I was an air traffic controller for 35 years. I very highly recommend that as a career path for anyone who has the aptitude.

It’s a bit hard to tell whether a person has the aptitude or not without giving it try. But if a person is intelligent and quick-thinking, that’s a very good start. By quick thinking, I don’t mean witty or even good on his feet (in conversation). I mean just being a fast thinker. Flexibility (the willingness to change the plan) is also very important.

With a BS degree he is qualified to apply. No specific training or education is required to apply. Although if he does get the job, I’d recommend learning as much as he can about flying and aviation in general (most applicants don’t do that, but they should). Open bids come out every so often. The last one was about 2 or 3 years ago, I think, so the next one might be soon. They have in the past gone a decade between open bids, so if he’s interested, be sure to jump on the first bid that comes out.

There is a period of training in Oklahoma City, then on-the-job training at an actual facility. If he doesn’t have the aptitude, he will probably fail one of those two training programs. (I say probably because some with very weak aptitude do make it through, unfortunately. If you don’t have the aptitude and you do make it through, you might not enjoy the job all that much.) If he fails then he’ll have to fall back on his degree.

The pay is very good (more than most college graduates), and the job security and pension are fantastic. You work with sharp, fun, and very interesting people. There is never work to take home. When your shift is over, you’re done. The work itself is very rewarding and, for me (and for the majority of controllers who are good at their job), extremely fun. I really, really loved it. If I had to do it over again, and my options didn’t include things like baseball player or internet billionaire, I’d pick the same career.

Feel free to ask me any questions here or via pm.

[quote=svelte][quote=scaredyclassic]My middle son recently graduated wuth a BS in construction mgt and is having some difficulty finding any job.

I find myself with no advice or insight.
[/quote]

First commenters have given some good advice already.

Did he choose construction management because he likes hands-on construction, or because he likes to manage?

If he likes hands on construction, I think Josh is on the money. Do a year or two of framing, etc…then when the economy turns around he’ll have a degree *and* real-world experience. If it takes awhile to turn around, he can always choose the path of this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtXVIqkc3iBk0bV5gvcNWgw

I watch his videos a lot and he explains how he got to where he’s at. I believe he says he makes six figures now as a handyman and doesn’t even have to find new customers – he has a large client base and can pick his work. He is based out of Denver I believe.

If he doesn’t like hands-on construction, then he needs to figure out what he does like to do. That may take awhile and require multiple fresh starts. Not so much recently but a couple of decades ago most of the software developers I knew had a degree in something else, and it varied quite a bit from psychology to HW engineering and even business management. Having the degree and experience are the key things. He has the degree. Now he has to decide what experience to start working on.

When my sons graduated high school, one of them thought he wanted to be an auto mechanic. He showed us a brochure for a school up in LA that wanted like $40K a year to teach him. We told him: tell you what, get yourself a job as a mechanic right now, hold the job a year and if you like it, we’ll spring for that school next year. He made it six months and decided it wasn’t for him. Cha-ching saved myself $40K. He is now in college working towards an engineering degree.[/quote]

Being a car mechanic is only fun when it’s only your car. Most of the time, it sucks when you have to fix other people’s problem and your life depends on it. People that do well care more about running the business than actually doing the hands on work…

Should tell you how I found my career also. When I graduated HS, I was convinced I wanted to be an architect. I was 2 years into a 6 year architecture degree at a major midwest university when I decided I was badly mistaken…didn’t like it at all. Kind of like flu said, it’s one thing to be drawing/working on your stuff…entirely different when someone else is calling the shots!

So I quit school, quit my job, packed up my bags and moved to California. Still confused as to what to do, I worked odd jobs for a year and basically did nothing but manual labor during the day and play at night. My buddy was a computer science major so I tagged along with him to the computer lab when he worked on projects. That lit my fire, that’s what I wanted to do. So I applied to a California university and got in as a computer science major.

That’s how I found my niche and I never looked back.

Sometimes in life having no choices but one choice is a good thing. My sis listened to my parents and majored in bioengineering at berkeley. She hated it and almost flunked out. transfered to econ… Got a bunch of odd jobs over the summer, nothing major. Had only one interview for a full time job while job hunting. She got the offer and took it because she had no other options… ended being an investment banking at one of the big firms paid crap, but ended up doing M&A so it turned out good. Fast forward to today…same sibling got screwed over by a few companies, including last one who let her go, we think because they found out she was going on maternity…since it wasn’t performance related, since she was top performer. Was juggling kids and tried to reenter workforce and again got only one offer from a tiny company that allowed her to work at home… That company just IPOed this last month.

One of my younger cousin was in a similar boat. Wasted dad’s money and half way through medical school decided she hated it, lol. Switched into finance and got one interview with one job at the almost failing Barclays, when everyone else was jumping ship. She had no options, so stuck with it. Today she’s a Managing Director there…Funny how life screwups always end up working itself out in the long run.