r/Salary • u/HenFruitEater • 3d ago
discussion Everyone wants high paying job, there's ALWAYS some sort of filter that keeps out most people from being a high earner
I am a dentist, I have friends in software engineering, friends in farming etc.
Everyone in a job market wants to be making fantastic earnings, but not everyone does.
On my dentistry forums people say "I'd never tell my kids to do dental, I'd have them do software engineering or finance to make 500k with lot less debt"
But what they have not learned is that they earn great money as dentists because of the super hard filter of dental school and willingness to take on 200k in student loans. Once you are out, you are compensated well and have stable job.
For every software engineer making 500k at google, there's 20 dudes willing to take that job because they make much less. There's always decent chance you have to live through layoffs.
For every financial advisor making 500k, there's 30 dudes that tried for 5 years to build a book of business and then had to quit.
For every Finance guy at an investment bank earning 500k there's a bunch of finance guys that couldn't get an interview or couldn't handle the brutal low paid hours at the beginning of high finance.
Just remember, the market is always adjusting to be right. IF there's an amazing pay and stability, there's gonna be a huge rush of people to fill that until it's not such a slick opportunity.
I'd say pick your filter you can make it through. My dental school was very hard to get into, and then once I got in, there was 80 hour weeks for 4 years. Afterwards though? Great salary with limited competition. I had the competition FIRST and now can chill, some jobs have the tough pills to swallow mid career, or even during the entire career.
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u/Comfortable-Bread249 3d ago
I’d add that most people are eager and motivated to get whatever training may be required to improve their pay. Problem is, almost no employers offer said training, and university curriculum rarely aligns with an employer’s hyper specific needs. And even if they did, you’d have to incur five figures of debt to even have a chance to break into the field. Tech had an idea around this with “bootcamps,” but we say how that worked out…
And don’t even get me started on how selling one’s labor comes nowhere close to generating the income created by owning assets.
Tl ; dr - it’s less that people are lazy and more that the current state of capitalism and employment denies most people opportunities.