QuintCareers.com
Quintessential Careers -- 
Your Job Search Starts Here!
I am a...
Student
Job-Seeker
Career-Changer
Coach-Counselor
Other Visitor
Job-Hunting Tools:
  • Search for Jobs
  • Post Your Resume

    Career Tools:

  • Career Resources
  • Career Articles
  • Career Tutorials
  • College Planning
  • Free Career Newsletter
  • Job/Career Bookstore
  • Job-Search Samples
  • Search this Site
  • Other Navigation:

  • QuintCareers.com Home
  • About QuintCareers.com
  • The Career Doctor
  • Employer Resources

  • The Career Doctor’s Cures & Remedies:
    "What’s your take on survival jobs?"

    by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.

    This article is part of a series from The Career Doctor's Cures & Remedies to Quintessentially Perplexing Career and Job-Hunting Ailments. Read more.

    Let me define a survival job for those readers who are not familiar with the term. A survival job is typically a low-end, low-paying job that a displaced job-seeker takes on a temporary basis (often as a last resort) to cover basic living costs, in order to survive and avoid bankruptcy -- or worse.

    If you have been out of work for several months and your savings is drying up and your credit cards maxed out, I think a job-seeker has no choice but to take whatever job will help pay the mortgage and other bills.

    Taking a survival job can be a humiliating experience… or at least a humbling one. You’ll need to check your ego at the door, and you’ll probably work longer and harder hours than you have in years. On the plus side, you’ll be making a living and possibly learning new skills, and perhaps gaining great appreciation for what you had -- and will have again.

    Just remember that once you have started your survival job, you still need to carve out time every day to work on networking and other job-search techniques that will bring you back to your chosen career path.

    Here are some of the pros and cons of taking a survival job:

    Pros

    1. Income. The main reason that people take a survival job is the income needed to cover at least the most basic of necessities, such as food and shelter.
    2. Productivity. While many of us may fantasize about a life of doing nothing, in reality, we have a strong work ethic -- and even the most basic survival job makes us feel we are doing our part.
    3. Confidence. Being unemployed for any length of time is a blow to our egos, but being back in the workforce may be just the confidence-booster needed to help find a new job in your field.

    Cons

    1. Lower Wages. No surprise here. Survival jobs do not pay the big money that you may have been getting in your last job, so you will still need to make drastic cuts to your budget and lifestyle.
    2. Multiple Jobs. Because of low wages and limited availability, you may be forced to take multiple jobs to even obtain a livable wage for you and your family.
    3. Limited Time for Job-Hunting. Working one or more survival jobs means you have less time to devote to job-hunting for a new job in your profession -- and less flexibility in scheduling job interviews.

    Read more in this article: The Pros and Cons of Taking a Survival Job. What Should You Do?


    See a list of all the most common college, career, and job questions -- and Dr. Hansen's solutions.

    Who is the Career Doctor? Learn more, read his current career column, or browse the column archives when you visit the Career Doctor's homepage.

    Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D., the Career Doctor Dr. Randall S. Hansen is a nationally recognized career and job-search expert. He is Founder and Webmaster of Quintessential Careers, as well as publisher of its electronic newsletter, QuintZine. He writes a biweekly career advice column under the name, The Career Doctor. He is also a tenured, professor of marketing in the School of Business Administration at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. He can be reached at randall@quintcareers.com. Read more about Dr. Hansen.



    Home | About QuintCareers | A-Z Index | Career Resources | Job Sites | Job/Career Bookstore | Employer Resources

    A Job-Hunting and Career Development Site
    Quintessential Careers, a subsidiary of
    EmpoweringSites.com -- DeLand, FL 32720
    Home Page: http://www.quintcareers.com/
    Email: randall@quintcareers.com
    Copyright © Quintessential Careers. All Rights Reserved