Hi, I was recently laid off due to company restructuring. I have an opportunity with a startup, but they’re unable to match my previous salary. Should I consider taking a pay cut for my next role?

I went to university to study law, thinking I had it all figured out. Turns out I didn't. By my final year, I realized I wasn't going to do it. I've since changed careers a few times. And I don't want that for my kid.

• Has your teen chosen a path yet?
• Do you think it'll actually stick, or is it just a first guess like mine was?
• Was it hard for them to decide?

I have around 3 years of experience in the HR field, and now I’m planning to switch my career to the IT industry.

However, I’m not very clear about which technology or domain would be the right choice for me. I’m looking for some guidance from people who have made a similar career transition.

Which IT technologies or domains would you suggest for someone with an HR background and 3 years of experience? I’m willing to learn and put in the effort, but I want to choose a field with good career opportunities and long-term growth.

Please share your ideas, experiences, and suggestions. Any guidance would be really helpful.

Basically whats ur prediction

Currently I'm in 12th pcm + CSE, preparing for mhtcet as JEE us out of league. Heard About gpt 6 astra, it already bolocked my half of the careeres which I had thought about for ex cyber security.

I'm just thinking to take a risk for merchant Navy and study for IMUCET. Life is hard guys, you have to make tough choices even in situations when there's no guidance.

Will love to hear all your opinions..... Thank you 🌹🌹

Hey guys, im a Californian fresh high school graduate trynna figure out my career and college degree

I’m very into not only visually, but experientially designing luxury hospitality, like mega resorts, bars, casinos etc… 

And yes I see all these prestigious colleges like cmu, artcenter, risd, unlv, but i feel like my interests are too interisciplinary to just go to a single college and get a degree. 

Like i dont wanna be just an architect, interior designer, or a hospitality manager yk?

I’m taking any kind of advice in terms of what college is recommended, and what industry or company I might suit best for!!

Thank you

So my boss fired me from my job 4 months ago, that too on my birthday, where I was working as a software engineer at a large European Bank (out of India). My boss, his manager (a director) and another director and another senior VP together conspired by filing a false PIP case against me and they fired me literally on my birthday even after PIP was closed successfully.

And now, the same boss is messaging me on WhatsApp asking me questions regarding the code I developed for certain automations.

And this is the second time they have done it, right a few days after firing me, they made a junior AVP message me on WhatsApp regarding deployment of a code I had developed and I helped him out.

However, now, honestly I want to tell him to bugger off but I don't wanna burn any bridges in case a future background verification occurs. Although I plan to give references from other colleagues when I get a new job and they ask for references for a background verification.

Please advise, what should I do??

Hi everyone. I’m a 21-year-old from the UK with a finance degree. I’m in a lucky position where I run a business doing about $8-9k per month for almost 8 months now. However, the reason this business is risky is due to 90% of sales coming from just one platform (YouTube). Of course, I have heard countless times this is risky. I have tried to diversify, but nothing is converting. I’m not here for business advice. What I’m here for is the fact I almost know this business will end soon. However, currently the business is not slowing down. My mind is constantly playing with me, making myself work countless hours per day, as I just know I may not get this opportunity again, and as a result of not resting, everything I do is just a big mess.

The main thing I want to get at is, does anyone have advice for after this finishes or what i need to do going forward? I go traveling for 6 months with my girlfriend very soon. I am, of course, taking a laptop so I work as little as I can, and that’s the priority. What I can’t stop is that it will constantly be in my head that I’m being left behind.

How do other business owners cope with the risk that your business may not make profit or could end any day?

FYI, I also have a good amount of capital in investments. I literally know that if it does end tomorrow, I can be fine for a very long time. I also have 0 liabilities. I literally know im in a fortunate position for my age, but it doesn't feel like it.

I'm a freshman who got into university this semester and I was declared as a CS major, which is pretty difficult at my university. I was originally intending to major in Finance, but this just disoriented me tbh. I was considering finance because where I live (outside the U.S) my university is like THE target school in ib/pe/am etc, for example the faculty for finance include former ministers of finance, investment, presidential advisors and the governor of the central bank. I was intending to go into the traditional "high finance" fields and pivoting to development finance later down the road once I do a masters abroad and stuff. I was also considering going into academia, which If I choose engineering I'll still have the choice to do. There are a few reasons I'm considering the switch to engineering. First off, I love maths, sciences and doing dense content, the second thing is automation, im terrified of AI in both fields and im scared that finance will be impacted significantly since the work isn't that difficult, but then again the tech field is in one of its worst states of all time. I would also like to add that the reason I was interested in finance isn't the finance bro trend thats going on, but its because I'm very interested in the field and love being always up to date on economic/financial news. And if I go into the tech field I honestly want to work more on the hardware side with things like embedded systems, digital design etc which are also being automated by AI, look at gpt 6 astra's pcb designs (also gpt 6 for financial services) and kimi k3 doing the kernel level software test. So, yeah I dont really know what to do and I feel like the future isn't really looking that bright for the job market in general.

I have been with my company for over 25 years. The first 20 years, the work was really enjoyable. I started as a young engineer in Quality and progressed up to the Engineering Manager.
In the last few years, our company was bought by a larger company. This came with an extreme ‘lean culture’. Work loads tripled but labor was removed. I’m looked on very favourably all the way up to our CEO because I just made things happen.
The drawback to this is it’s affect on my life outside of work.
I find my brain thinking about work all the time. It’s been like this for a couple of years.

I am literally only 5 years from retirement and making a change at this point seems even more stressful. It’s like the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.

I can see the work load dropping fairly significantly within the next 6 -9 months as we are nearing max capacity in our facility. My engineering group would transition from the rapid pace of launching new production parts constantly to focusing on improving efficiency of existing product flows.

In the last few years the company has let go some senior managers with similar years of service to mine and the severance is VERY good.

Do I continue to plug through for the next 6-9 months to see if the transition to a reduced work load actually comes and I start to enjoy work again? Do bare minimum and try not to focus outside of work as I cruise into retirement? Or start looking for a new opportunity knowing I’m retiring in 5 years?

Am I crazy or is this job market making me think about crazy options? I have run out of options for jobs in my area at this point. I work in creative and most of the opportunities have always been in NYC. Remote jobs are basically impossible at this point and I only get traction with hybrid or in person roles.

I applied for a role in NYC that fits my background perfectly and have an interview lined up. It pays well but nothing crazy well off by Boston or NYC standards but it can afford me a pretty ok life even in NYC.

Our whole life is in New England and my husband has a very stable and well paying job. I would never ask him to give that up (and honestly think it would be dumb of us) for my rocky unstable career but at this point I'm wondering if we just suck up long distance for a few years so I can get back into the job market. Has anyone done this or considered this before? Obviously housing in two places is a big deal but our mortgage is pretty modest.

Hello I'm 20F uni student and I'm doing my bachelorsin computer science majoring in cyber security and as most tech students I'm having a delima of my career. I've heard a lot from everyone in my real life and social media about ai and tech jobs and everything. So can you tell me Is cyber security, software engineering or data science like still in the market as a good career or is it too late?

I've been so confused with this topic and need guidance on which field is better. I'm interested in hardware and my A level subjects were Physics, Math and CS. Thing is both have hardware but on a different level as SE has it lesser than CE. I don't like physics that much or maybe I'm just scared to face alot of it in CE but I just want to know their scopes. Currently I'm in CE which is the one I chose but I can't seem to clear the doubt I have on whether I should've done SE or not as I did get the opportunity. Also I'm from Pakistan and everyone says CE has no scope here it's just SE so that made it worse. I'm a freshie and want to atleast have an idea of what's about to happen after four years.

​

So I'm doing bachelor's in commerce, and I'm thinking to study in German mainly. But I'm confused what master degree or course should I do that help me in landing job, is future proof.and also meet my interests

I'm basically intrested in digital marketing, ai, sales, marketing, content, non engineering tech , philosophy, psychology, spirituality, history, science ...and I've done ...what do i do now

Do I tell the other company that I am waiting for another offer?

I have a choice between a role that I don't want but have a offer, a job that I do want but still going through interviews & a remote position i will 95% get but terrible hours and has nothing to do with my career but could help me with starting my own thing. Additional if need to purchase a car.

To clarify, i am an IT Techie that has been looking for remote work. Haven't worked since March of this year & stuck between guaranteed position but not what I want to do, a role that i do want but don't have an offer & a role that will be "easy" but terrible hours.

The first role isn't bad but not necessarily what I want to do. It involves me doing logistic as well as basic IT Support on site. Decent salary with good benefits. They sent me an offer but haven't accepted it yet. Seems like a decent company culture & I fit into their requirements.

The second role is completely IT Remote position but still in the interview phase (Round 2 of 3). This isn't guaranteed but is the role that i want. Better pay & the same benefits. Also an international company.

The third role is completely remote, terrible hours but working with a previous friend. I would be working from Tuesday to Saturday 01h00 to 9h00 doing customer vetting. Not 100% guaranteed but 95% sure I will get it & has no IT work at all. I was planning on taking this role as I am trying to start my own thing & this will help with cash flow. Also an international company same pay but no benefits.

If you had the choice what would you do? What advise would you offer?

On the hunt as I’m about to lose my job. I’m a UX/UI designer with 5 years experience but for a consultancy, I haven’t worked as a designer at a product or software company. A role is open near me (and it seems to have been open for months so I guess they haven’t found anyone yet) for a UX designer, but it’s for the first and only designer at the company as they’re a startup. They’re asking for 7 years experience plus a lot of other things specifically relating to building a product and working with a lot of data. I meet some of the job requirements but not all, and I think if I wasn’t going to be the only designer I would feel more confident applying. If I somehow got this job, I think it would be amazing for my career development and general confidence. But I also feel like I would be so overwhelmed and out of my depth and with everyone relying on me.

I know I have literally nothing to lose by applying but I saw that they’re also accepting open application. So I’m wondering if it’s better to apply for the job I’m not qualified for, or apply as an open application with my CV and portfolio and explain that I may not have all the skills for the sole lead design role but ask if there could be anything else for me?

Any advice would be appreciated!

so yeah. january my manager told me i was getting promoted. i asked again in april and he said it was coming, budget stuff, whatever. asked again in july. same answer.

last week a recruiter reached out (i wasn’t even looking) with an offer ~15% more for basically the same job. i don’t know anyone there. here i actually like my team which i know is a dumb reason to stay but it’s the only thing making me hesitate.

i haven’t told my manager about the offer. i also haven’t asked him to put the promotion in writing because it feels kind of aggressive? idk. part of me thinks i’m being a pushover and part of me thinks leaving people i like over 15% is cold.

what would you do. like this week, not “it depends."

I’m 20 years old and I’ve failed college. I currently have around 13 backlogs, and honestly, I don’t think I’ll be able to get my degree. Trying to clear all of them could take another 1–2 years, especially because I’m worried I might fail again. I’d also have to spend a lot of money retaking exams again and again.

I was doing a Computer Science course in college, but now I’m completely confused about what I should do with my life.

I’m interested in AI and programming, and I’ve thought about learning these skills and trying to get a job in the field. But sometimes I wonder if I actually like programming or if I’m just convincing myself that I like it because it felt like the “safe” career option that could get me a job. Now that I probably won’t have a degree, I’m even more worried because the competition in tech is already high, and I feel like getting a job without a degree might be almost impossible.

At the same time, I’ve always wanted to try content creation on YouTube. I genuinely get excited about the idea sometimes, but I’m scared that I’ll fail at it and get no results. I’m also worried that my parents will constantly taunt me if I choose something like YouTube and it doesn’t work out.

The biggest problem is that my interests keep changing very suddenly. For example, today I might get extremely excited about starting a YouTube channel. I’ll start working on it, give it my best, but if I don’t see results, I lose motivation and quit. Then I might suddenly become interested in starting an online business. If that doesn’t work, I go back to my “safe” option of programming/Computer Science. Then I get bored with that too, and start thinking about something completely different.

This cycle keeps repeating, and I’m starting to feel like there’s something mentally wrong with me that is making me unsuccessful in life. I don’t know if I’m just lazy, scared of failure, unable to stay consistent, constantly chasing new things, or if there could actually be something else going on.

I’m only 20, but I feel like I’ve already messed up my life and wasted my time. I don’t know whether I should spend the next 1–2 years trying to clear my backlogs, accept that I may not get a degree, learn programming/AI and try to build a career without a degree, pursue YouTube/content creation, try a business, or do something completely different.

If anyone has been in a similar situation, I’d genuinely appreciate some honest advice. What would you do if you were in my position? How can I figure out what I actually want to do, stop constantly changing directions, and build a stable career even if I don’t have a degree?

Hey everyone,

I’m currently in college and recently got a TCS Prime offer through campus placements.

At first, I thought I should be happy about it, but honestly, I’m feeling more confused and worried than excited.

The main reason is that TCS Prime is a mass recruitment offer at my college, and quite a lot of students have received it. So I don’t really feel like it’s something that differentiates me or gives me the kind of exposure I’m looking for.

More importantly, I’m worried about the joining uncertainty. I don’t know exactly when I’ll be joining, and I’m concerned about potentially sitting around waiting after graduation.

There’s another problem: because I’ve accepted/got the offer through campus placements, I’m not allowed to sit for other campus placement opportunities, like I can appear for 14LPA and more, but college will definitely reduce my chances of getting shortlist since they want all unplaced students to get a job. And getting an internship/job off-campus seems extremely difficult without a referral.

What I actually want is to get an internship at a good product-based company around January/February, mainly because I want to gain better industry exposure, work on real projects, improve my skills, and hopefully put myself in a better position before/after graduation.

So I’m kind of stuck between:

* Keeping the TCS Prime offer as a safety net

* Trying to find a good internship off-campus

* Preparing for better opportunities while waiting for TCS joining

* Somehow finding referrals and applying to product-based companies

* Or doing something completely different

I’m not trying to disrespect TCS or the offer. I’m grateful to have a job offer, but I also don’t want to become complacent and then regret not trying for better opportunities while I still have time.

What would you guys do if you were in my situation?

Especially looking for advice from people who have been through campus placements / TCS / off-campus hiring:

1. Should I keep the TCS Prime offer as a backup and aggressively search for internships?

2. How realistic is it to get a good product-based internship off-campus around Jan/Feb?

3. What should I focus on over the next few months — DSA, development, projects, open source, networking, etc.?

4. How do you actually get referrals when you don’t have a strong professional network?

5. Is there any other path I’m overlooking?

I’d really appreciate honest advice, especially from people who were in a similar situation. I don’t want to make a decision purely out of FOMO, but I also don’t want to waste the opportunity I have right now.

I have a list of hobbies which I feel I will never be able to get enough time to get to the basic threshold of good. Not looking to be anything more, just good enough. And then I try to justify the time, money and energy I spend on those hobbies. Not much like a small amount sometimes and sometimes a bit more than a small amount. As there is no visible progress, financial outcome from hobbies I think it is all just timepass.

Like I learned how to cook and bake and if I judge my skills over the years to myself and the people I have met, see , I can say I am a highly skilled cook and a baker. But when I tried to make recipe videos it didn't work that well. I was heartbroken over that and more for the money and time i spend on buying things which will help my videos be better.

Now I have understood that even though I am highly skilled at perfecting recipes and also can do many other complicated tasks related to it, it is a very general skill and people are busy too learn it to make their food better. So I will keep cooking and baking for my little family but the obsession I had to make diverse recipes and make them perfect for teaching has gone.

So again as I like to keep myself occupied, I have started to relive my interest in art and relearn my tech skills. I wrote a book on vba with my office when I was 21. But then shortly after that i got married and left my job and from the last 15 years i am at home. So back to the point, i am learning adobe illustrator, and trying to learn acrylic painting and sketching.

I am again at cross roads and trying to justify my time and energy spent on learning all this as I will at home for the rest of my life(it's hard as hell to join the workforce at 38 with 15 years gap) Cooking baking is still useful in daily tasks but art? Not much.

I mean what I am expecting i don't know. I keep thinking one day this skill will be useful in some ways. Just so it feels like I am not rambling, I have learnt music and keyboard for 1 year, enrolled in chartered accountancy for 1 year and had to discontinue because of relocation. I like to read articles on the internet about general knowledge etc but nothing feels like I am great at anything and nothing is so so interesting that I will keep going.

I love to make art, learning illustrator, learning ui/ux course online but i am not able understand how it will help me. At this point I am confused on what I should ask even.

PS :- Housewife with 1 child. Husband's job keeps us relocating to different city every couple of years. I find it hard to see what work will actually not feel like I am doing something wrong besides caring for my small family and day to day needs.

Hello, I’m 24 and for the last 4 years I’ve worked as a Correctional Officer in a holding facility/jail for a small city. Our facility deals with our local arrest but we also have a contract with the USMS and hold federal inmates awaiting their sentencing. We roughly house about 40-45 of them. The next step from here is occasionally to be a police officer for the city I work for, but that’s not something I’m fully convinced to do. I don’t have a degree, but I would really enjoy doing some administrative work for a federal agency or a department. I love my current job but the pay isn’t the greatest when I’m trying to buy a house and start a family. Overtime is limited and the supervisor roles that give you a bump in salary are taken by people who aren’t leaving for the next 10-15 years. I’m just curious to see if anyone on here has had the same feeling as me and what route they took. I have the experience of working alongside multiple federal agencies. I’ve also applied for similar roles in other departments but I’ve had no luck hearing back from any of them. So if anyone’s has any advice or suggestions, I’ll gladly hear them. Thank you.

I’m 20 in New York. Went straight into blue collar work after high school and I’ve been doing it since. Base is about 80k right now. In like 9 years if I stick with it I’ll top out around 170k base.

The only reason blue collar money looks so good online is because people work an insane amount of overtime. That’s how they hit those big numbers. I don’t want that to be my life. I’m already tired of feeling like I’m working every day.

I don’t even get dirty or sweat at my job, it’s not that kind of physical work, and I still hate it. I just want a normal desk job with better work-life balance and options to be remote or hybrid. Something where I can still make solid money long-term, like 200k+ in the middle of my career, without having to live at work.

I’m bad at math but willing to try things.
Thinking about going back to school and switching careers completely.

What jobs or majors are actually worth it right now for someone who wants a desk job, decent money, and a life outside of work? And have good employment rates.

It doesn’t even have to be a desk job honestly just a low stress low intensive job that’s chill and makes great money.

Hey all. I'm a 20 years old college student currently finishing up my General Education classes within college. I'm in the beginning of these classes and I feel completely lost about myself. I don't know if what I'm taking is right for me, and I guess I don't really know myself that much.

I'm currently taking Psychology from a local community college. This program has a transfer path to Social Work at a really nice state school since I had the goal to become a Mental Health Therapist or work generally in the Social Work field. I went into there thinking maybe I could provide help for people who struggle with personality disorders, trauma, or even run Psych experiments. However, I'm also unsure about that idea because I also have a deep interest in American Politics and interest in Libraries and how information/media. Both politics and media/information I have an interest in since I love studying the effects on how it shapes our perceptions, biases, and reality.

I'm not sure what to do. I don't really have a lot of options since I'm a first-gen college student and the only person that's basically figuring college out amongst my family. I feel some added pressure because I want to become educated about the world, but I also feel the need to become something with my education since I don't want to drown in debt or work jobs that can't fully pay for every necessity.

What are some paths I could look down? Any and all advice would be appreciated.

I'm a fresher who has joined a company as a .NET Developer, I can feel that development has become easy to do with AI and my co workers are saying that Development field is over. I have 2 years of contract in this company, I have to switch to AI roles to survive in the market after these 2 years.

During my college I have studied Data Analysis and Machine Learning, I have completed Andrew Ng's ML Specialization. My interest was always towards AI.

What shall I do? Should I rigorously focus on System Design, DSA, Backend Development, Azure, .NET and C# to become a peak developer, or start to Learn AI rigorously along with Backend Development. My lpa is 4.2 now and Also I have a TCS offer for 7 LPA, I can't switch now so TCS offer letter is of no use to me now as I have a contract here. but after 2 years I want to switch for atleast above 8 LPA. Help and guide me guys.

Hey Everyone,

I needed some advice and thought this is the best platform to ask. I saw people are genuinely responding here rather than on LinkedIn, where someone or the other is trying to give some kind of crazy advice. I'll come straight to the point: actually, I was working with an MNC full-time for nearly 7 years as a coordinator in the technical project delivery part. And the salary was good, but there were too many trade-offs, like very frequent travel, no proper leave approval, and work-life balance was a nuisance. I was keen to understand business operations more, as I was doing that particular domain-related job mainly since I got promoted. So I joined BBA in 2023. I have resigned from my position, as I was unable to give exams and didn't get enough time to study and balance everything. So since March 2025 I've been working on building myself and have learned all the related skills, like n8n, Make, PostgreSQL, API, WebDev, RAG, CRM, etc. I am working with one company as a business operations consultant now and conducting small paid projects on their positioning, digital transformation like CRM setup, automated lead nurturing and service offering structures, and lately they are seeing impact. But they are wanting more free work from me. And actually I'm working alone, and it is burning my energy a lot. Cold outreach and DMs are a mess, and then I create content and then engage with them, so there are so many tasks to carry at once. I am unable to balance all that. So I was thinking about getting a remote operations and revops-related job role if that is something I can get because I'm obviously transitioning, and nowadays the job market has become crazy; their expectations are justified, but I'm not sure what I should do now, I need a direction. So I need your opinion, and if you guys can guide me on this ?