How To Choose Job As A Young Person

Tom Smykowski
4 min readNov 2, 2024

--

Everyone who tries to enter the job market comes with mixed feelings about how it all works. Today I’ll share my thoughts about it and what young people should know.

When I got my first job as a programmer I was super excited. With limited expenses I found the sallary to be great. I didn’t even mind that I didn’t have insurance and money paid for retirement.

Just with time comes how I got ripped off not having that and not understanding why it’s important.

The fact of life is that young people are the most hard working, resilient and fast learners among all people generally.

But coming out of college or other level of education you usually think you don’t know anything and you’d pray for any job due to that.

On the other hand people with more experience and company owners know young people work very hard. And also they know it’s easy to make them believe anything.

For example that them not paying for your insurance and retirement is good for you.

Or that you can’t use vacation, you have to work overtime or alot ot other things.

Young people don’t know usually their rights and in a company-person relationship they feel like the weaker side. So they agree to a lot to keep the job.

Company owners even go further and actually rather than make young people feel valued, they push the self esteem down for their benefit.

It’s an outrageous thing that is very common unfortunately.

So my advice to every young person that enters the job market is to take credit for what you did so far, what you’ve learned, how determined you were to do it.

Believe me if I tell you these are values not so popular as you think. Whatever is the popular view, it’s a very very rare character treat.

Also educate yourself on your rights, don’t allow employers to cross boundaries or do anything that is not good for you.

It’s not like companies pay you for you accepting everything they do.

It’s a mutual collaboration. You go to a company to spend your precious young time to learn what they do and join their efforts.

Fair pay, good culture that nurtures your sense of professional growth, giving you the possibility for positive impact, and the ability to forget about the work immediately after you step outside is nothing more than a norm company has to provide.

If a company falls short in any of these aspects it isn’t worth to spend a day more there.

Of course, it’s hard to think about it when you need to pay bills. I get that. But set the standards high. If you’re young, genuinely kind, willing to work you’ll find a job.

True leaders and entrepreneurs that need such people will recognize you in a split second. Because they need people to join their effort.

Entrepreneurs and companies that earn from squeezing work and money from employees will do everything so that you’ll feel like trash not worth any work. So they can keep you for their benefit.

Overall, it’s better to work with true leaders, because they work with you not against you.

So I strongly encourage you, if you’re young, to search for such companies, such projects that value you and all the good you bring to the table.

Never settle for anyone who gives any hint of impression they don’t recognize it.

Yeah, so that’s my set of advice for young people there. Especially searching for coding jobs. You bring a lot to the table, don’t waste it on creepers.

It may take longer to find a company that values you, but it’s worth every second spend on searching. Also, when you use this perspective, you’ll notice you’ll start to think differently about how to find a job, how to assess the company based on hiring process and how to evaluate the company during your work.

It will all in all help you find a job. Also, during the search watch out for life suckers. Such companies have extended human resources systems that aim at making work the center of your life.

They offer buffets, a lot of events, a lot of plans aimed for your growth etc.

Of course it’s nice to have some of these, but remember goal of all of these is mainly to benefit the company. So they have better skilled employee that devote their time to their needs.

It’s ok, as long as it aligns with your goals and it doesn’t overlap your private life, like when you have to spend your private time to learn stuff for the company for free, or there’s an indirect push from company to work longer than agreed.

I’m saying you should find new passions, hobbies, spend your time on travels and gaming. You definately should focus on that.

And if the company goals align with your goals, that’s great. But your life comes first and at the end of the day you spend your time for them for money. There’s no sacrated about it. It’s a simple exchange, no matter how public perception, corporate try to convince you work is life and work has to be passion (= you spend your private time for the company).

To sum it up: value yourself , support companies worth support, and that support you in having a life.

Especially, paradoxically in this economy. Because every crisis, recession is a creeper feast

Cheers!

--

--

Tom Smykowski
Tom Smykowski

Written by Tom Smykowski

Software Engineer & Tech Editor. Top 2% on StackOverflow, 3mil views on Quora. Won Shattered Pixel Dungeon.

Responses (1)