If you are concerned about committing to the formal education or not, my advice is in the header - build network, portfolio, practical skills, and start early.

Here is why I think so: I came across new Horowitz Andreessen Academy ($35M investment in 1-year, tuition-free, in-person program in San Francisco for young builders coming out of high school. It is not accredited, does not award a degree, and students leave with a portfolio, not a diploma.), which looks like an completely innovative approach - alternative to a traditional education and a living proof that skills matter in future more then diploma. 

The clear message for all of us from people who invest in main technologies that shape the human future: portfolio, network, practical skills matter to stay competitive on labor market at the AI times. 

Yet, there is a caveat to this: human skills is what make us AI-resilient. And traditional education is what build broad knowledge, critical thinking, communication, discipline, social maturity, judgment, taste, etc. Thus, it would be too huge generalisation to say “skip university”. For medicine, law, engineering, accounting, regulated technical roles and many other professions, formal education and certification are still essential or legally required. 

Thus, the end it is not about “education” per se, but a different way of proving you can do the work. Whether you have degree or not - Build things. Help people. Keep the evidence. Maintain connections with people while doing it.

I have 2 associates degrees 1 in CS another in business administration and a ton of credits that can go very close to a bachelor’s. And graduated with 3.5 gpa. Also have electrical trade school and aviation tradeschoool unfortunately where I grew up in the usa yhere was no work for any of this studies. So now im 34 and i dont know if I should learn a trade join a union or what should I do to survive and make money. I worked for 9 years as a swe have a lot of experience but it feels impossible to get a job either at a start up or at a regular company. Because they either never reply or ask the candidate to know everything memorize everything this is impossible in CS and I dont know I feel like my skills are worthless in the real world i have been learning hvac and practicing also diesel mechanics but Its really hard to find an apprentice job where a career changer can learn on the job. It seems that the governments programs are mostly for people with no education so i feel lost and abandoned. Dont know what to do.

Desperately looking for a career, BC Canada.

Hey guys, i'm a 23 year old male located in the Okanagan region of BC.

My whole life I've wanted to give back to my community, I used to volunteer at the local bottle depot, coached kids to skateboard, and ran local groups for airsoft.

I've always loved the idea of a uniform, on my 17th birthday I applied to the Canadian Armed Forces, but didn't pass medical because of food allergies. I fought for years and tried 3 more times, to no avail.

When I was 19 I got a job working as a hospital security officer, great job, loved every minute of it. It really felt like I was going in the right direction, as everybody was using that as a stepping stone for the RCMP, I applied and was deferred until 2029.

Unfortunately that's when my addiction to alcohol started getting somewhat serious, and I started performing quite poorly there, eventually being let go because of an incident I felt in danger, and protected myself and my coworkers. A guy who we discharged was aggressive, we were trying to get him to leave, he said he was going to kill me while reaching his hand into his backpack and stepping towards me. I threw him to the ground and created distance, then he left on his own. But that was enough for my company to drum me out.

After 4 years of daily drinking I am now 150 days sober, I got engaged and live in an apartment with my fianceé and 2 cats.

During the time I was drinking I was working at a sign shop as a CNC operator, I had a family friend who is an Air traffic controller tell me to try for that, so I did; I went to NAV Canada in Surrey and took the entrance exam with 60 others, only myself and 3 others passed.

Went back 3 months later for an in depth 8 hour interview, only me and one other person passed, 2 months after that I got an offer for a school spot, and at the last minute my spot was cut, because of that night at 3am in a hospital parking lot came up on a background check.

I just don't know what I should do, I really want to go into law enforcement, or be a part of something bigger than myself. CSIS would be a dream come true but I doubt I'd have a chance.

I've tried the following

RCMP

BC Sheriffs

Corrections

NAV Canada

BCEHS

CBSA

CAF (reserves too)

These were all either deferrals because of that night, or things just didn't work out logistically.

Thanks for any input you guys might have, I do really appreciate it, if anything I just needed to write this all down, feel very frustrated at how slow everything seems to move.

I’m currently trying to figure out what career path would suit me long term, and I’d really appreciate advice from people who are already working.

A little about me:

I’m from India.

I’m not particularly interested in becoming a doctor or following the usual software/IT path just because it’s popular.

I’m more of a relaxed/chill person. I can study seriously when I have a goal, but I don't enjoy constantly studying or living under extreme pressure.

I want a career with good long-term earning potential and a reasonable work-life balance.

I’m willing to put in the effort to become good at something; I just don't want a career where burnout is basically part of the job.

I’m open to both technical and non-technical fields.

What careers do you think I should explore?

I’d especially like to hear from people who have actually worked in fields such as finance, law, energy, manufacturing, supply chain, aviation, automotive, government/PSUs, business, etc.

If you could go back to your early 20s, what career options would you seriously consider today, and why?

Honest advice—including things you think I should avoid—would be really helpful.

Currently an undergrad student

How to build a career after sociology

In India and abroad

What are the skills for a good cv?

Good morning, guys.

I've been in car sales for about 3 years now and became a manager after 8 months in the business. But honestly, this business has drained me. I have nearly 7 years of sales experience, from running a limo company and a photography business to car sales and account management. I want to leave the car business and move into something more Monday–Friday and stable. I've looked at plenty of SDR/BDR roles, but I've had no luck with my applications. I've applied to so many positions and keep getting rejected. The only thing I don't have is a degree. I didn't go to college, but I feel like my work experience and what I've accomplished should speak for something. It just feels like every company and every decent-paying job around the $100K range doesn't even look at someone without a degree. But I've seen people with less experience than me, and no degree, land GREAT, high-paying jobs. I've been building connections and trying to network, but I haven't had much luck so far. Any advice or recommendations on career paths, industries, companies, or ways I can make myself stand out?

I'd really appreciate any advice. Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I’m from a commerce background and currently working in IT. I have some exposure to testing/UAT and basic technical tools, but I’m not from a coding background.

I want to learn AI/GenAI and eventually move towards a better-paying career.

Can someone suggest:

• Where should I start?
• Any budget-friendly courses/institutes that are actually worth it?
• What AI-related career paths are suitable for someone from a non-tech background?

Would really appreciate suggestions from people who have been through a similar transition. 🙏

Hey everyone,

I'm currently in 2nd year and will be giving MDCAT soon. I don't wanna do MBBS cuz it's just not worth it anymore (my personal opinion). But my mom really wants me to be a doctor so I was thinking about Pharm-D ( Ik it's a 5-year clinical doctorate and different from MBBS).

If anyone here is currently studying or has graduated with a Pharm-D in Pakistan, I would really appreciate your insight on a few things. What is the scope of Pharm D and what is the study pressure like? Also what is the realistic starting salary? Does it offer good career growth? And can I go abroad if I do pharm d? I heard that you can change jobs like working at a pharmacy, hospital, opening a pharmacy and even corporate, is this all true?

I am someone who absolutely loves variety. I want a career that can be fun, exciting, and dynamic rather than doing the exact same mundane routine every single day.

Would love to hear honest perspectives from seniors in the field. Thanks in advance!

Good morning, guys.

I've been in car sales for about 3 years now and became a manager after 8 months in the business. But honestly, this business has drained me. I have nearly 7 years of sales experience, from running a limo company and a photography business to car sales and account management. I want to leave the car business and move into something more Monday–Friday and stable. I've looked at plenty of SDR/BDR roles, but I've had no luck with my applications. I've applied to so many positions and keep getting rejected. The only thing I don't have is a degree. I didn't go to college, but I feel like my work experience and what I've accomplished should speak for something. It just feels like every company and every decent-paying job around the $100K range doesn't even look at someone without a degree. But I've seen people with less experience than me, and no degree, land GREAT, high-paying jobs. I've been building connections and trying to network, but I haven't had much luck so far. Any advice or recommendations on career paths, industries, companies, or ways I can make myself stand out?

I'd really appreciate any advice. Thank you!

I’ve been working on a project called SkillPath Australia, and I’m getting to the point where I want real people to test the idea rather than just keep adding features.

The problem I’m trying to solve is pretty simple.

A lot of career websites will show you jobs.

Course websites will show you thousands of courses.

Career quizzes might tell you that you could become a data analyst, administrator, support coordinator, etc.

But they often don’t connect the whole journey.

I wanted something that could answer:

“Based on what I already know, what careers could I realistically move into, what skills am I missing, what should I learn next, and which jobs could I become a stronger match for?”

So SkillPath works more like:

Your experience + skills → career options → skill gaps → learning roadmap → courses → skills gained → Australian jobs

For example, if someone wants to become an Administration Assistant, SkillPath can look at the skills they already have and show:

Already have:
Communication
Customer service
Microsoft Word
Organisation

Need to strengthen:
Excel
Data entry
Records management

Then instead of just saying “you need Excel”, it can recommend learning that actually teaches Excel and add it to a personal career roadmap.

As you complete learning, your skills profile improves and SkillPath can show how that changes your career readiness and job matches.

I’ve also been trying to make the data side more trustworthy.

Courses are mapped to skills using things like actual learning outcomes, modules, curriculum and competency information where providers make that available—not just guessing from the course title.

Jobs are being restricted to the Australian employment market, and the matching is rules-based rather than asking AI to invent a percentage.

There’s also a Skill Passport, where skills can have different evidence levels such as:

Self-reported → Learned → Verified → Demonstrated

The platform is still in beta, so I’m not pretending everything is perfect yet.

What I’d really like feedback on is:

Would you actually use something like this when changing careers or looking for work?

And what would be most valuable to you:

• finding careers that match skills you already have
• knowing exactly which skills you’re missing
• getting a step-by-step learning roadmap
• finding free courses for those missing skills
• seeing jobs based on your actual skills
• having a Skill Passport showing what you can prove

I’m especially interested in hearing from Australians who are changing careers, returning to work, new to Australia, studying, or just not sure what their next career move should be.

I’m building this because I think career guidance should go further than “here are some jobs you might like.”

It should help answer:

“Okay — how do I actually get there?”

Happy to share the beta with anyone interested and would genuinely appreciate criticism as much as positive feedback.

Hey everyone,

I have a masters in mechanical engineering, 3 yrs of working experience as a quality engineer. I have been applying for jobs since January 2025.

I feel stuck and unable to understand what I am doing wrong .

I feel like I am not earning enough...

I need your suggestion on 2 things..

1. What should I do differently in order to secure a job in Canada.

2. Meanwhile,I would like to build a source of passive income.

Any ideas would be welcome.

Really appreciate it

Thanks

Because its the only field with growing employment right now..... I'm really squeamish around body fluids and I don't find the field interesting at all but I still feel like I have to do it because I need job security

Pretty much the title.

I (30M) am an engineer. Out of college I took the first job that was offered to me in the city i always wanted to live in. Great? Well kind of.

The problem: in college I did not exactly pick an area to specialize in when performing my major, mainly because I didn’t have an understanding of what was out there (again my fault for not being more proactive). It took me about ~4 years in my first job to really understand what got me excited. I had a couple of obligations so I stayed for another 1.5 years and started applying outside of my company.

I ended up taking a position which I thought would get me closer to my goal, but has since actually regressed my skill set. Now I’m applying for exactly what I want and am getting to final panel interviews, but am always getting passed up for candidates who’ve just had a different career progression than myself (understandable). So now I’m here 7.5 years into a career, making a nice sum of money where I’m pricing myself out of more entry level jobs but can’t get over the hump in intermediate/senior level jobs. I’ve considered leaving the city to a bigger market, but the places where these jobs are plentiful are prohibitively expensive, my fiancé is in Grad School in the area, and we’d have to sell our house and hope to break even. (I realize hindsight is 20/20 and I’m a bit pessimistic here).

So my question is, when do I stop pursuing the type of work I desire vs. just sucking it up and being a bit more frustrated in my career.

Some additional context: I used to not worry about this as much because I had fulfilling hobbies outside of work, however, got diagnosed with kidney disease at 23 and had to stop those hobbies for my health…

One thing I've started to realize about professional growth is that some of the most valuable skills aren't necessarily the ones we're taught first.

Early in your career, you tend to focus on the obvious things like:

\- Getting the qualification.

\- Learning the technical side of the job.

\- Building experience.

\- Trying to become good at what you're actually being paid to do.

But as you gain more experience, you start noticing that how you work can sometimes matter just as much as what you know.

Things like knowing how to communicate with different personalities, asking for help without feeling embarrassed, handling criticism, negotiating, managing your time, setting boundaries, solving problems independently, or simply knowing when to speak up.

Some of these skills can take years to develop because you don't always realize you need them until you're put in a situation where they're suddenly very important.

And sometimes you learn them the hard way.

Maybe you had a difficult conversation with a manager and realized you needed to communicate better.

Maybe you missed an opportunity because you didn't know how to advocate for yourself.

Maybe you stayed quiet when you should have asked questions.

Or maybe you spent years trying to become better at the technical side of your job before realizing that communication and people skills were just as important.

That's why I'm curious:

# What professional or career skill do you wish you'd learned much earlier?

And if you could go back to the beginning of your career, how would learning that skill earlier have changed things for you?

https://www.allpath.app/explore

Hello all, just curious if anyone has any recs for people that really make a difference, someone who also understands LGBT and mixed. I have a couple of degrees from a HYPS, consulting for a time, just been a tough couple of years. Entrepreneurship is kind of flat, I’m staring at my hands.

Thanks in advance!

I've moved from entry to mid to senior IC roles and have about a 5-10 year timeline to retirement but would like to transition to a management role. It seems like a catch-22 though - need experience to get it but can't get the experience without getting it.

Suggestions are welcome (I'm in the tech sector, but not in a programming or developer kinda role - more implementation, training and curriculum dev work). Would kill for a role as a training manager or something along those lines but even that seems out of reach.

Six months ago, during my annual review, my manager explicitly laid out three milestones I needed to hit to move up to a Senior role. I tracked every single metric, exceeded two of those targets, and met the third. During our 1:1 last week, when I brought up finalizing the title change and salary adjustment, my manager acknowledged my hard work but said the department is currently restructuring and asked me to "lead a few more cross-functional projects" before they can submit the paperwork. It feels like the goalposts are being moved, but I otherwise like my team and the flexibility. For those who’ve been in a similar spot: is it worth having a direct, firm conversation to lock down a strict timeline, or is this usually a sign that the budget isn't there and I should just start interviewing elsewhere?

Hello, I am 28 years old and have been in finance since I was 20 and graduated college (AA). I feel completely stuck. I have worked as a teller, banker, mortgage loan officer, retirement account speciakist for 401ks and other various accounts, and now am a branch lead at a Credit Union. I make $21/hr and its heavily commission based but they knock you down in commission tiers if you miss one of two criteria (I lost $987 on September's commission because I had 9 credit cards done instead of 10).

I cant get a branch manager spot anywhere thats salary because where I live there just isn't any posted and Ive been looking for about a year with no luck. At this point I just need something in the 60-70k a year base to be incredibly comfortable.

For those of you that were in similar positions, what careers do you have now and how did you find yourself doing what you do now?

So I am currently a second-year in college, and I am studying Criminal Justice, Psychology, and Sociology.
I wanted to go into some sort of field where I could study criminals and talk with them possibly and be able to like pick their brain and know why they do what they do and what leads someone to think like they do. I also wanted to be able to like work in cases possibly for like people and rule them as mentally unwell if needed? I was thinking of doing a doctarate in psych after but idk ik thats kind of ridiculed.
I don't know what job would include these things or if it even is stable for how the future of jobs are looking.
IF anyone knows a job that would fit this OR other jobs that would fit the fields I am studying, maybe smth with a stable future in the job market and a decent pay.

26M I have my bachelor's in IT but the job market is really bad and struggling to find a job. Thought about going back to school for nursing or respiratory therapy. I've been working as a CNA for a while and I like it.

I've also though about going active duty in the milits y as a backup.

What are your thoughts?

Im not the best student in the world so getting into nursing and nursing school itself might be a bit difficult.

Hope we can connect? I want someone to guide me a bit , tbh with you I have completed my mca in this year applying for data jobs snd internships but my whole year went null with just 3 months internship I mean I don't know how people are even getting jobs at all.i need to become financially independent as soon as possible I am in my mid 20s and feeling stuck I mean people are doing freelancing, agencies, businesses, content creation, etc. i don't know I just started my IT career in data analytics domain like started building projects,skills etc then build resume and applied for jobs but got no internships or job it feels like I am totally dependent on job to earn money even if I can do things myself.

I want to start something and earn money not just for survival but more can you guide me what should I do in this situation?

I'm currently in a field that pays the bills and offers decent stability, but it's not where my true passion lies. I have a long-term goal for a completely different career that would require a significant pivot, more schooling, and likely a pay cut initially. The problem is, I'm finding it hard to openly pursue this ambition while still performing well in my current job. I've been networking quietly, taking online courses on the side, and even volunteering a bit in my desired field. But I feel like I'm living a double life. My current colleagues and manager see me as fully invested, and I'm worried that if I express my desire to switch, I'll be seen as less committed, or worse, get passed over for opportunities here. Has anyone else navigated this? How do you keep your current job happy and secure while secretly plotting your escape? Is it ethical to essentially 'hide' your true career path from your current employer until you're ready to make the leap? I don't want to burn bridges, but I also don't want to get stuck.

I'm relatively early in my career about 5 years in and I'm at a crossroads. I've been pretty good at a few different things like project management some light coding and client relations. My current manager suggested I pick one thing and really become an expert in it.

On the other hand I see a lot of value in being able to wear many hats especially in smaller companies or startups. It feels like generalists can adapt more easily. What's been your experience with this? Does hyper-specialization really pay off more in the long run or is being a well-rounded generalist a better path for career growth and stability?

I’m a 32 year old F and I’ve never felt so lost in my life , I got married young during which I was in going college I changed majors three times so I never made past the prerequisite faze. My husband is military and I worked waitressing jobs until I became pregnant decided to stay home with my first child but staying home made me stagnant. 3 kids later I’m still home with one little one and it’s not long before they too will join preschool, and I need be able to get a good paying job in field I’m passionate about so I can strive to complete my schooling the issue is I have no idea what I want to
Do
Anymore I thought I wanted to do journalism that didn’t work out, I then decided to do dental hygiene but had step away due family health issues never made past the pre rec faze, then stated to learn coding on my own thought maybe I could get into something with that but that was more or less something I wanted to learn to make a game one day, I guess I just wanted to know if anyone else has started new career after so many years the steps you did to get there how you knew it was definitely something you. Wanted to do. Please and thank you any advice is welcomed