Hey,

I am not sure if I am posting this in the proper section. However, I already graduated from a state university with a Business Management degree and a minor in economics. I am looking for some advice; any insight is helpful, with what I should do in my current situation. Throughout college I never knew what I wanted to do as a career. I simply picked a major that I thought was the best 'middle path' and stuck with it. I did not dislike my coursework but nothing made me excited. From the classes I did take I was the most interested in finance and economics. I graduated with a high GPA and assumed everything would just fall into place.
Shortly after graduating I landed a job as a claims adjuster with an insurance company. I did that job for 16 months and absolutely hated it. It was nothing more than an escalated customer service job that involved a lot of conflicts/disputes with customers and an extremely heavy workload. Needless to say, I quit the job as I felt that it was giving me no valuable experience or growth and for the simple fact that I disliked it. I do want to add that I was good at the job and left on great terms, as I was told that I could come back anytime I like.
Currently, approximately two years out of college, I am unemployed and looking for a job. Now I am left wondering what I can do with my experience and educational background. I am terrified that I will end up with a job that I dislike again; dreading going to work on Sunday morning is not the best feeling. I spent the first few weeks of my unemployment scanning job boards. Every job board tells the same story, if you have a years of experience in a specific field or an engineering degree (or some other technical degree) you'll get a job; however, if you have a non technical degree and no experience I hope you enjoy doing sales or being an administrative assistant.
I have tried to look up several times what exactly people can do with business administration degree. Several sites say the same thing about having a career as an accountant, financial analyst, project manager, investment banker, or some kind of human resource or marketing manager. Now I don't know If I am alone on this but from what I can tell the following currently holds true: you cannot get a job as an accountant without emphasizing in accounting, you cannot get a job as a financial analyst or an investment banker without emphasizing in finance, you cannot get a job as a project manager without emphasizing in project management etc.. Of course I know there are exceptions to these generalizations because some people might have some entry-level work experience before graduating in a particular field (such as an internship) and others are lucky to benefit from networking. Additionally, I am aware that on a rare occasion some people just get lucky. Before I get bashed by people who give examples of English majors who are business analyst I want to stress that I stated this currently holds true. It appears, at least to me, that 5+ years ago it did not matter as much what you majored in during college. However, it seems that this is becoming increasingly important. Could it be because of the economy, companies can and will only search for people to fill positions with specific qualifications? Or is it that more and more people have degrees and the market is flooded so now companies can be picky? Or rather a combination of both?
I thought that I might look up continuing my education in a specific field since my degree is so broad and I am not having any luck. After taking countless personality tests to guide me in some direction I looked to possibly pursue accounting. After some research, I discovered that pursing accounting now would be very difficult. I have minimal to no background for grad school and even if I did a master’s program I would not likely have enough hours to qualify for the CPA exam. Similarly, I looked at pursing a Master of Finance degree since I enjoyed basic finance, only to discover that apparently you have to have a solid quantitative background. For some reason you can emphasize in finance in a business school with no math background but if you want to get a masters in finance you have to come from some kind of math major. So then I thought, I like computers and technology is becoming increasingly important so maybe I can pursue an MIS degree. Again I find out that yes it’s possible to get an MIS degree in graduate school but the ones that will end up getting the job are people with a computer based background such as computer science or software engineering. Of course I know that these three are still technically options but it would be difficult and expensive to succeed. Do I devote that kind of dedication to a career path that I technically have not worked and therefore am not certain if it is for me? If anybody knows something about these degrees that I don't I would be glad if you shared.
So at the end of the day I am up sh*t creek in my business management boat without a paddle and no sense of direction. As a kid I was always told "Go to college and get good grades" and that was all that mattered, apparently that was incorrect. Will further research into some kind of graduate program or career path set me straight? But how do I know which ones to research when I am not certain what I want to do? Do I just mass apply to jobs in hopes that I will fall into something and it will not be a job I hate? And if I mass apply my resume will not be specific to any career path so my chances of landing any job vastly diminish before I leave the gate. What do I do? Where do I go?

I tried looking for a job while I was working. In fact I was doing this 6 months prior to quitting and nothing came of it. I got to the final rounds of interviews for two jobs, one the position was canceled and the other chose another candidate. It got to the point where I was literally just hating waking up because of a job, and after doing that for over a year I felt for my sanity it was better to quit. Trust me it was not an easy decision, I wanted to quit after 2 months but stayed for 16 months if that gives you some perspective as to how long I tried to ride it out. I know its easy to just point a finger and say that I should have stayed but only I know what I was going through.

Also you say you were a math major that landed an accounting job. My question to you is when did this happen, in the 90's? Not to mention a math degree is a quantitative degree and is probably looked at more favorably than a general business degree. I have applied to so many accounting jobs with no response. The vast majority of employers that respond to my application are looking for customer services or sales positions.



I feel like you are contradicting yourself with this comment. You say 'kids' believe college will do wonders and then you stated the easiest way to change careers is with continuing education?

The reason why I am considering going back to school is for a specialization. A general business degree will only get me sales or customer service jobs in this economy. No one is willing to hire the guy with a broad business degree for an accounting job when the market is flooded with accounting degrees applying to the same job?

Anyway thanks for the response like I said any feed back is helpful.