Job, redefined: A skill someone will pay for
There is so much talk in D.C. about creating jobs. But how does someone actually do that? What can a politician do, literally, to help create jobs for his, or her, constituency? That is the very simple, but oh-so-obvious, question that journalist, Adam Davidson (of NPR Planet Money fame) poses in his first column for The New York Times Magazine.
He’s calling these guys out: “Every politician currently has a “jobs plan,” very often a list of vague proposals filled with serious-sounding phrases like “budget framework” and “regulatory cap” that are designed, for the most part, to mean both everything and nothing at all.”
We have a huge problem on are hands, and Adam explains why in really straight-forward language. One of the main takeaways is this: you’ll have a job is you can do something that someone will pay you for. It sounds simple on the surface, but think about it (I’m talking to you, Liberal Arts majors). Unless you can provide an actual skill — building cabinets, designing an app, teaching Portuguese — to the marketplace, you may be left behind.
When I graduated from school, I had no idea what I wanted to do for a living. After many job-angst conversations with friends over a beer, or four, I realized no one had a clue. Part of the problem? Job titles are useless! How are you supposed to know what you want to do if you don't know a) what jobs are out there in the first place and b) what it's really like to work in the gig. Dig This Gig attempts to find answers by going straight to the source — you! 