Degree educated but won't go for managerial jobs

[MiaMarshmallows]

Anyone else know someone like this? This person is a family member. None of my business I know but I do wonder.
She is degree educated, has health issues and made redundant from a job she had been in for years (Well below her skill set but she loved it.)
Just feel she is really doing herself a disservice and feels like it's lack of confidence more than anything.

Not much information to go one here, degree educated in what?

I don't think having a degree automatically gives you the right to a management position, as we are no longer in the 1960s.

I hate bossing around DC's lives. Never wanted to manage anybody.

As others have said, having a degree does not automatically entitle you to "better", higher paying jobs.

Also what brings happiness and contentment to one person's life is different to another. Some people thrive on climbing the career ladder, whereas other people prefer a more stress-free job with more free time to do hobbies etc.

Maybe she/he is content with a life without stress.

I've got a degree and an MBA and am in a minimum wage admin role. I love it! I did big management jobs pre DC which were well paid but really not much more interesting than my current job. But had lots more hassle.

I'm much happier as I am (and fortunately DH is happy that I'm happy).

My DM has been known to witter on about my lack of ambition but fortunately DH put her straight!

It really doesn't count for all that much any more. Having a degree has really been devalued.

Besides, if someone doesn't want to take a managerial level job with all the pressures that entails, then why should they have to, just to keep up appearances and please the relatives?

Having a high-powered career isn't the be-all and end-all, is it?

I'll have

@Bandino

Managing teams of people can be stressful. Just because you have a degree it doesn't mean you'd want to do it. I prefer technical niche type jobs myself.

Very much this!

Having a degree doesn’t equal wanting to manage people, yikes that is my worst night mare.

Office on my own, no visitors, thanks

Managerial roles aren’t for everyone.

Most people I know with degrees, unless for a specific skill set nurse, midwifery etc, are in jobs with no relevance to their role.

@Covidcorvid

Every man and their dog has a degree these days. It generally doesn’t mean you can just apply for a managerial post. You either work your way up or do a graduate scheme. I know people with degrees in call centres....it’s a tough job market.

This. These days having a a degree doesn’t hold the same clout as it did say 30 years ago.

1- Most of the degrees back then were considered hard subjects and not ‘Micky Mouse’ degrees

2- They were for the truly academic (as above)

Now a degree is considered as standard as A-levels.... unless it’s from a too uni and a subject that’s particularly hard, people won’t be impressed.

top uni

Not sure what a degree has to do with management. A degree will get you a graduate position, not a manager level.

Not everyone wants to be a manager, and some people would rather have a happy stress-free life doing what they like rather than doing what others expect them to. It's nothing to do with you so just let them get on with their life. Also, as several pp have already said, degrees are ten a penny these days.

As everyone else says having a degree and management are 2 very different things.

Plus redundancy is bloody awful. It can really knock you.

I remember the abddolute worst bit was people asking me what I'd be doing next. I seriously hope you are not doing this as you seem over invested.

Everyone should hope everyone else gets to be in a job they love. That's success in a nutshell. So few of us achieve it.

It's none of your business but also you don't know if she has applied for managerial jobs and been unsuccessful. I graduated 25 years ago but have never had a managerial job. I spent the first ten years after university banging my head against a brick wall trying to get one, but they all wanted managerial experience. It nearly broke me, and every knock back wrecked my confidence more than the one before. It's a mystery to me how anyone ever breaks through that barrier to be honest. Anyway, I then had children and had to go part time as a result, and whilst I hope to break through some time soon, I'm also firmly in the territory where employers see me as 'not ambitious'. No one but my husband and sister know that I have always yearned for a career, I have spent 25 years pasting a smile on my face and telling people that I'm happy how I am, because I can't face the humiliation of people knowing that I'm a failure.

the mediocre ambitious man rises to their point of incompetence as my father used to say...

Your dad was Laurence Peter? Cool.

Shit I better ask my wife, why she isn't a manager with her nursing degree, I will wait until next year when she has finished her masters degree!

Also personally found, the managers I have had before with a degree, usually are pretty useless and lack common sense, wheres managers I have had with no degree and worked there way up are pretty good managers!

Of course not saying people with degrees make shit managers, just personal experience

I'm in management and I bloody hate it. Can't wait to get out (waiting until youngest DC starts school and I return to work full time).

I'd happily start again somewhere and train in a particular skill that doesn't involve having to manage people to climb the career ladder.

@WannaCapybara

Also, being a manager can become a dead end. You spend your time on holiday forms and back to work interviews, and can become rapidly de-skilled.

I don't have a desire to manage anyone, I quite enjoy flying solo in my work.

Yes, I agree with this. It's a lot of admin and guiding other people's careers. That's often an entirely different thing to what the people beneath you are doing. Ie probably what their degree is in.

I'm a scientist. I don't really have a manager, but the few managers in my department don't have science degrees 🤷‍♀️ Some don't have a degree, I believe some have business degrees.

Why would a scientist want to manage other people all day and approve their holiday requests etc?

I don't understand your logic at all and I'm guessing you don't have a degree?

I really think you might be underestimating how competitive the job market is!

Having a degree doesn't make you management material. Being a good manager requires you to be a particular kind of person. If the person you're talking about doesn't want to be a manager, that's their decision.

YABVU.

I don't get why you see it as a problem. I have an honours degree and it has never once proved to be of any use in my working life. None of my jobs have had a degree as a pre-requisite and I currently run a business that has absolutely nothing to do with what I studied at university.

I actually did work in management for a couple of years (no degree required, I worked my way up from part-time sales assistant) but I found it absolutely hellish. It's by no means a good career move or goal for lots of people - I personally would never go back to managing other people! It caused me huge amounts of stress and I ended up off sick and unable to do my job.

I've never been career orientated though. My part-time business makes me more money than my previous job in management, even though many people don't even see it as a "proper job" (whatever the fuck that is!).

To clarify what I said above, I referred to managers managing the people "beneath them". I didn't mean to phrase it like that.

Lots of managers get paid less than the people they are managing.

I don't want to say what she does as it could be quite outing but not many people have degrees in her line of work. She has lots of experience and I really do think she would get a managerial job very quickly.
I just think she is wasting her talent and years of experience. She will end up being managed by someone who has nowhere near her level of expertise. Just don't want her to regret this. I think a lot of her issues stem from very low self esteem and I womder whether it's that feeling of 'I can't do that.im not good enough.' going on.
She is always quite adamant that she doesn't like the idea of managerial roles and says herself that she feels bad for saying that as she went to uni but like I say, I think a lot of it is confidence related and on reflection, only she can really change that.

If I had a penny for every time I heard this
I work to pay bills.

I know many people think my work is beneath me and my education.

I don't wish to climb higher.

If she wants to make a change, she will.