Jobs you would or wouldn't reccommend to your children

[Maine234]

My son is still young but is starting to think about what job he would like to have when he is older and it got me thinking about the types of jobs I would reccommend to him.

I dont have any experience with emergency services or teaching but as an outsider looking in, it seems to me that both areas are overworked, underpaid, understaffed, underappreciated and very stressful with a poor work life balance. So I would be telling my son to think very very carefully before going down these routes.
I would also advise against anything strongly reliant on tourism as that seems to be the first place people cut back when money is tight and every recession sees thousands of job losses in tourism.

If I had to reccommend some industries I would go for phamaceitucals, waste management or food producion. They are the first industries that spring to mind when I think about stability because people will always need medicine, food and a way to get rid of their rubbish.

Interested to hear what other jobs or Industries people would or wouldn't reccommend.

Public sector are good. NHS, civil service etc. fairly protected, hard to be made redundant and reasonable pay.

I wouldn’t actively dissuade them from anything in particular, but I wouldn’t want them to do anything just because I do or don’t want them to do it. Like don’t become a doctor to impress me etc

Local governments are going bankrupt (section 114s everywhere) with constant fear of redundancy for the last 6 months as dh’s council is getting rid of 2100 staff (out of 5000 employees). Hopefully, by the time dc are old enough to work it’ll be better but currently I wouldn’t go near.

I'm about to retire from policing. I wouldn't want either of my sons joining and wouldn't want anyone's daughter joining either.
Police are run ragged and pilloried by the press and public ( sometimes deservedly so but the vast majority do their absolute best)

My son (21) did an apprenticeship straight out of school and is now an electrician.. not the hardest job in the world and makes good money.
I have a friend in HR who again seems very happy and earns lots.
I know two nurses, both don't enjoy the job.

See my post above re local government redundancies (not hard at all and terms and conditions are statutory so capped at £658 per week for calculations).

nhs - making lots of redundancies this year in nhs England and trusts (we’ve just merged and there’s been lots of job losses).

i spent last year not knowing if I had a job and now mine is confirmed, dh is in that position in local government.

not sure why you think it’s protected. Sadly that’s not true.

not in I’m, but a cousin rose from sanitation worker to depot manager. Made 150k after overtime, retired now at 55 with a pension.

Stay well clear of Costa coffee/ Starbucks the poor staff are ran off their feet making coffee for the most pretentious plonkers i actually can’t go into one , the desperation to look hip makes me cringe so hard 😬

Not policing . Not unless you want to be filmed every minute of your working life , with the knowledge that whatever you do , it will be simultaneously not enough and too much , and with the knowledge that absolutely everyone can do your job better than you .

Depends on the job you’re in. For trained/graduate staff, I’d vote local govt over health. Both as at risk of cuts. So is pretty much everything at the moment, including private sector.

I recommend software engineering, interesting and good money.

I think nhs it depends on your role. It’s crap on pay but if you find a bit your passionate about then the job satisfaction can be brilliant.

DS (13) keeps on saying he wants to go into the armed forces, which I find really worrying. I don't know the best way to dissuade him.

The thing is, they have their own ideas. And they turn up quite early. What does he like now?

I wanted initially to go into advertising, because I loved ads and writing. I started a job on the fringes of the media, and it wasn't just that I hated it and couldn't do it, I was also so fricking BORED every day. I didn't care about any of it.

Then I got a job in a hospital as a physio assistant, and bingo. Healthcare is where I want to be, always. It's all I care about. And I spent an unusually large amount of my time as a child buried in novels about hospitals, nurses, illnesses and doctors.

I'd recommend anything that means working for an organisation that makes some difference to people/the community rather than aim to make a profit and line shareholders pockets. I've worked in both and my heart just couldn't get into the latter

Biased towards creative industries as it's all I know.

Most parents wouldn't recommend this anyway, but I'd say tell them to avoid acting at all costs, even if your little darling is blessed with a gift and it's all they want to do..having worked with struggling theatre actors and massive movie stars, they are all the same. It changes you as a person and within a few years they are all paranoid, narcissistic and no fun to be around. And the vast majority are broke.

Other creative industries roles are great - animator, VFX designer, graphic designer, film or music producer. Lots of future tech applications for these skills. Just need to make sure to develop a broad skillset and keep an eye on how to commercialise your work.

I'm a CEO in the arts and earn probably less than a fifth of what most CEOs would...but still an ok wage for an endlessly creatively satisfying job.

Don't be so down on the humble spreadsheet - dh uses them - he solves unstructured interesting problems, he uses spreadsheets to test his creative ideas (and he drives a nice car) - he loves his job - there's nothing "sad" about it.

I don’t want to dissuade my kids from any career, they should follow their hearts and do what they want to. That’s what I did and I’m happy 30 years later.
i’m so sad people hate teaching and nursing. They are so important. They should attract much higher salaries for a start

Guy I went to school with worked for rentokill for a bit and then set up his own business doing the real sharp end that even rentokill subcontract- think bodies not found for a long time, messy suicides, extreme gross hoarding/ cat lady situations. He is minted. Where there’s muck there’s brass. He doesn’t do it himself anymore but he did when he first started out.

Lots of the sectors people are recommending on here aren't ones I'd recommend: I don't know many happy lawyers/solicitors, the ones I know know they are in it for the money but don't tend to love their jobs (might just be the ones I know); IT depends what you do, not all jobs in IT are great and many will become automated so it depends on specialty and whether you love it; same for accountancy, need to specialise in the more complex tasks because a lot has become automated.

I pretty much love my job, I'm an academic and I like teaching students and researching things. I'd definitely recommend it as a sector, but if you go onto the Academic Common Room threads, most people hate it/feel burned out/can't see themselves staying in it for a long time. I'm lucky with where I work and I'm lucky that I am slightly under the radar so not under a huge amount of pressure to be an international super-star academic, I just jog along for now doing what I do to a good standard and that seems enough.

I think a lot of the 'good professional jobs' have become so target-driven and demanding, like medicine and teaching, that they have become unenjoyable, and thus the downsides like dealing with stroppy kids or patients become too great. Even law firms want their pound of flesh.

I think after 20-30 years every job becomes unenjoyable pretty much and so it's not that sensible to ask those that far on what they recommend, plus so much has changed in each sector (e.g. journalism and ChatGPT) that the job's not really the same.

I'd be happy if my children did an interesting and fulfilling job, which paid enough but not crazy amounts so as not to ruin their lives. I don't think there's one sector that would deliver that these days, they are better off preparing for moving sectors more than once in their lifetimes and having portfolio careers.

The one person I know who loves their job and has done very very well (internationally) is in waste management. They are at the forefront of actions to help climate change and recycling!

Agreed- biowaste and energy generation from that is going to be huge. I think any area of green tech/ engineering would be a good choice. military tech would be interesting too.

From my experience:

Avoid
Teaching- long hours with high pressure
Food production- I used to work in the lab side of food production and it’s all low paid work with little scope for promotion. Not just the lab side but especially the factories and farming.
Ecology or conservation jobs- you need a lot of qualifications for minimum wage and not very secure.

Would recommend
University admin- OK pay, flexible hours, nice environment
Data/ general tech- good pay, flexible, doesn’t take over your life too much

@DanceMumTaxi A long university course where it’s difficult to balance university plus work and social life. Followed by a job that is pretty thankless most of the time, clients will get angry about the smallest things and can be aggressive and threatening.

i work in a deprived area where not many people have insurance so constantly battling between trying to give good care and not getting sacked for not fully charging for things. £1400 for a dental at my practice for example. It’s insane money that most people can’t afford.

Long hours, I’ve never once left on time and there’s always something to do.

A lot of my colleagues are leaving the job, many have mental health issues. Just look at the veterinary suicide rate.

Some days you get through to a client or know you’ve made a real difference but a lot of the time you’re just faced with angry, stressed, upset owners and despite wanting to do your all to help you just can’t.

it was my dream as a child but now it’s a huge cause of stress. I want to make a difference but I’m not sure I am. I come home from work at 8-9pm after starting at 8am and often fall asleep without dinner absolutely exhausted waking up just in time to start work again. I have no work life balance at all.

@vet73 that sounds so hard. Maybe I’ll be trying to dissuade dd, it seemed like a better option than dance college and musical theatre but maybe not.

@Chickenkorma64 I'm a geoenvironmental engineer, so pretty close. It's not something I think a lot of people have heard of. I hadn't before doing it. It's definitely not as bad as some jobs. Are you a geotechnical engineer?

Science is poorly paid but he'll always have a job even in a pandemic