A millennial with a Ph.D. and over $250k in student-loan debt says she's been looking for a job for 4 years. She wishes she prioritized work experience over education.
Rasberry earned a bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degree in business management from Saint Leo University in Florida. However, she says she's struggled to find a job in her field of study over the past four years. She also has more than $250,000 in student-loan debt, according to a document viewed by Business Insider.

"I graduated with my Ph.D. in 2020 and can't find a job to save my life," the 38-year-old, who lives in Virginia, told Business Insider via email. She asked for partial anonymity, using only the first initial of her first name and her last name, because of privacy concerns.

Since earning her Ph.D., Rasberry has applied for various business-management roles but had little success. She said she'd been forced to expand her job search and explore a new career in nursing to help her make ends meet.

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"I thought education was the road to financial freedom," she said. "But I was wrong."

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Rasberry is among the Americans who are having a tough time finding work. In part, it's because businesses across the US have significantly scaled back on hiring over the past two years. The ratio of job openings to unemployed people — an indicator of job availability — has declined considerably.

While the unemployment rate and layoff rate remain low compared with historical levels, the hiring slowdown means that many job seekers are having a considerably harder time than they were a few years ago.

Rasberry shared why she thinks her job search has been so challenging, how she made her career pivot, and her top piece of advice for people pursuing higher education.

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'Most organizations prefer experience over education'
After receiving her doctorate degree, Rasberry's initial goal was to land an adjunct professor position. However, after speaking with people in the education field, she decided to change course.

"I've learned how difficult it is to get started in the field," she said. "Essentially, after earning a Ph.D., I would have to go back to school to take more courses to support a teaching career." She said she was told she'd specifically need more education-related credits.

As a result, Rasberry said, she decided to give up on teaching and focus on finding other roles in her area of study: business management.

But her job search has been challenging. Rasberry said she hasn't landed many interviews, and when she has — and has been turned down — she's had a hard time figuring out what went wrong. She said she's expanded her job search to non-managerial bookkeeping, accounting, tutoring, and human-resources roles but that she hasn't had much luck with these either.

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Rasberry thinks the biggest obstacle in her job search is her lack of work experience.

While pursuing her degrees, she gained some entry-level work experience in banking, human resources, and bookkeeping roles. However, she said this experience might be insufficient in the eyes of employers.

"I am over qualified for most entry-level positions, but I am under qualified for management or leadership positions," she said. "Ultimately, my degree has been both a blessing and a curse."

Rasberry's top piece of advice for people who pursue higher education is to do your homework. She said she wishes she'd spent more time evaluating her school's job placement programs, internship partnerships, and the employment rates of recent graduates across different fields before she pursued her degrees.

She also recommended taking time to think about the value of a college degree and the best ways to use it to land a job.

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"I learned most organizations prefer experience over education," she said. "Had I known that I would not have spent so many years in college."

Nursing is helping to pay the bills during her job search
Rasberry said that in recent years, she'd worked various part-time jobs to pay the bills.

"It feels next to impossible to work a single job and earn enough money to cover essentials like rent, fuel, electricity, etc. in the state of Virginia," she said. One analysis found Virginia was the 13th-most expensive state when it comes to overall cost of living.

She said she's completing a training program to work remotely for TurboTax as a tax expert. At the same time, she's also exploring a new career: nursing. Rasberry said that for roughly the past year, she'd been working as much as 80 hours a week as a nurse.

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"I am new to nursing, but I find it rewarding, and I like the shift flexibility," she said.

Rasberry found a nursing role that provided free training and certification. But she said the downside was that this certification wouldn't carry over to any other employers — limiting her opportunities in the industry. This is among the reasons she hasn't stopped applying for business-related jobs.

Another reason is that she doesn't think she's paid particularly well — she said she was earning $21.50 an hour. In 2023, the median pay for a registered nurse in the US was about $41 an hour. Despite the long hours, she said the low pay is why she doesn't view nursing as a full-time job.

"It doesn't come with full time pay," she said.

Rasberry said that in recent months, she'd begun focusing more on looking for remote roles such as the TurboTax opportunity. She said working remotely would make it easier to keep her nursing job, reduce her commuting costs, and care for her dog.

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Over the past month, Rasberry finally had some luck in the job market. She said she landed a remote plan consultant position in the nursing field that pays about $70,000 a year — equivalent to an hourly rate of more than $30 an hour.

While she views this as a positive development, she said she'd "absolutely" continue searching for higher-paying roles in her field of study.

"When I'm not working, I'm online, putting in applications for employment," she said.

Source
https://africa.businessinsider.com/careers/a-millennial-with-a-phd-and-over-dollar250k-in-student-loan-debt-says-shes-been/jb2vyb4

No need waiting for four years na. You can start with menial jobs if multi million dollar company no employ you.

That being said, experiences over paper qualifications.

Before doing most things, it's better to calculate the end and the means, see if the means guarantee the end and if the end is another beginning to another means. The resource is scarce so must be maximized when one gets it.

May God help her in all ramifications.

Dawson126:
Before doing most things, it's better to calculate the end and the means, see if the means guarantee the end and if the end is another beginning to a means. The resource is scarce so must be maximized when one gets it.

Information not passed!

Hezzyluv:


Information not passed!

Oga mi sir. Don't be angry or displeased sir. Maybe we could connect to talk more sir.

Fake story

Everyone is busy administering their own businesses.

Many PhD holders, Professors and their associates earn ~500k ($300) monthly in Nigeria

This is going to be the reality of most Nigerian students that applied for them at student loan.

The has yet to solve unemployment by creating jobs for it's graduates and other qualified individuals, they ran to activate student loans instead.


I wonder who advised such move, why not use that fund to create jobs in certain industries and ensure graduates with certain qualifications get employed withing a year after their service, earning nothing less than 100k per month for a start?


So person collect student loan to finish school, go to service to earn 33k as allowance, after service he spends years at home looking for jobs or trying to set himself up, while his loan keep accumulating


Mind you, those people who got the pandemic relief or cash support during COVID 19, many of them were never aware it was a loan until they started applying for jobs and their credit scores came back as having a bad loan since 2020, some of them have loans running into hundreds of naira in bad debts, and the can't be employed until they clear the loan.


The Nigerian system/govt is designed against Nigerians for real

I can smell bullshit when I perceive it.

There are jobs across all of USA.

She might claim she's more qualified than some roles, but she shouldn't sell this blatant lies.

As the Notorious B.I.G famously said, "Don't Be Mad, UPS is Hiring".

She can get a business role at Walgreens, Walmart or Taco Bells.

Nonsense.

Education is the best investment to make but being indebted is the greatest bondage to put yourself in.

Your income potential must align with the cost of education. It is never a waste but we don't grow from a position of comfort. You can see now that because she's uncomfortable, she's doing so many things to solve her problem. One day she will clear the debt but her brain will be working to get more, more and more till she becomes rich and then one wakaboutist will call her olosho and think money dropped from manna on her head. Everything in life happens for a reason, if life doesn't teach you, experience will show you why.

Most organizations prefer experience over education'
After receiving her doctorate degree, Rasberry's initial goal was to land an adjunct professor position. However, after speaking with people in the education field, she decided to change course.

"I've learned how difficult it is to get started in the field," she said. "Essentially, after earning a Ph.D., I would have to go back to school to take more courses to support a teaching career." She said she was told she'd specifically need more education-related credits.

I want everyone to learn from this. She clearly does not or did not have a mind of her own. She listened to all the negative stories and gave up. Some teaching assistants are teaching with their Msc while applying for PhD. She clearly has no good mentor. Again, in life, you must start from somewhere. Education makes us arrogant and we think we are above the world. Did she work for free? Did she go look for industry experience or meet people for this thing? No. She gave up and went to take up other people's destiny. If you are in school or unemployed, work for free. I did not say slave. Work for free. It is for yourself. Do something so that when you suffer and want to move on, you have experience on your resume. If you are an undergraduate, never waste your holidays, everything is not tech camp. Go out there and see real life human problems. That's what the world wants and they know it when they hear it. You can only tell it when you live it. Get out of your comfort zone and stop complaining online. Life's doors will open as long as you keep knocking on the door.

Faith without work is dead
Likewise education without experience is dead certificate

I read this on Quora and Reddit... all the time!

Confused and lazy yoot!

People with less qualifications make money in America

I had a co-worker who works with people living with developmental disabilities, they once told me they had a Masters degree but could not get a commensurate job because they didn't have the work experience. Sometimes it's good to work while going to school or even volunteer in some cases. I was quickly able to get a job in the social service worker field because of the experience I gained from placements while in college.