Choose wisely

honestly, what field is hiring at this point?
even my friend who went into IT, 50% for passion and 50% for the promise of good money, has been trying to find employment for months and just cannot, and he's still a student (last year with a good portfolio) so whoever were to hire him would get tax breaks from the government
i vividly remember being a soon to be young adult deciding my future being told "go study IT! you won't have trouble finding a job then, there's always a need for more IT people". i studied filmmaking, my friend is studying IT, and he's struggling to find a job just as much as i am
- My organization just listed 2 electrical engineer positions as night shift, pay below national average and we are in a high cost of living area. I'm convinced they don't actually want applicants. It is a great job but the listing looks like shit.
- There isn't.
  Most of the job listings are just fake.
  The rest are nepotism hires, or a 'who can grovel and impress a narcissist the most' contests.
  Its time to invent or participate in an alternate or parellel economy, the 'real' one does not work.
- It seem technical skill hire good. Plumber electrical hand craft job.
  It seem too many work too late retire late no room for new person.
- Yeah I lost my job a couple of months ago as a mid-level IT person and I've been struggling to even get an interview. I had one interview 1.5 months ago and that's it. Heck I'm even starting to struggle to find positions to apply for to begin with, and I'm scanning as far as 100 miles away.
- Since your friend is still a student, they should try to see if they can get in with your school's IT department.
  I started my it career working for my school's IT department first answering phones, then doing desk side work. That job is actually what got me my first real job in the industry. Since then I've jobbed hob multiple times and have effectively quadrupled my original salary (6 figures), all in under a decade.
- Music major here. Please tell me you need a soundtrack.
  
  if i had a job in the film industry maybe i would :(
- I work in IT and have no shortage of offers in linkedin. In hiring season it's like 3 a week. I did go to the workforce with a masters though. 5 years of education in total. Also, tbh, I'm a senior dev now (+7 years of experience) so the playing field changes a lot.
  Tell your friend to search for startups that don't pay that well just to get the initial 2 years of experience, then jump up.
  
  May depend on location and experience. I used to have so many recruiters contacting me on LinkedIn (1-2 years ago), I hid my account. Now, when I'm actually looking for a job, I get maybe 1 random recruiter contact me per month, and then ghost me even before the first call. I've probably applied to over 750 job postings, had maybe 7-8 interviews, and no offers. 14 yoe, mostly in web-dev at small companies and startups with unrecognizable names; my last role was staff-level. The city I live in is probably one of the most impacted by tech layoffs; was one of the cities tons of people and businesses flocked to during covid, now it's shedding businesses, jobs, and software engineers.
- These days, you might be better served going to a trade school and learning a trade like plumbing, electrician, carpenter, etc... Millenials were pushed hard into college and there aren't enough people in the trades now. They get paid well and are relatively easy to run your own business if that interests you.
  
  I'm a millwright (red seal journeyman) who recently had to find new employment. It's not easier in the trades if you don't already have contacts.
  
  you might be better served going to a trade school and learning a trade like plumbing, electrician, carpenter, etc
  There's a college of the trades near me that has fucking free tuition - everything is paid for by its (very substantial) endowment. I don't understand why young people aren't killing each other to get into that place. I've always been a staunch advocate of a liberal arts education but my parents paid my tuition for me. I just wouldn't see the same value in it if I had to shell out $75K+ per year. Learn a well-remunerated trade and fucking read books in the evening.

Do something you love as a job, and you'll have one less thing that you love.
- I love cooking, but even seeing restaurant kitchens from the outside made me not want to pursue it as a full-time job, not to mention I likely would have to "colonize" my cooking (make it French/English compilant), which would make it even less fun. It was really fun to "decolonize" pörkölt (goulash stew) and update it to a world where I less likely have to "zero waste cook" (add parsley and celery leaves for a wastly enhanced flavor). It is not fun when I have to cook yet another round of the bland version of it, especially when it comes to me also eating from it.

Problem is students treat traditional 4 year colleges like job training, which they aren't, and employers require degrees when they're not needed.
- I think most students treat traditional four year colleges like a drinking club.
  
  What's a four year college. In Europe I believe most bachelors are generally 3 years and a masters is 2 so it's clearly not the total either. Obviously there's some fields that are different but I would assume that it isn't those you are talking about. Is this an American thing?

I don't know, I'm a geek, I chose IT as a major, and companies are hiring at a good wage (in my field/region), maybe I'm lucky to be a geek (finally)
- Mid-range to expert IT is in good shape it's entry level that's hard to break into.
  
  I have 20 years of experience, I didn't realize it was hard for newcomers (at least in my region)
- expert IT is in good shape it’s entry level that’s hard to break into.
  IT/DevOPS geeks (and some developers) are a special case. You spend all your free time ADHD home-labbing new tech and end up bringing that to work.
  It's kind of backward of most other work :)
  
  I'm not sure they'd let me bring my 40gbe switch that I installed proxmox on just to see if it was possible

Like most kids, I was enamored by the 90s Disney animations. So while Pixar was dominating, I got a bachelor's in 2D animation.
Graduated to no jobs. Animation work is shipped overseas. And the little animation jobs there are were concentrated in a few parts of the US.
Not once have I ever made any income from my background.
Been working on marketing for a decade adding more garbage to this world.

I always loved maths, graphs, stats and fkn with computers so I can't relate

It doesn't matter honestly, you'll likely not get any jobs, since no one wants to train rookies. You allegedly have a chance by either paying the job interviewer a large sum of money, or work your ass off at some really crappy and competitive minimum wage and part-time job to "break you in". Or get good connections, see the nazi sadboys of DOGE.

Pro tip: let the market choose for you!
/s

White parents: you can be whatever you want to be. Go to school and explore!
Asian parents: don’t listen to Shane. Shane is going to be living with his parents until he’s 40.

My field has a shortage but it’s also hell on earth to train into. Okay money if you can pass the boards after years of suffering through the training.
- What field?
  
  Behavior therapy
  
  Starting NFL Fullback
  
  Carpenter

I chose Anthropology ... and I love being a school bus driver!
- So you see school children grow up through the years, see how their behavior, biology and culture changes. You're a book away from being an anthropologist,

And then you go to work at McDonald's so you don't starve to death. How lifelike, I'm about to cry.

I majored in debilitating degenerative illness. NOBODY is hiring my ass these days

I'd like to be paid to hike trails please. Preferably in the western US. What should I study?
- You should study accounting. I have a friend who is an accountant. He works 3 months each year during tax season, then spends the rest of the year rock climbing.
  Nursing or PA school can also be good. Once you are able to travel nurse, you can pick up 3 months stints to make money, then take off as long as you want to do whatever else. I have another friend who does this.
  Careers where you can make lots of money are also a good option, like tech or finance. If you can manage to get a very high paying job early in your career, you can leverage it to make lots of money at smaller firms later while negotiating for large amounts of time off.
  Beyond this, consider going into some kind of trade. I have friends who work as roofers, sparkies, carpenters, GCs, and rope access techs who can all pick up work basically whenever they want.
  I would recommend against getting a degree in biology, environmental science, geology, outdoor rec, or any related field. Friends who took this path generally failed to find jobs in their fields, even after getting advanced degrees. The advanced degrees tended to be extremely stressful, expensive, and time consuming to get. If you want to work in national parks/forests, it is not hard to get seasonal jobs as a bartender or tour guide. Working for the park itself often does require a degree, which tends to be a bad deal - bad pay, only seasonal, hard on the body, very competitive.
  If you are really dedicated to getting paid to hike, you can pursue a career as a hiking/backpacking guide. Be aware that you will be very, very poor. These jobs tend to be very location-specific, so knowing all sorts of things about the ecology, geology, and history of an area will get you an edge. But the biggest skill here is people skills - the ability to meet a stranger and like them, and get them to like you, and then keep the good times rolling for several days in the woods where you all have nothing to do but talk.
  
  I wish I'd gone into nursing. I own a skoolie (used school bus converted into a motorhome) but it's basically not possible to legally live in it anywhere. A lot of remote nursing jobs not only pay you but they also provide an RV hookup.
- Check the environmental sciences.

A lot of people don't want to do trade jobs, but that where they need people and also pay shit. Electricians, mechanics etc. The amount of stuff you have to know to be a mechanic now is rediculous, and yet they get paid shit or the dealer or manufacturer takes 90% of the earnings from the mechanics.
- Tradespeople in Canada get paid better than white collar workers on average.
  Tradespeople get paid better than labourers or service workers.
  I don't know where you live that the opposite is true.
  
  Telecoms tradespeople in Canada are paid like absolute garbage. They used to be (and some still are, but they're dwindling) part of the steelworker's union, but they were hit hard by union busting, so now the majority are contractors who get paid by the job. This means a full 5 hour run of fibre to get a home set up pays the same as plugging a single wire in at the CO. But it's luck of tue draw, and with the telcos cutting corners on everything, the "plug in a wire" jobs are like unicorns.
  Plus the rack people have all been laid off, so the guys have to do that job on top of their own, and the IT side has all been offshored to folks who are not trained or paid enough to be competent. So what should be a 45 minute job that they could do 11 of in a single day now takes 2 hours, meaning they're only getting paid for 4.
  It would not surprise me if other blue collar industries started following suit.