How do you start a new career with minimal qualifications?

I commented before, but that was before checking your profile, web site and social media. Now I guess, I have a more personal recommendation.

Apparently, you've worked for the same company for over a decade doing data entry, you just passed your Lean green belt and you like tech.

It could be useful to look at business process automation, low code tools or robotic process automation. I've seen the combination of these things used for automating data entry processes in many industries, including yours.

There are many low code and RPA tools available (Mendix, UIPath, etc, just Google it) that offer free online training and certifications. These certs are not extremely hard to get if you have some interest in tech. For many companies in this field, hiring someone experienced with data entry, that can also do automation of those tasks is like finding the holy grail. Especially when you also have a lean cert.

It might be useful to look on Google for products like the one I mentioned and then look in your area for vacancies that require knowledge of them. Maybe there's an interesting opportunity in it for you!

Everything donkeyd said paired with critical advice:

The moment someone offers you an opp to do something in the direction you’re interested in going, moonlighting or not, and the finances work at at least a minimum level for you, take it. No, doesn’t matter if you’re a little or a lot under-qualified - say yes and figure it out later.

The highest chance of pivoting successfully, and IMO why many people never pull it off, is how you evaluate the above situation when it happens. Grind it out for 6-18 months, and you have a whole new resume as entry level in tech/w-e your goal is. From there, things open.

By saying yes, once you get something tech-y on your resume and enter into that new network, things just expand and expand. At that point it’ll hard to fail on your transition goal.

Many people however say no - they’re not ready enough, they have too many other things going on, etc. What they don’t realize is, especially with an incomplete resume (no college, college but non-technical, a bootcamp but a so-so one, etc), this is how many (or my guess - the majority) of career lateral transfers happen: seizing the opp when it shows up. They say no out of talent insecurity and fear, no realizing everyone one else is sort of making it up as they go along too early on.

Say yes when opps open up. That’s your window, your “shot,” will look like.

Maybe look outside your industry? I think you're focusing on the technical aspects of your skills, but if you've done that for 16+ years and are doing it well, you could do paperwork practically anywhere for better pay than that, I think. If I were you, I'd start applying at various office jobs and see what happens.

Sorta related - We hire junior programmers occasionally, and we used to focus on the technical skills. Turns out, the soft skills were a lot more useful. We had one applicant that sold us on her ability to get stuff done and understand what the business needs, instead. She had at least the minimum technical skill of course, but what got her the job (even though we had to make room in the budget for another developer!) was her sales pitch for her soft skills. She's been a great coworker, and we've since changed our focus towards soft skills like attention to detail.

My point is that it's very likely your skills do translate to other jobs in other industries, and not necessarily in ways that you can see from your current desk. Get out there and apply!

Hey there, email me ryan@flexport.com we will get you in the interview loop. We don't require college that is a big mistake on our part.

60 hour weeks at 39K amounts to under $15/hr (depending on the value of any benefits package), so you have to keep that in perspective when weighing your options. If you haven't had a raise in a long time, are working holidays, putting in the kinds of hours you're putting in, and having it impact your personal life, it's obviously time to move on.

One immediate idea would be if you could potentially freelance for a few different companies that maybe weren't busy enough to justify hiring someone full-time to do what you do. I don't know enough about what you actually do to provide concrete advice on this, but I would expect there are smaller companies that don't do the same level of international freight, and those companies probably would rather hire a freelancer / contractor to work n hours per week instead of having you on full time.

Contractors are typically paid at a premium, so if you could find a handful of companies to pay you maybe $30/hr for what you're doing, you could work half as much and make quite a bit more than what you're making now. Again, the wildcard here is the value of your benefits package, and what it would cost for you to buy benefits in the open market.

Easy...

Create something public in the area that you're interested in your new career. This will show a level of expertise in it. That level could be a neophyte or an expert, or anywhere in between.

Even if you know nothing, the sheer effort of creating something means that YOU are a person that knows something about whatever it is you created. I remember when I did not know regex. Not a tiny bit! But I remember the day someone saw a PHP program I wrote to parse something and savaged me online and so the next day I learned regex.

I've never forget that day I read that comment. But if I did not write that overly complex PHP 200+ LOC PHP code (that could be replaced with a short single line regex), and put it online, I would have never known what my problems were -- and would never become an expert at writing regexes.

Making what you're doing online public -- that's the key. That act forces you to actually get better. It's one of the more powerful acts you can do in your life -- and that's what makes the internet so powerful these days.

If you're not brave enough to do that, then continue doing what you're doing now. It's honest work and it pays the bills.

Right?

There are a few key points that you are missing that are worth pointing out:

1) Have your resume redone by a professional. You're obviously trainable and dedicated. A good resume will enhance these things. You don't need to pay huge amounts for this service. Good ones start at just about $100.

2) Don't try to apply for jobs that are drastically above your skillset, especially if you are trying to change careers. Skills in knowing what things to put in each spot on internal forms are tough if not impossible to translate to tech or any other industry. Skills in recognizing where processes can be improved or streamlined translate better. Your resume should highlight and omit the right things. Instead, target positions where you have ~80% of the required skills already and are in the process of learning the other 20%.

3) Consider starting a side business. If you look around there are countless small things that can be done on the side for decent money. Some can even be done with only a smartphone. Others just require a computer. This _could_ end up being more lucrative than a degree for the same amount of investment. The one warning here is don't fall for any "get rich quick" schemes. If it sounds too good to be true, it very likely is. Once you decide to do something, realize that it may take time to build up the income stream. 4-6 months is fast. 9-12 months is more common. If you want to make this about the skills that you are trying to learn then all the better.

I personally know somebody who started working in tech with absolutely no prior experience. From that story I think two pieces of information are something you might find useful:

1. it's easiest to enter manual testing and then figure out next steps after a year or two

2. it's important to have somebody who is willing to give you 2-3 days of proper training on basic bits that everyone in the field just knows and then who would be willing to pick up a phone from you when you encounter something you don't know - after 2-3 months you'll notice you are not calling that person that often

There is also third thing I always suggest - if you don't have a LinkedIn profile it's good time to create one, even if it does not contain experience you don't want to show. Once you have a profile start actively searching through suggested contacts and try to link with people who are recruiting in the area you want to start working in (I always add personalized invite message). It's entirely possible to grow your network into 500+ connections within ~3 months if you do this regularly a few minutes every day. Once you have your network sorted you will start seeing offers that fit you, mute (but don't disconnect from) everyone else who is posting spam.

> “However, for the Customs Brokerage role we require a BA/BS degree”

Get that degree. Lots of people on here will discourage you from finishing college. Ignore them. Employers are directly telling you to get your degree so they can hire you. The faster you get the degree, the quicker your salary goes up and that boost will compound your entire life.

Edit: You might feel too old for college, but you’re not. My dad went back to finish college at 37. It was worth it.

Edit: Be efficient about college. The requirement is a B.A. or B.S. degree. Find an affordable school with a guidance counselor that understands students in your situation. Apply for financial aid.

If you want a pay bump the easiest thing you can do is learn SQL. Just do bunch of practice problems and get comfy with it. It will take a few months at most. Then, when you apply for a job that requires SQL knowledge... well you lie about using it in your last role. If you're good enough with SQL to make it seem like you used it in your last role – no harm, no foul.

Can you do an online degree and work on the side? My wife is doing a CS masters, of course it's useful to be married to someone who can help, but essentially she's starting from the bottom. I don't know what types of work you could do in the mean time, but perhaps it's a possibility?

Also, see if people are happy if you're simply working towards a degree. Put 2024 or whatever as your degree year and see if people care. I've only ever had to prove my degree status once in 18 years. Keep in mind often HR people are gatekeeping for the real decisionmakers, who will care less about specifics like that. If you can get in touch directly, that might help a lot.

My advice: understand your goals and strip your learning to the bare minimum. Ditch the degree. Its unnecessary for what you will achieve in your career. Which will be working at small-to-mid-cap companies. Your ONLY goal should be passing a take-home coding test at a recruiting agency (such as teksystems - find something local to you). Once you're placed, you will learn everything else on the job.

Some advice to help you:

1). Learn a superficial amount of git and Linux command line. I'm talking bare minimum. If you have used these tools before you already know too much.

2). Learn a programming language (ONE) to a beginner level.

3). Learn HTML and CSS to an intermediate level.

YMMV, but this worked for me. Find an industry you want to work in. Find a small but quickly growing company in that industry. Email the CEO, try to make yourself look as relevant as you can to that company and ask to get coffee. Come prepared with a pitch of what you can do for them.

If you reach out to CEOs directly, you skip HR, so you skip profile screens. Reaching out to medium-large company CEOs doesn't work because they have assistants/are too busy.

Idea:

Surf what's busy.

Legacy brick and mortar retailers from October to January. Mail order would probably find your specific skills very interesting.

Lawyers and tax guys need a paperwork-focused professional to help out from Feb to April.

County parks and rec pays $15/hr to show up on time, sober, and mow park lawns every day from May to October or so.

A temp agency in general might be very helpful.

I think the key question here (looking at some of your other answers below), if not how, but what.

What are you passionate about? Project management? Product? Problem solving?

Once you have an idea of the area you would like to work, in you need to think about what you will bring to that role - why does someone need you?

If you are non technical (currently) you might steer towards test, product, BA, marketing. If you want to be technical you will need to think about how you can achieve those skills in your own time - esp as it doesn't sound like you have any time right now.

Sounds like you cope with stress and pressure well - so that is a good start, but don't fall into another high pressure role just because you can. For me pressure and stress always have to be worth the reward.

If you are savvy with computers, my recommendation is to try to get an entry level I.T. job (like helpdesk, office I.T.) where you can work 40 hours a week for similar or better pay.

Do a coding bootcamp and then apply for many entry level software engineering jobs. If you arent getting any offers, try to get some freelance coding work or build a side-project website showcasing your skills.

Having some relevant tech experience even if it's I.T. where you work with software and networking troubleshooting while you are building up some coding skill would be great.

You can take out loans and go to college and all that but I personally wouldn't.

I never went to college and I'm an engineer at one of the biggest software companies in the world, because I have experience.

Is data entry the best way for your brain to provide value to society?

If it is, keep doing it. Achieving some extra qualifications may even be good in that scenario, so you can be valued more doing what you do.

If it's not, experiment until you find that something that gives you the best return on your time. It can be a small business, it can be learning to code.

Software is pretty well paid and demanded right now and, frankly, it's not rocket science. Stress varies, but the abundance of work means you're always free to switch until you find a company that doesn't completely suck.

I've seen plenty of people who couldn't code for their life in developer positions because there are just not enough people to satisfy demand.

Best of luck

I was in a pretty similar situation and asked around in a larger organization I was a member of. Got a long shot offer that initially didn't sound too appealing (customer service) through my network, that fortunately put me on the right path to enabling me to automate my job away and change to engineering.

Thought I was just lucky, but way later on in my career, I learned that most opportunities don't happen in the first or second layer of your network, but in your third one (which kind of makes sense regarding the exponential growth).

I think it was a study referred to in Keith Ferrazzi's "Never Eat Alone" that by the way also gave me a good pointers in terms of marketing myself (even if I won't ever be the full scale hustler he is).

Anyway, back to the point: Barring any hard credentials, a good option might be making yourself vulnerable and just reach out for help in your network. Not just friends, but friends of friends, their friends, clubs, associations, organizations. Get a warm intro. My biggest insight back then was that I figured I didn't need to know somebody directly to profit from network effects.

Aim a bit broader, not neccessarily directly for your dream role, but for a company that might have it, has a good culture and is on an upwards trajectory.

Good luck!

I grew up in Hendricks County. There's a lot of your post that resonated with me, since several friends and family members of mine have had similar life experiences. One of my best friends was in a similar boat: no completed degree, not sure what he wanted to do, enjoyed tech but wasn't a strong programmer, but he had strong "soft" skills. There are a number of manufacturing and logistics/supply chain companies in Central Indiana that have a real need for detail-oriented, personable and hard-working people.

My friend hated working for a manufacturing company, but it was only a year and it was a launchpad: he was able to prove value with spreadsheets (similar to paperwork) and after hopping from a couple different companies is now doing Business Analyst work (some SQL, some Excel, mostly domain knowledge of the industry he picked up on the job) for a retail distributor in Central Indiana. I don't claim to be giving any particular advice, I only aim for encouragement. Keep knocking on doors and building your network. It's hard work that will pay off. Best of luck.

I think there's something to be said just for reaching out to people.

About 10 years ago I got one of my first gigs out of college by emailing someone I found here on HN. I just said "Hey, I'm interested in what you all are doing. Here's how I might be able to help. I'd love to chat." It was a contract position and only lasted a few months, but I probably would not be where I am without that experience.

A couple years later I just decided to start hosting interviews. I had no experience. I initially reached out to friends to chat, then people I didn't know—largely through email and Twitter. I thought nobody would respond, but may of them said yes! I haven't done interviews for a while, but you can find some older ones here.

https://solomon.io/portfolio-category/interviews/

My advice would be to figure out what you think you want to do—reach out to some people that are already doing that for a chat. Even if they can't help, maybe they know someone else who can get you where you want to go.

I was in a similar situation two years ago putting in 60+ hour weeks including holidays at an IT helpdesk job, and still felt like my student debt barely had a dent to the point where my full repayment date would extend beyond 2030. My choice was to learn programming by doing challenges like HackerRank & save up to attend a coding bootcamp instead of making some numbers in some institutional bank account look slightly lower than actuarial tables would have predicted. It's a bit surprising to see most comments say to finish college where I think you would benefit more from upskilling in a trade program that has a much shorter time horizon than college to finish, where most employers do want some sort of accreditation beyond a GED instead of taking a chance on someone that's fully unproven. That said, non-traditional paths upwards exist but would likely require relocating from Indiana and networking through outreach to find what it would take to advance in a lateral career move, maybe at an industry conference or local group meetup.

Sorry you are feeling trapped and depressed, been there and its not great. How long would it take you to get your GED and can you do it online? Getting that would open a lot of colleges and options to you that might otherwise be closed. You don't have to pursue college but getting the GED at least would likely give you a sense of accomplishment. This is a tech board so most of the suggestions are going to be tech related which may or may not be what you are looking for.

Google offers a certificate program through coursera you may look into. https://grow.google/certificates/

I have not taken them but no one who is taking them and likes it. He has not attempted to get a job with it yet though so fair warning.

Another poster mentioned this but I'll ask again, those people that have quit, where have they gone and can you look there? Could you work towards becoming a teacher like your wife?

I hope you find what you are looking for and wish you the best of luck.

This post is a good step.

I'd add "network, network, network". Tell everyone you know that you are looking. (At least ones that won't get back to your current management).

Go to meetups in your area (or online). Talk to everyone. Ask what they are looking for.

Particularly at smaller companies, people hire people they think would be fun to work with. Connect with people!

First, I think it's really important to decide what you want from a new job. Do you want job satisfaction or just a decent pay check? Starting there, you probably want to think outside the box.

It seems like you have experience doing paperwork and possibly have some knowledge of tax law, since you do imports. Maybe a company like HR Block needs people they can train (no idea whether they pay decently).

> I've even been rejected by companies in my industry

What about companies outside of your industry that have similar needs. Companies that import goods at smaller scale could maybe use someone with your experience.

It might be a good idea to start looking at local job boards and look at the ads with an open mind. "Is this something I can learn with the knowledge I have" is a good start, in my opinion. This means you'll probably need to send out a lot of applications in order to find a company willing to take a chance. But those companies are often worth working at.

Another option is to look at something completely different. Look at what market has shortages that you might be able and willing to fill. In my country, that could be pretty much anything that has to do with building and maintaining houses (painting, plumbing, etc.). Your country might be different, but these types of businesses are often willing to take a chance because they need everyone they can get.

Also, because you're doing paperwork, you could pretty much look at every type of admin work. It's really hard to find people willing to do admin work and even harder to find ones who do it well. Maybe there's a law office or another type of company that does lots of paperwork that can use someone who's been doing that for 11 years.

If you're not tied to the US, you could take a look outside the country. The UK is definitely in need of people who can clear freight through customs right now. You already speak English, so it might be worth a try to contact a company like that in the UK. If they really need people, they might be willing to help with relocation and visa applications.

Finally, it really comes down to willingness to take a chance and fail. If you want to do something new that requires failure. If you accept that failure is inevitable when trying something new, that failure will be a success in itself, because you're doing something. Don't get demotivated by rejections, try something different, but keep trying.

Hi Ryan. I've helped a few friends break into tech now and while I'm far from an expert, I do have opinions on how to approach it. If you're interested, drop me a line at my email (username at gmail) and we can chat sometime. It may or may not be new info for you but happy to pass along any insights I may have. Cheers.

As a real world data point:

I used to do data entry as well (read from another comment) and I also did factory work and dish washing. I am single though so easier than having a family. If you're interested in writing code (solving problems, making things) you can get into it. My path was: self-learning, freelancing, web agency job, SWE job at a corporation. That's about 7 years (3 years to learn, get in somewhere). Doesn't have to take this long, I had personal problems like not having a car or not wanting to learn a framework.

It is hard to get into it, particularly if you don't have the education or experience to substitute (I don't, had incomplete college).

I feel it though, if you don't double/triple/quad your income it's hard to get out if you're just staying even.

What I see are the hot languages to learn are: JavaScript/Python/C++ (depends where you are but every Who's Hiring post on HN has this breakdown). IMO the first two being easier to get into (more opportunity/lower qualifications).

I would say the easiest/fastest thing to get into is some kind of web development eg. PHP/WP or if you're interested going a little further pick up a framework like React that's high in demand. Course need knowledge before that eg. html/css/js. Anyway it can be done... Easier if you can free up time.

At this time I'm still just under $100K/yr though so I'm not at FAANG or anything like that, take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Random thought: if you're trying to come up with alternative ways to make money, you could try some kind of side hustle/gig... there are sites like Indie Hackers where people share their random thing that makes some money. I haven not figured out anything myself but it can give some alternate insight. But a new higher-paying job is more guaranteed to change your life than some idea that may or may not work.

My personal goal is to exit/pursue my own interests after FIRE but I'm far from it atm.

There are many, many, many things which a person can do to make a living in this world. Many of them might be more enjoyable and pay more than what you are doing now. Random example: I once cleaned windows for a couple of years, and the pay was far higher than what you mention as your current income above. (That was almost 20 years ago, too.)

If you want to make a career change, start by trimming down your family's expenses so that your bank balance will grow faster at your current job, and will last longer after you quit. Start putting feelers out and seeing what opportunities are available. If you want to do software, try to find a couple of small freelancing jobs which you could do to get experience.

If you haven't spent time learning to code, I strongly suggest spending a semester learning Python. I cannot overstate how many windows this alone can open up to you.

I know this is another +20 hours of your time but it's definitely worth it.

Depends entirely on the career you're looking to go into. There are certain fields that do, and should, require a college degree and appropriate certifications.

Assuming you are looking for a job in software development (since that's most of what HN is), the need for a college degree is becoming less and less. Some people are going the bootcamp route, some people are going self-taught. Just something to be aware of in terms of the talent pool, there's a ton of junior talent right now so it's hard to stand out. Actual projects you can showcase on Github and deployed on things like Heroku will be a good start

Are you contractually required to work overtime? Is anyone? If you work 40 hours exactly, and refuse to work more, can you be fired? Maybe it's worth asking an employment lawyer, seems like a fairly binary question.

And if you are at least on solid ground to sue on the basis of illegal retaliation, maybe do it. Document everything. Every decision, every conversation, names, dates, etc. Because now you have extra time for other pursuits. This OT b.s. is the real anchor that keeps you stuck.

You could consider Salesforce and learning it. There is a massive market with rather fun role / good spirited environments in the Salesforce universe. Go to trailhead.com and see if it something for you.

As an anecdote, I worked with Salesforce for a year as a consultant and it was a fantastic experience. Great tech, good solutions for the clients and the projects were good. Strangely sliding over to Service Now was easy after some time with Salesforce.

I transitioned to tech from a totally unrelated field, first into support then ops and now data engineering.

To get my foot in the door I got a number of certs including Linux+; security+, networking+, then rhcsa and CCNE. Nowadays a cloud cert would be more relevant.

My advice would be to go get the certs and be prepared to start at the bottom and work your way up. In my first 30 months of working my pay had doubled.

TLDR: There's no shame in working for McDonald's if it pays better and has better working conditions. Go work there and use the extra time/money to get the credentials you need to advance your career.

> In the past 2 weeks we've had 3 people quit from just my team

Now is the time to have a frank 1-1 with your superior. Point out that they are having trouble retaining employees, and that you can quickly make more money, and have a better life, working at McDonald's. Don't demand a raise or make any threats. Just point out the facts.

Then, here's the kicker: After about 1-2 weeks, get a job at McDonald's. There is no shame walking away from a "career" job because you can make a decent living elsewhere. When you quit, be very polite about it, and tell them that you'd happily come back for ~50k / year with reasonable hours. Make sure they know the door is always open, and that you're just doing this because of the "realities of the economy and your need to support your family."

Then, enjoy your job and McDonald's. Do good work, try to get promoted. At the same time, continue your education and look for a career job. When interviewed, if anyone asks why you went to work at McDonald's, just be honest: "I quit my job at XXX because McDonald's paid more and had more reasonable hours. The better pay and reasonable hours allowed me to continue my education."

If your current employer calls you back, hold firm that they need to pay you more then McDonald's.

I recommend you look into QA. Manual QA is easy to break into. You mainly need attention to detail.

> 60~ hour weeks, working 6 day weeks

Can you scale back to 40 hours? That is simply nuts for how little you are compensated. That would give you the time you need to investigate other options. You can't enjoy life working that many hours no matter how well you are paid.

What new career do you want?

You are playing the "yes, but" game. Learn to avoid that.

You should try getting a referral. You can cold email people with very detailed and personalized messages that showcase why you are awesome and why you are interested in working at X.

You need to leave the current job. It's that simple. Whatever else you do, this job is a huge ball and chain preventing further progress.

A big problem (and it is a big problem) with the tech industry is ageism.

It's freaking jaw-dropping. When I encountered it (I left my last job, of 27 years, at 55), I was gobsmacked.

If you are over 40, forget it (unless you are C-suite, or have gobs of money). If you are in your mid-30s, you need to have a lot of relevant experience. It's very, very difficult to break in, at that age, at a junior position. If you complain about it, expect to be mocked by folks that are secure in their own employment.

I say go for it, but be prepared to roll up your sleeves, tuck in a bib, and eat some humble pie. I have been doing that, for most of my life. After encountering the current tech scene's blatant, unapologetic, ageism, I gave up, and am working for free, doing stuff I love. Fortunately, I can afford it. I doubt that's the case for the OP.

I have a GED. I have nothing but a couple of years of tech school. But I'm good at what I do. Really good. I always have been, and I can prove it.

When I was younger, selling myself was easy. Companies were clamoring to hire me; despite my lack of qualifications.

What I did have, was experience. Even now, at my age (I'm now 59), I have an unusual degree of experience, architecting and shipping software. I can prove a lot of it. I've been doing it for a living, since I was about 23 or so, and a great deal of my work is open-source (mostly because I was a manager, and did OSS to keep my tech chops up). My very first engineering project, in 1986-7, was a full-scale architecting and construction of a custom microwave switching interface. Many folks don't get to do that kind of work for years. The fact that I was cheap labor, helped.

It's just that, these days, experience isn't the currency that it used to be.

I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying that you'll get lots of advice from young, and/or career-secure people, with a lot of theoretical advice, based on their own experience of not having trouble (but they may be in for a bit of a shock, as their well-coiffed pompadour starts to take on a fetching shade of grey. I can tell you that happened to me, and it sucked). It really sucks to be mocked for it. Being told that what is clearly happening, isn’t happening, is quite demoralizing. I guess that I sort of deserve it, because I wasn’t always sympathetic to the plight of others.

Comeuppance is a bitch.

The rewards can be worth it. The pay in tech; even for younger/junior folks, is quite good. If you love solving problems, and working in creative teams, then it can be an amazing experience.

But I think, like in any career, it's important to love what we do. I spent 25 years as a manager. I did a lot of tech work during that time, but I hated the management part of the job. It was absolutely soul-crushing. If I hadn't had my OSS on the side, I would have gone mad. The pay was mediocre. The frustration, however, was first-class, top-shelf.

I think that it is a mistake to approach a career, based only on the money to be made. For myself, I have always loved software, and worked for a lot less than many (the companies took full advantage of my lack of formal schooling, to keep my pay down). I can't even imagine doing this, if I didn't love it. The stress of writing shipping software is pretty damn intense. Every single day (even now), I generally start the day with an existential problem that has me defecating masonry. I solve it, but there's a lot of sweat involved. I write about that, here: https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...

I can tell you what I did. I had some significant problems with maturity and mental health in college, due to childhood. As a result I flunked out initially, still painful to admit. For several years I did a mix of mom&pop computer consulting, and worked as an official mail fulfillment person/unofficial DBA/IT (the IT person there was very bad at their job and didn't care if I helped). During that time I honed the programming skills I had started as a hobby.

Then I left there, went to Ithaca, and got a job as an entry level programmer paying $32k per year. I set a goal of $150k per year by the time I was 50. I got the job based on the interview, not my credentials. I worked there for 3 years with very modest raises, long and hard weeks, but with a boss that took the time to teach me a lot. Eventually he had to downsize and all the junior staff were let go (including me). At this point my skills had improved, and so had my resume.

I applied to jobs as a software engineer and had three offers when 9/11 hit. I took the one that was a defense consultancy, and started at around $50k per year. This is in a small city, not a hub or even a large city, and with no degree.

Since 9/11 I have worked hard, continually learning and am now finishing up my Bachelors Degree. I made my goal and I currently make around $185k per year in Maryland. I could be making half again as much if I went back into Cyber, or worked for a TLA, but have no interest in either. In three years I will have my degree and be on my way to a masters, and I plan to start my own company at that time (I did a quick foray into starting a company on the side - it's too hard unless you let your day job suffer, and I wasn't going to do that).

The point of this story is that you have the power to succeed. Network like crazy, learn the basics of something, then pick a niche in that something and get really good in it, then build a portfolio. Don't neglect your soft skills, like effective communication, conversations, reading people, marketing yourself.

The unfortunate caveat... I am white, and male. That means that I get to start at the starting line for many job interviews and networking opportunities, even when there are more qualified people of color or women. The unfortunate reality of this country is that minorities and women are discriminated against, sometimes in subtle covert ways, such that they have to start a distance back from that starting line in any race. I've tried to do what I can by specifically mentoring people of color and women where possible (every one of them earned it through hard work), and fighting intolerance and bigotry where it appeared. If you are a person of color, or a woman, there are networking groups specifically to help you mitigate that bias, but you'll probably have to work twice as hard to get the same shot (at least in tech, and at least for now).

Is working your way up from the mail room still a thing?

Couple of thoughts:

1. Skillset: I think other people have brought up ideas on how to get fast-gain skills that may leverage your existing experience. A lot of options, you need to know your location/market/opportunities to make best judgment. As others have mentioned, beyond tech, look at generic bureaucracy but also leadership and management and supervisor positions. There's a myriad places whose primary need is an adult, responsible, diligent, intelligent, thoughtful, serious person who takes responsibility and personal ownership. (For one of my teams, those are literally the primary pre-requisites; I just need a serious person who will take serious things seriously; everything else I can teach you; unfortunately, we are in Canada)

2. Presentation: I want to highlight that for many companies/recruiters, there's no upper limit to gains you can make by having your Social Profile, Resume, Cover Letter, and then email/phone/in-person discussion made better and more specific to the target position. Look hard at your experience working and I would be absolutely shocked that you don't have many valuable skills you may not be aware of or you believe are common (but aren't) - look for soft skills, organizational skills, people skills, management skills, process and procedure skills, documentation skills, judgment skills, leadership skills, quality assurance, etc. Look for experience and knowledge and skills you have gained that somebody in high school would not inherently have.

Btw, I'm NOT saying spend months making perfect linked in facebook web page, or go bananas on your letters :). Quite the opposite - distill, distill, distill. Make it TIGHT where every word hits subconscious keyword in recruiter's mind, rather than having them read meandering thoughts. Others may disagree, but have an easily-discoverable social/internet presence that is slimmed and specific and generic enough to be inoffensive to absolutely anybody. Your website is personal, which I love; but you should have an entry page which is more generic and more attuned to random recruiters who might want to skim it quickly for any redflags. I like Derek Sivers' idea of "About/Now Page" [1]. Here's mine [2].

FWIW, and this is the harsh reality: 45 second scroll of your page, and there will be SOMEbody who'll be scared off by mentions of Masonic, Probiotic, Religion Course, Carbon Footprint, Poetry, and the APril 6 2021 photo :D. NOTHING wrong with any of those, but your goal now is not to fight for causes you believe in or defend yourself as a person, but get a better job; pass through as many filters as possible and don't get any inadvertent red flags. Laser focus on that :). Don't hide your page, but have a front landing page that gives random people the most succinct image of yourself that you want to put out there. My 100 Croatian Lipa :->

1: https://nownownow.com/about 2: http://nikolanovak.com/

A great job many people overlook is corrections. Corrections facilities are like small towns and have a wide range of services and functions in the building.

They take anyone with a clear criminal history. Then you might work similar long hours for one or two years before being able to apply for a desk spot and you would have access to various training, step raises, and more.

I started working in corrections a few years ago and had to work 12-16 hours almost everyday for two years. Then I got a better position, then a year later an even better position, and now I just sit at a desk 8 hours or less and don't even feel like I have a job any more.

Responses here really speaks to OP's question:

(Reddit.com thread) "If I am willing to put in the hard work, What in demand skills can I learn to gain $6k-$10k per month??"

https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/qycxmk/if_i_a...

You should be made aware that the US and world are divided into classes, and you are currently in the working class. You being in the position you are currently in is the entire point of the system. It is called capitalism.

With regards to Flexport, I am not in freight particularly, but I am a programmer at a big company automating shipping and truck delivery. My total comp. this year will be $170k (low for this board) and one impetus for it is to automate people like you out of a job.

Workers at Kellogg's and some other companies organized together to better their lot https://m.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2021/11/19/kello...

In terms of as an individual, keep going to school. Have a realistic idea about majors, jobs available afterward. career growth etc. Look into it all - if my career goal was to be a level 6 programmer at Google or Facebook, I would look at what I need to do to get in those companies at level 1 or 2, and then what I need to get to that preceding step, working backwards. Also be cognizant you might work with people who start their professional careers at 21, and at 35 you might have a boss who is 28, and whose other reports are all younger than them.

Also, you can learn and do MVPs on the side.

Of course, all of this is hard to do working 60 hours a week, spending time with wife and community and taking night school. It is kind of the point, you are a wage slave whose purpose is to extract profit for your freight company until you conk out and are replaced. Any kind of betterment for yourself is not a consideration, as corporate profit is all, you don't matter other then the profit you generate on the treadmill. It's the economic system we live in, capitalism.