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Originally Posted by tripin_billie
I think another thing that is really working against Gen Y is the licensing/ degreeing of skills. I have a Gen X brother that did not need an IT degree to get into his first IT job, just had to show he had the skills. In the early 90s, being able to write some basic html was enough to convince people you were a web developer. Now, even with coding skills, multiple languages known, etc. if you don't have the specific degree, no employer is going to look at you seriously. The age of being able to pick up tech skills and then use them to get jobs is gone.
Everything now has a degree or certificate, so Gen Y has to spend a lot of money to prove they can do what Gen X could simply demonstrate they could do.
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This is an over-generalization. There will always be employers in both buckets. Also, as an aside, I personally never considered anyone with HTML skills a developer. Creating HTML web pages is not development, in my opinion.
When I was looking for a job in the mid-nineties, some employers put a LOT of value on the degree. Especially given that I had little related work experience. That isn't so far removed from the early 90s, but the degree would have prevented other guys that were more capable than me from getting some of the job offers I got.
Earlier this year, one of my responsibilities for a contract that I had was developer recruitment. Over a period of about three months, I hired about ten developers that were for a mix of employee and contract positions. One of the developers I hired did not have a degree nor diploma. He also only had very limited work experience. He was able to prove his worth and he was hired on as an employee. This was a unique situation, but it happened.
I don't think things have changed as much as you think in this area. There will always be people that will succeed without degrees and people that struggle without it. A degree opens more doors, and it always has.
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Originally Posted by yads
People are quick to jump on Relator 1 when he makes ridiculous assertions about mortgages or the housing market, but no one seems to question when financial planners tell us we need more than our current income in order to retire and live well. And I know you're not doing it maliciously, but there is an inherent conflict of interest as a financial planner to tell people they need a certain amount to retire comfortably. Since your compensation is typically tied to how big your book is. (If you're a fee only financial planner I apologize in advance).
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I think this is very much the case with a lot of things about the financial planning industry. (And this is not meant as a slight to Slava. He appears to be generally knowledgeable and reasonable.) A lot of sales is based on fear. It is hard to sell retirement savings if you are telling people that the saving are to fund luxuries in retirement. The other area that boggles my mind is education savings for children. I've read stories about how you have to plan to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in order for your child to get ahead in life. In reality, most Canadians have great opportunities for tens of thousands of dollars in their own backyard. Here in Calgary, UofC, SAIT & Mount Royal are all great choices. For people that must go away for school, there is nothing wrong with getting student loans and/or having to work summer jobs to pay for school. I think Canada can do better, but our education system is very good for a reasonable price.