way the next time this happens to you, because it will happen to all of us at one point or another.

In this type of, in the us, in this job market, it's gonna happen to you. You're gonna get laid off at some point probably, and so you just need to be ready for that to happen. So that you're okay when it does.

Ryan: There's that saying or people, there's advice going around that people say, oh, well take time for yourself, slow down. 

No.

You know, , I think it literally exactly the opposite. I think Get out there. Start applying, get another job. 

Hannah: Well, you know what, too, what happens is, I think a lot of people do that though. Cause I talked to a few people that did get laid off just checking in with folks that said, Hey, you know, do you need any help?

And they said, oh, I'm just taking a little time off. I was like, oh, okay. Well, so if you're listening to this and you just got laid off, something that you might wanna think about is the fact that it seems like a lot of people are gonna take a month to two months to three months off and, that means in three months, everybody's gonna be looking for a job in two months.

Everybody's gonna be looking for a job. There's a narrow [00:12:00] window where maybe most people are gonna be like, I'm gonna rest. I'm gonna breathe. I'm gonna think, and that's fine but you, if you wanna get in. Go look now. 

Ryan: Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

Hannah: Yeah, get ahead of that crowd cuz they're all gonna be there. Okay, so my last theory is I think, and this went a little bit crazy on TikTok, but I think that, and I said this last year, I said that college graduates have a very small closing window to leverage their degrees and if they don't, they are gonna be at risk of competing with degree free people who have upskilled. That is what is happening. They are laying off new grads, I think. 

I think that they are laying off, and we'll talk more about this in this episode, but they're laying off new grads and I think they're laying off millennial graduates as well.

The reason is because they hired a bunch of people during Covid and all of the craziness, they hire them at a premium, and what's happened since then is a different workforce. The degree free workforce has started upskilling and learning the exact same skills, but they're willing to take what is now the accurate market value for that skill set.

And so companies are gonna cut college graduates who [00:13:00] need to make more money because they have to pay their student loans, they're gonna cut those people and they're gonna hire cheaper. 

Ryan: You know, a lot of people, when we bring this up. As far as, I have no idea if you're correct or not. 

Hannah: It's just a theory.

Someone was like, where's your evidence? I'm like, do you know what a theory is? 

Ryan: Yeah. I have no idea whether or not you are correct, but I know that whenever people hear that, okay, degree free, people on average get paid less than college people. They're like, oh, that's exploitation. Right? So that, well, you should get a degree to

Hannah: avoid being exploited.

Ryan: Avoid getting exploited. 

Hannah: You should pay a hundred thousand dollars to work the same job to avoid being exploited. 

Ryan: Right? Exactly. But then, but the pay increase that you get,

Hannah: it's so marginal 

Ryan: it's marginal. It doesn't make financial sense to go into four years of time debt and then hundreds of thousands, if not a hundred hundred thousand plus dollars of actual debt to get a 10% increase on a $40,000 base.

It doesn't make any sense. 

Hannah: Can you imagine thinking it's, you're being exploited if you just go get a [00:14:00] job, but you're not being exploited if you first have to spend a hundred thousand dollars and then go get the literally the exact same job. That's just hilarious to me. It. They just don't think the next step down the road, it's like it's the same job.

I'm saying that they're gonna, you two are gonna be competing for the same job, but you're gonna have a hundred thousand dollars worth of debt and they're not . 

Ryan: And that is the reason why college grads make more quote unquote, I think. I think they ask for more

Hannah: because they have to,

Ryan: because they have to, and then they turn down other opportunities.

Hannah: Oh, whoa. That's interesting. I think you're probably right.

I think you're probably right. 

Ryan: Whereas degree free people. 

Hannah: They can take whatever opportunity comes their way. 

Ryan: Exactly. And then especially for entry level roles. Especially for entry level roles, because you'll just take anything, you're 18, 19, 20, 21.

Hannah: Yeah. And 40 grand at that age is great. 

Ryan: Yeah, exactly. 

And you don't have any debt for most people. At least at that yeah. 

You're starting off with a blank slate. 

Hannah: Yeah. You might have like minor, you might have like a car you might have like a, well, [00:15:00] nowadays used cars are expensive, but you know, you might have like a $7,000 used car loan.

But anyway, moving on.

Ryan: Do you have anything else to say on that topic?

Hannah: I do not. I do not.

I thought that was interesting though. 

Ryan: Definitely. That is very interesting. I kind of wanted to move on to, I have a couple of things. One of 'em is actually not really related to this, but it's actually related to this podcast.

Like I said, it would be really great if you guys could review our podcast. I read all of them, because there's not that very many, there's literally thousands of people that listen to this podcast. I know it cause I can see the numbers and I ask every week to give a review and nobody does it. There's like 22 people that have left a review on Apple podcasts.

Thank you to all those people that have done it but I'm gonna read this gem from a year ago. 

Hannah: Guys, also. Okay. Sorry. Before Ryan gets to this, if you, I've, we've had an idea for a while that maybe we should do like an episode that's like mean tweets. But instead it'll be mean TikTok comments. Let us know if you want us to do that.

Carry on, Ryan. 

Ryan: So this is from like a [00:16:00] year ago at least, or more from Conswell. I have no idea who that is, but it doesn't matter. Four star review. So guys, we have to get five stars to drown this four star out. Good info, but dot, dot, dot, more Hannah, less Ryan, please. No offense, but she's just a better speaker, and gets the point across efficiently and eloquently.

Perfect . 

It was just right on

Hannah: I'm dying. Oh my gosh.

Hey, you know, what was it back then that you were asking for honest reviews? Hey guys, give us dishonest reviews. 

Ryan: Yeah, I don't want, you know what? I don't want. You're absolutely right. I don't want honest reviews. 

Guys, five stars.

Hannah: Guys. Guys, go leave a review tell Ryan that his beard looks fantastic and that he's the best speaker. 

Ryan: What's hilarious about that for me was that. If that person is still listening, which I hope you are, Constable. Yeah, I hope you are. 

Hannah: Thank you for taking time outta your day to review it.

Ryan: [00:17:00] Absolutely. And four stars. Isn't that bad? I just thought it was funny.

Hannah: It is funny. What's funny about that is that we literally went in the opposite direction for those people.

It's the Ryan show.

Ryan: Listening to this podcast right now. They haven't heard your voice for Well, we have an episode last week together. Oh yeah. But af before that, For a long time. Yeah, because I'm doing the interviews now too.

 So I just thought that

Hannah: I'm a guest on this podcast.

Ryan: I thought that was funny. Anyway, I wanted to talk about hiring, being really risky for companies. And so right now we've been doing a lot of work for the past few months. We've talked to a lot of you guys, got on phone calls, got feedback about the different things that you guys are struggling with when trying to make those big career changes and career transitions and we got it all together and we've been working. We're gonna have our first course for everybody that's looking to make career changes in their life. If you guys will want to [00:18:00] learn more about that, go to degreefree.co/career change. 

Hannah: We've been working on this for like six months, by the way.

Ryan: And you can learn all about.

Hannah: Pretty excited. 

Ryan: Yeah. But in the research for this and in the preparation for this course, one of the things that I found interesting was that a lot of people don't understand how risky it is for companies to hire people or how expensive it is for companies to hire people, if that makes any sense. 

So I just kind of wanted to go through some of the things from a company perspective, right? So from the company's perspective, they have recruiters and those can either be internal Or external, right? 

Internal, you have to actually pay their salaries like we were just talking about, right? If they're the first to go because they're not hiring people, but then external, they can pay up to like 25% of your salary.

that you negotiate with these [00:19:00] people?

Hannah: I did not know it was that high. 

Ryan: And so it's super expensive. I mean, I think it's like 10 to 25 depending on the recruiter and the agency and or anything like and I'm sure that they're lower. There's also flat fee recruiters too. Just, it's kind of very similar to the real estate market, right?

There's like assets that need to be sold. It's just like any market. 

Hannah: Yeah, people's labor. 

Ryan: And then there's the prices that the companies have to pay for the job board. There's background checks. According to certain sources, depending on where you look on the internet, it costs about $98. Every day a loss in productivity and a job opening stays open for 36 to 42 days.

Hannah: Okay. 

Ryan: On average. On average, it costs about $4,700 to fill roles. So also I did wanna say here that those. Numbers are a little skewed because that includes C-suite executives if you so, and like those can get up to like 15 grand, right? So the average is skewed a little bit, but if you control those out, it's more like 1500 and then it takes like 30 minutes, two [00:20:00] hours to schedule like interviews, right?

And so that's like all of the collective time of the back and forth to schedule an interview. But as we know, That's stretched over weeks and months and everything like that. But then there's actually the training that you have to do after you get hired. Some surveys say that it. Up to six months before you as a new hire start being productive in your role.

It's much more, it's also much riskier for companies to hire W-2 workers just because of all the benefits and all of the background checks, unemployment. All of that and then it's also a lot of people don't wanna hire W-2 workers because it's much more difficult to get rid of you at the same time.

And so they prefer contractors. So that's why it's so much easier to get hired as a contractor. And I know a lot of people that have never, a lot of people that are listening to this, they want to get work in like tech. Roles or at a tech company or some place that you can work remotely. And a lot of those [00:21:00] companies are switching to contracting roles and you'll see when you interview for these different roles, like if you're interviewing for the same job title, same responsibilities, but there's a W-2 and there's a contracting normally eight times outta 10.

The contracting is gonna move along much quicker. You're gonna go from prospect to applying to hired, maybe a couple of weeks where maybe it would take a few weeks with W-2 to a few months, depending on how high your role is. 

Hannah: Yeah, it can take forever. 

Ryan: Sorry. 

So that's a long way of saying that it's super expensive and it's super risky to.

Hire people, especially if you are applying to W-2 roles, you just gotta kind of know that. So what does it all mean for you? You wanna find every opportunity to tell the company that you understand that it's risky. 

Hannah: Yeah. Like you're gonna be there. You're in it for the long haul, like you're committed, you're gonna be there, you're gonna show up, and you're not gonna go anywhere.

You're worth the investment, basically, 

Ryan: [00:22:00] And that you're gonna start contributing. Right off the bat, right? Like you're gonna literally jump in there and take the bull by the horns and do work, start contributing to the team as much as you can and then, but, okay, well how do you do that, I guess, right?

And so in an interview, you could literally just say it. Like you could just say it at the end, if, like at the end, if you have any questions or comments or concerns or whatever, or some way that you could figure out how to work it in, you just be like, I know that hiring is expensive and risky, but if you do hire me, I'll get to work quick and do everything that I can to start contributing to this company and to the goals of which we talked about earlier. 

Hannah: Yeah. Make money, make sales, save time, whatever it is. 

Ryan: And what this will do is it just kind of shows that you have a deeper understanding of the business or of hiring at a deeper level. You're capable of like deeper thoughts and you're also capable of putting yourself [00:23:00] in their shoes and you understand like, okay, well this guy gets it right. Like they kind of, he kind of gets it. He sees like, okay, well it's not all about him. He's kind of concerned about the company as well. 

Hannah: Yeah. Cause I think that there's a lot of people that don't really, and it's definitely the fault of our school system because we're just not taught how business works and how it run.

Which is kind of weird considering how many businesses there are in the US and how. like business focused the US is. We really should be taught the basics of business, but we're not. 

But yeah, just knowing that it's expensive and risky for companies hourly money and so part of you getting hired is convincing them that you're worth that risk.

Ryan: Yep, absolutely. 

Hannah: Now, speaking of people who were not worth the risk, this one is gonna light some people's hair on fire. Amazon paid college graduates not to hire them. This happened a few months ago, and Amazon paid college graduates who they had offered jobs to $13,000, regardless of in quotes, whether or not they offered them [00:24:00] the job later or not, to delay hiring them until next year.

So the reason I think that they did this is because they're not gonna hire these people at all, and the reason I think they're not gonna hire them at all is because they graduated from college. And so because of that, they expect a wage premium and Amazon is instead going to pull from applicants who either don't have degrees and will, as I said, will take the market value for their salary or they'll, or they'll pull from their own apprenticeship programs, which they have been very aggressively expanding.

I think that that is the lay of the land, I think, and this is my theory, right? So to that person who's going, how do you know this? I don't. It's just what I think is going. because I do think and I linked an article here actually about college graduates and how inaccurate they, how inaccurate their salary expectations are.

Oftentimes they're off by 50%. So, like you said, they ask high, which is good, right? You should always ask high. Everybody should ask high but college graduates ask much higher, and because of that, they are not the ideal job seeker in this market, right? You wanna get [00:25:00] people at a bargain. You do not wanna get them at a premium because that is tough on your business.

Not only that, and I linked an article here too, where I found that a New Hampshire professor has been studying basically entitlement of college graduates. Interesting that he would be a professor studying this but he is and he has actually gone so far as to suggest and I say this because I say this because it needs to be said, so it's understandable that grads are unhappy with, how much they're getting paid.

I just saw TikTok about this girl complaining about her pay, complaining about working, and it's because she's been told to expect something that is literally not there and so for that reason, If someone says, Hey, there's gonna be, when you get home, there is gonna be a seven course meal. The kitchen's gonna be clean, like your house is gonna smell like apple cinnamon and whatever, whatever and you get home and your house is dark and there's a sink full of dirty dishes, and instead, there's no food in the fridge except for like a moldy piece of baloney. Okay? Like now you're disappointed because you were told that there's this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and instead it's just not even there.

And [00:26:00] instead of not even being a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it's just debt. So these grads are very dissatisfied, right? And so because of that, they are not as happy at work and because they're not as happy at work, they turn over faster and that makes sense, right? If you're unhappy at your job, you're gonna leave your job.

That makes sense and so what this professor suggested doing was, he said that this is so widespread and such a problem for employers. He has suggested and formulated an entitlement screening he suggests. Businesses need to screen for entitlement mentality in the people that they're interviewing.

Pretty crazy. 

Ryan: That's interesting. That's crazy. We're gonna link to everything that she just talked about that at degree free.co/podcast so you guys can check all of that out as well. You know, one about the entitlement part of that. That totally makes sense. One. Both of the things that you said about college, at least in my experience and the college grad expectation is accurate.

One, even if you do your [00:27:00] research on the different salary expectations for, your major, all of those things. One, they're wrong. Yeah. Right, because they're widely self-reported. I make a million dollars. Right? Like, okay, right on check. You know what I mean? That's crazy. 

Okay.

So that, that's one thing but then also it doesn't take into account like individual experience and the demand for your skills. Like just because you go to college doesn't mean that you have work experience. It doesn't mean that companies are going to want to hire you now that you have a degree.

You still have to go out there, bust your ass and gain experience In a lot of ways, it's harder than the degree free path because the degree free path, you still have to do the same thing too. 

Hannah: That's true. 

Ryan: I used to think, or I'm kind of thinking about it. I'm not sure where I've [00:28:00] landed on this yet, but I think that college is easier in many ways than going to degree free path because you go to college, I'm speaking from experience, I'm speaking from myself. You go to college, you don't have to think about it. You look at these dumb charts, you'd be like, okay, well I expect to make 80 grand right outta college.

You know what I mean? 21 years old. Yeah. Right on. I'll be an econ major. I'll be a business major, whatever. 

Hannah: Business majors are some of the most unrealistic ones. 

Ryan: Yeah. Well, because they think they're smart. Yeah. You've been in college and you've been like, oh, I've been learning stats, bro.

I'll be like, come on dude.

Hannah: Do you have to say, bro, at the end of that sentence, dude.

Ryan: It's like, and so after you've looked at those charts, you're just like, Okay, well I'm just gonna follow that path and then I'm gonna go get a job. Okay. So if that were true, that would be a lot easier. 

Hannah: And it would be worth it.

Ryan: Probably.

 And then, you know, but then degree free. You not only have to trudge the path which college people do, right? I mean, that's what getting your degree [00:29:00] is and everything that you're trudging a path. But you have to navigate as well. You have to figure out which path you're going to take. And so not only do you have to trudge your path, but you have to navigate at the same time. And those two things are more difficult in college. But like I said, I don't know, I'm starting to think that going to college is harder. 

Hannah: I really feel for, and you and I have talked about this, but like I really feel for people who went and they just thought that they were doing what they were supposed to do and then the colleges said, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're gonna make, that's how much you're gonna make. You're gonna make, you're gonna make a hundred thousand dollars if you get this bachelor's degree, you are made in the shade. And then their college professor who stepped off campus in approximately 43.8 years. And it's just like, yeah, no, absolutely.

Like this is a great job to go into. This is a great field to go into. You're gonna have a bright future. Bright future. And then they get out into the real world and they're like, holy crap, this sucks. And I have to, and my student loan payments are so much, you know, it just sucks.

Ryan: For people listening,

if you guys have an [00:30:00] opinion about it, like I said, my mind's kind of open, connect me on LinkedIn and kind of send me a message. You know what I mean? Just let me know what you think, whether or not it's, if you're a degree free and whether or not you think that's easier than, you know, just kind of going to college and getting a job.

I don't know. Just send me your opinions. I'd like to know. 

Hannah: Yeah, I'd like to know that too. Cause I, I definitely see what you mean too. I think it's easier in some ways. it's hard to tell which one's easier. 

Ryan: Like I said, I'm starting to lean. Where it's actually harder to go to college because you're in debt, right?

Like you're, you're in debt. You just wasted 40 years of your life and you have all of this, like you said, I don't like that word entitlement, but I understand what he's saying and I'm trying to think of like another way to say it. The only way that I can think of saying it is like you have high expectations.

Well, right. And that's like, I think to put the word entitlement on it is kind of Derogatory. Yeah. Towards college graduates. And so I think that a much better word is maybe expectations, like I was saying, but even [00:31:00] that, anyway, doesn't matter. 

Hannah: Well, no. Part of the article though was, so when he was talking about, when he was talking about entitlement, what he's actually saying is a little deeper even than just expectations of work.

He said that he wants, he thinks employers need to screen for people who think that they are superior to their coworkers because of their education, literally because of their degree. Is it such a problem

That's funny.

Hannah: He's like, yeah, he's, he gave us, there was a little list of questions that he is like, yeah, you should ask these questions.

Like ask them, you know, ask them if they think that they are, ask 'em if they think that they're better than their coworkers and why that is. You know, a, he's asking them to, because they're being, I'm assuming it's because he's run into enough situations where people just think that they're, and people, this is, if anyone listens to this and has been on with us on TikTok since the very get go, but like there was a comment early on in our TikTok where someone just said, like, people Quizlet through college and then think they're the intellectual elite, which I knew is the funniest comment every time. I still think about it sometimes and it makes me laugh and someone [00:32:00] quoted it a couple months ago was like, Hey, remember that Quizlet comment?

I was like, oh yeah, I do every day. 

Ryan: There is a lot of truth. To that as well, because I was that way. You know, I had a rude awakening when I got out into the job market after college. I had zero job prospects. I had zero real world experience, really. I mean, I was a bartender. I think I was a bartender at least, or I was a bar back.

At least I was working my way up to bartender, but I never had any like office experience? I mean, I guess I had an internship in college, but I sucked at it. I literally did my internship. I don't know, I don't think I've told the story on this on my. And

so I feel a little bad because I just said I didn't have any offers experience, so I lied, and then I was like, oh, well I didn't have an internship, but let me, yeah, yeah.

But let me tell you why I don't consider that one. It was my job. I was a commercial credit analyst. That's what I did for my internship.

Hannah: I'm sorry, I'm [00:33:00] asleep. 

Ryan: Yeah. And I was supposed to look at companies financial statements and analyze it and just really just do, it was kind of actually work and, but like you do need a little bit of accounting knowledge and everything like that. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I was terrible at this job. I was terrible but also I worked full-time in college, so I worked full-time and my last semester in college, I took more classes than normal. So I worked full-time.

I took more classes than normal and I had this internship and so like I did one .My accounting's terrible. Right. Which is funny because I became an accountant leader. 

Hannah: You did at a flight school actually, for anyone listening.

Ryan: So I did that and I fell asleep in meetings because I was working full-time.

I was bartending. 

Hannah: You're so tired. 

Ryan: And I was tired. Right. So I'd go to school and then later on I would go to this internship and I was falling asleep on like the Wednesday weekly meeting and anyway, long story short, the reason why I don't consider this is because of how [00:34:00] many times they told me how crappy I was.

Oh, wow. and then I went, I had. I had the balls to literally, there was, they were hiring for a full-time analyst position, not an internship. They were hiring a full-time analyst position at the time that my internship was ending. Okay. I was just like, ugh. What a coincidence. I'm already here , 

Hannah: they'd be crazy now to take advantage of this proximity.

This is where, 

Ryan: this is literally where they're gonna put the next person, like in this full-time role and I was just like, perfect. I'm gonna go let my boss know that I'd like to interview for the role. I walk into his office whenever I set up the meeting. And this is like, This is not my direct report, right?

Like this is like the manager of the floor that we were on, right? So I've interviewed, I interviewed with this guy. I haven't spoken to him really [00:35:00] since we've seen past each other in the hall and everything like that. 

Hannah: I don't know that I've ever heard the story. 

Ryan: I don't think I've ever told it because it's terrible and he goes, I walk into his room and he's just like, so they say you. Like you want, stick on, like you want a job? And they're like I said, yeah, I think you're, hi, you're hiring. And, for like my exact position, I already know how to do it. And I'm like trained. I've been here for like four months and he's just like, do you really?

He's like, do you really think that like, that's a good idea?

Hannah: What did you say?

What did you say?

Ryan: I dunno, before walking to this room, I did. But did you say that? Not that you said it, and I honestly, I forget what I said. Oh my gosh. I was shocked and I literally,

Hannah: I'll give some money to hear that conversation. 

Ryan: I literally was just like, yeah, I thought it was a good idea. I mean, [00:36:00] and he just like, he's like, yeah, yeah.

I said, okay. Yeah. Right on.

Oh. And the conversation was like, Over. Yeah. I mean it was like five minutes long. Not even. It was like, I know what's funny about that is because like I actually, we did an episode before and you guys can go back and listen. 

Hannah: I've never heard that story and I've heard all your stories.

I've never heard that story. 

Ryan: You can go back and listen to the worst interview of my life, , and that was not it. Right? Even though that like obviously that interview was pretty freaking bad. 

Hannah: I've never heard this story. I'm dying. So you, do you really think that's a good idea? 

Ryan: You think that's a good idea?

I dunno. 

Hannah: I did two minutes ago. Yeah. 

Ryan: But, oh man. Anyway, I left. That was a really long story of just like I left college without, job prospects and without knowing anything, and I expected to make [00:37:00] $70,000 a year. I think it was like 78 at the time. Right. I'll tell you what, I ended up getting paid six months later when I was, after applying and applying and applying and applying, I got paid $31,000.

All of these online calculators, all of these graphs and glass door or whatever it was at the time, all of those things were telling me that I was gonna make like in the 60 to $80,000 range entry level starting, you know what I mean? And I didn't even get paid half of that. Right. Or I got paid half of that 31,000. Yeah. And my story's not unique. Like, I literally had an interview with the chief economist of ZipRecruiter, Julia Pollock, and her, you know, her and I are very similar in age, and she's much smarter than I am. Right. I mean, like, and she, like, I think she went to Harvard. Not, I think she went to Harvard, but I'm just trying to remember which degree she got from Harvard.

You know what I mean? And so like, and. I think she got paid like 37, 36 out of college. 

Hannah: Whoa. [00:38:00] Whoa. Right. The ivy, we'll talk about this some at some point soon, but the Ivys are not, the Ivy Leagues are not what people think they are. Just so people know. We'll get to that. We'll get to that.

Ryan: And I wanted to do one quick one before we go. We have a bunch more that we wanna talk about. Like I said, for everybody, if you guys like this format, then leave us a message, connect with me on LinkedIn and send me a note and just let me know if you liked it or if you didn't, if you didn't like it.

I personally, as of while we're doing it, I like it much more because it actually a conversation, and this actually is a lot closer to the way that you and I speak on a regular basis. Although the thing about what we do is we also try to educate as well and try to get certain things out there. 

Hannah: Be useful to you.

Ryan: Exactly. And so let me know if this was useful, but the last thing that I wanna talk about real quick before we run out of time is that we got a question asked by Michelle, and so thank you for asking. She asked via LinkedIn message, so once again, [00:39:00] Connected to me on LinkedIn and give me a message if you have any questions or anything like that.

That's the best way to get ahold of me. The question was basically about what is a realistic timeline for finding a new job? And I think, I didn't plan this, but you know, you kind of, Talked about the layoffs and everything like that. I didn't know what you were gonna talk about first.

And so this kind of lines up perfectly right where I think, I'm not really sure what her question was about. So I'll kind of attack it from two different angles. From the January report, from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment duration is an average 19.1 weeks and the median is 8.4 weeks.

So with all the layoffs happening and people without a job, if you are applying right now and you're slogging through it, I just want you to know that like you're not alone and it takes time to get hired like I said. The average right there, that's what we talk about all [00:40:00] the time, which is kind of just knowing your numbers and knowing, okay, it's a hundred applications to get one interview, even though that's not accurate.

That's just the mindset that we always have. And so if you're on average 19 weeks to get hired, if you're still within a few weeks, hey, you're in good company. Right. Like I know it sucks. I know it sucks, but it just takes one. 

Hannah: Yes. And we know it shouldn't be like that and we don't think it should be like that, but it is much better to know how things are and be realistic about them so that you don't get discouraged and bogged down as you are going through trying to get a new job.

Because it is very stressful and we've both been there. We know it is tough. 

Ryan: And so you kind of know, like if you were to get laid off unexpectedly, You kind of have to hit the pavement. We kind of talked about that already. Start applying, get out there, get a new job. Okay, but how long does it take to find like a new career?

That's kind of what I wanted to talk about because a lot of people that are listening to this show, they already have [00:41:00] career experience, right? They're in one career or they're in a job, right? Like kind of similar to myself, like bartender, right? And you're just wondering like, how do I make that transition out of it?

And so how long does that take? Just kind of talk about it again. The, we are doing our cohort for our career change crash course. You can find out more about that at degreefree.co/careerchange. Where we're gonna be helping you make these huge career transitions, but you know, just kind of talk about your story a little bit.

You went from making $28,000 at a call center, and then you got laid off literally due to Covid and. We didn't have any money. We were depending on that money coming in because I think at the time I was still in sales or maybe I was a recruit in the fire department or something like that, and so I wasn't making a lot of money either.

And in [00:42:00] 31 days you got a sales force admin certification, and then you got a job that paid 70 or $75,000 a year. I forget which one it was. 

Hannah: 70. Yeah. Four day work week. 

Ryan: Yeah. Four day work week. $70,000 a year. And so it is possible. 

Hannah: Yeah. It's not only possible, people do it all the time. And that is, , I just saw a stat that one in three, recent people who people who recently got jobs said that it was because they learned a new skill, and then that skill is what got them their new job.

Ryan: Yeah. The basis of all of that, you know, kind of talking about skills, the basis of all of that. The reason why you were able to do that transition quickly is because you were, you did how to find a job backwards, right? Yes. You went to the job that you wanted, which is like a Salesforce admin. That's what you heard.

You didn't know, 

Hannah: like I saw comment on Reddit. Right, exactly and my boss had said something about it. 

Ryan: Yeah, exactly. And so you identified that skill and then you saw that people were paying whatever it is that you wanted to get paid for that skill and then, You went and learned that skill, right?

And so we have a whole episode of how to do that. If you guys wanna [00:43:00] learn more about that, you can just go back in the podcast and listen to that. So I won't belabor it here, but that is exactly what you have to do, right? Like when you're trying to make that career transition, whether or not you're like a security guard at night, or whether or not you're in construction or whatever, the first thing is, identify the job that you're looking for and then identify the skills that you need to learn in order to get those jobs.

Hannah: And I think that something. That's worth saying too, is and we're bringing it back around to the beginning, right? Which is all these layoffs and people taking their time, getting back into the job search. If you, as soon as you get that red notice or whatever it is, as soon as you get that and you go, okay, shoot, that my time's up here, I have to move.

As soon as you get that notice, you need to go and start figuring out what the next job you wanna get is, because it is gonna be easier for you if you just keep moving. 

Ryan: Yep, absolutely. And I think it's important to note for a lot of people when you're trying to make your career change, You might be focused on like, oh, well I have to get, I want to ultimately be a developer, let's just say, and [00:44:00] right now you're working as a retail worker.

You're working in retail as a retail associate, like stocking shelves and stuff like that, and you want to be a developer. A lot of people think that you have to straight line it from retail worker. To a developer, 

Hannah: I would go retail tech support, dev skills dev. 

Ryan: Exactly. Yeah. And you don't have to go right there.

I mean, plenty of people do. You can absolutely teach yourself. Take a course, build some stuff, do a bit bootcamp. Sure. Whatever, and then get hired. Absolutely. Start your own project. Right. And get hired. People do it all the time but the main thing when making these huge career transitions is just making that first leap.

Getting out of doing whatever it is that you are doing in a completely different industry and getting closer to the one you're trying to be in. 

So I kind of like talked about it before in this podcast, but like, I was terrible at accounting, right? I ended up getting hired as an accountant, right? Which is like crazy.

 How'd you get hired out as [00:45:00] an accountant? But what I did was I went on like a vision quest. Like for a little while, I literally was a bartender. I was living in North Carolina. I hated my life. And I was like, I don't know what I wanna do. I had a degree, I didn't have debt, which I was lucky about.

I was fortunate about that because, especially since I worked all the way through college, so I was fine there, but I was like bartending. I was like, fuck, this sucks man. And I was like, what am I gonna do? And so I just took what little money that I had and I jumped into my red Mustang and just drove the whole country.

Three months, and then I ended up in California. Anyway, I was in California and I didn't have a lot of skills. I did have a banking job that I got right after college, but that job only lasted 11 months because I hated it because it 

Hannah: boring, 

Ryan: bored me to tears. Terrible. I quit. I was like, I'm gonna, I make way more money as a bartender, right?

That was the $31,000 [00:46:00] job that I was talking about, and I made double that as a bartender if probably more. and, but I was sick of that lifestyle, and so I went to California and when I went to California, I was doing the same thing, right? I was like, I'm a bartender again. I've been a bartender for the past two years.

Only nobody's gonna hire me for anything and so I just hire, I just applied to literally hundreds of jobs and any job that was even remotely what I

Hannah: bank money 

Ryan: didn't matter. I've, yeah, exactly. I've banked a bank teller accountant, which is what I ended up doing. A office manager, an office admin, an executive assistant, you name it.

I just knew that I needed to get out from behind the bar and underneath a desk to get where you were trying to go. Exactly. And then the way that I got, I mean I ended up getting that accounting job just because like exactly what we were talking about, which is how to find a job backwards, which is like, I kind of had accounting skills, but they sucked obviously cuz I didn't stay as an analyst there [00:47:00] but as soon as I found out that they were interested in hiring me, or at least interviewing me, I. Read everything that I could about accounting. Right? Like, I just went on the internet and I was just like, okay, well how do I do this? Yeah. I just studied 

Hannah: flashcards are a secret. 

Ryan: So it's the exact same thing, how to find a job backwards.

Right. And instead, like Jason Tugman kind of talked about it , on our episode and anybody called just in time learning. 

Hannah: Oh, wow. 

Ryan: Yeah. So, I just figured it out. I don't know. Right. And luckily I did because in the interview he just, he threw up some tea accounts on the board. I don't even know what that is.

Yeah. He threw up some tea accounts on the board and he was like, okay, just tell me what happens when this transaction. And I was lucky that I had studied because I was like, oh, perfect. That goes here, there goes there. And then he is just like, we did a few of those different scenarios.

More complicated

Hannah: word problems. 

Ryan: Yeah, we did. Exactly. No, literally like literally word problems.

Hannah: Wow. That sounds like hell. I would hate that job interview. 

Ryan: Yeah. And then [00:48:00] I got the job. Yeah. Even though I didn't have experience really. 

Hannah: We should talk about, we should talk about that job in a different episode too.

This is a good, it's a good story. 

Ryan: Yeah. 

Hannah: You learned a lot in that job from that, from, the guy that hired you. 

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. 

Hannah: Good dude. 

Ryan: But yeah, That's the episode guys. Thank you so much for listening. If you guys like this episode, please, like I said, five, no more honest reviews . 

Hannah: Just tell Ryan that he's the best podcast host of all the podcast hosts and that we are hilarious. 

Ryan: Yeah, and then no. But seriously though guys, thank you for listening. If you guys have any feedback, uh connect with me on LinkedIn and let me know there. 

Hannah: Thank you so much for listening, and if you are trying to get a new job, if you're trying to make a career change, sign up for our newsletter at degreefree.co/newsletter.

And thank you for sticking with us through this episode, folks. 

Ryan: Until next time guys. Aloha.