SnowGoose69

In this economy, not much because when the job market is very poor you rarely find people with degrees too far outside of a career getting jobs in it. In 1999 people with Chemistry degrees were getting hired to work finance jobs because there were not enough people out there with business, marketing, or finance degrees looking for work to fill those jobs, but thats certainly not happening now. Earth Science teacher and environmental science positions are two that I know of where many people with meteorology degrees work, I'm sure there are others too.

From about 1990-2005 the employment out of school was very good for those who had internships and went hard for jobs, it dropped markedly thereafter due to the stiff competition due to more graduates and slowing NWS openings (which really started more in the latter part of the 90s). The employment was pretty dismal in the 80s from I understand before the NWS expansion started occurring, I met a shoe salesman in a store in NYC when I was still in high school who graduated in 1984 who said he could not find any employment and a friend of the family also had a son who graduaed around 1985 with similar problems...the whole thing may be somewhat of a cycle, we could see a drop off 10-15 years in the # of Met grads due to spreading word of the employment problems and the whole thing could repeat again.

My experience is that many people with a degree in this field often never work in it, either because they realize late in their college career that they do not want to relocate away from their home region, the pay is much worse than they anticipated, the shift work is an issue for them or for whatever reason they decide they'd rather do something else. It seemed back when I graduated school that those who wanted to find work in the field DID and the rest simply did not want to work in the field, now it seems its alot harder, even for those with high GPAs and internships during their college tenure.

The CWSU thing has been ended for now...so no changes, but it does not mean the 2 office consolidation idea won't eventually come back. The biggest problem in this field I think in 2011 is not so much breaking in, its very much advancing or moving around and I'm not talking about NWS people (its getting harder to advance and move there too!)....there are many graduates now so what is occurring is that alot of the positions that 10 years ago went to people with experience no longer are because they are so many cheap labor new grads in addition to a shaky economy where businesses are trying to be cautious with their money. If only some clients of these corporations knew how horrendously experienced, or NOT experienced some of these people were providing them with weather advice they'd probably run for the hills...with that said I was just informed last night about another recent position with a relatively large company that has gone to someone right out of school, a position which is in a very sensitive area of the field which should never be going to a person without IMO at least 10 years of experience.

Even that section I have bolded is often not true....I know of several very good jobs in the private sector that were open in the last couple of years which went to people right out of school despite the fact they did indeed interview multiple candidates who were way more eperienced and qualifited....the reason? Obviously they can pay them alot less....in reality people coming out of school have alot of say as to whether or not they break into the career...if they do 1 or 2 internships during the course of their undergraduate career and develop knowledge of forecasting they will have an exceptionally good chance of being competitive for entry level jobs, a decade ago someone could be a forecast ditz out of school and probably still get hired...the hardest job to get in this field nowadays is more the 2nd one than the first since because as you said there is such a massive supply of entry level folk you need to give them a damn good reason they should hire you for more money instead. This of course brings up the other issue that you could get stuck where you're at...this has become a topic of discussion recently in the NWS...people at HPC/TPC/OPC are having a very hard time transferring to a WFO, the same goes for interns trying to lateral and interns trying to become forecasters at offices other than the one they are in....one of the mets on this board tried to lateral as an intern 4 or 5 times and was rejected on each one.

My experience largely shows that not wanting to relocate and S/O issues are the two most frequent barriers to people never getting jobs in the field more than it is the market itself. Recently I think with the increased number of grads the lack of jobs is becoming a bigger factor. One thing I would strongly tell anyone is that if you do become involved in a relationship with another student in the department that one of you will likely never work in the field...unless you live in either the BWI/DC or Norman/OKC metro areas...those are really the only two places in the nation that 2 meteorlogists can both find work in...generally whoever lands the job first will be the meteorologist of the family and the other will have to explore other options...I know of 3 couples who ultimately did this.

Law is a horrid career to get into these days and most lawyers will tell you that themselves...its actually alot like meteorology in that there are simply too many lawyers out there...the issue though unlike meteorology is not that its hard to get a job its hard to get a good one and considering how long and how much work it takes to get a law degree it makes it that much more unacceptable to get payed poorly...20 years ago you could have gone to "Podunk University Law" and gotten a 6 figure paying job out of school, nowadays you had better have gone to a top tier school or graduated with a 3.8 or higher from one of the lower tier ones or you can forget about ever making 6 figures, I'm not talking about out of school, I mean for the duration of your career....there is no reason with 1,000 Columbia grads they are hiring a guy who went to U Albany with a 3.1 GPA. ...business is a broad scale major that covers you for many careers, but many of those are areas which tend to be highly economy reliant in that when the economy is in the gutter you are going to struggle mightily to land a job in any of them.

I wouldn't even focus on him being stereotypical of the Asian students per say...just that generally the rule is good in math and theory, terrible forecaster....good forecaster, terrible with the math and theory...not always true but true more than 50% of the time...whether its 50.01%, 88.9%, 63.5% etc. I don't know but I'd bet the house its over a 50% correlation for sure.....the smartest people unfortunately often have trouble grasping very basic concepts and social skills...I have such a hard time understanding how someone can be unable at the age of 30 or 40 to hold a 5 minute normal conversation but sadly many PhDs out there in ALL fields, not just meteorology do.

I'd imagine its not all that high but that may be a product more that over the course of my years in this field I have not come across many minorities for whatever reason...I honestly have only seen one African American meteorologist in 15 years and although I have seen numerous Asian professors in the field I don't believe I have ever come across an operational forecaster of Asian descent even though I do see plenty of Asian students at conferences etc.

30-40%??? Try maybe 15-20% sir and that might be a over estimated percentage as well.

Its gotten very hard the last 2 years from what I can tell....you are correct from about 93-04 it was it was tough and there was a brief window there from 04-08...if you didn't get in then you was screwed.....when I was in school mid 90s they basically told us AccWx or bust boys and girls!

I think he was more focusing on the people who fit that bill who do get through the program basically implying they are screwing everyone around them in the field and don't even really have much of an interest yet they are stealing alot of the jobs.

Change IS to WAS.....it seems the moves in that direction that started maybe 10-15 years ago has slowed quite significantly the last few years or so...I have noticed an increased number of non-mets on TV both TWC, CNN, FOXNEWS, and local stations since maybe 2005-2006....I think the TV personnel more or less realized that in this day of great forecast modeling and strong NWS forecasts overall they can afford to go more with the personality and pretty face.

They don't, as mentioned in many of the threads many don't ever work in the field or many that initially do eventually move onto something else...the shiftwork bug bites many before the age of 30, particularly women as they don't want to work shifts once they're married and having children...I noticed a marked decline in my ability to tolerate overnight shifts as I got into my late 20s vs. my early 20s...it was an amazing difference in just about a 5-7 year period.

Some of the HR reps are good, some are okay, some are quite bad...there was even some really odd activity going on last year during the USAjobs reformat period in which you had to re-send all of your documentation since they switched systems...some of the reps were calling applicants after the close dates asking them to send in their documentation while they were not calling others, this is a big no no since nothing can be sent once the announcement closes, if you missed out you missed out...and its in essence a double no no since if you're going to call some you need to call all.

You're better off doing something else if thats the case though, most people enter this field anticipating they'll eventually get an NWS job since outside of very small percentage of private sector people thats the only way to financially get by, unless of course you have a 2nd income...I'm fortunate enough to be one of those few to make it in the private sector but it took awhile to do so.

Logic does tell you that eventually it would have major trickle down effects as generally vets are only qualified to be interns and not forecasters so, true...how WOULD they be able to fill those forecaster roles as people advanced and retired?

Its likely something is going on differently because numerous people in the met job thread with extensive experience, ie eyewall, osumetstud who had been getting referred almost automatically have not been referred to anything or only once in recent weeks.

See my posting regarding the vet status deal over in the meteorologist only section for the NWS thread...its likely this will be a short lived change for the reason I state and keep in mind, that is just 2 offices, odds are its occurred elsewhere as well...

I wanted so badly to work for Environment Canada in Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver but the punks didn't hire anyone who was not a Canadian citizen, not even someone with a VISA...not sure if that policy has now changed....if it has they might stick you in like Winnipeg though.

Most schools don't and most other majors at my school did not allow it, its just that the departmental staff never got together and made it policy I assume, thank goodness...I still managed a 3.15 overall, I never could grasp how I was so amazingly strong in virtually every other subject of study but so terrible mathematically...even many friends I had who struggled to get 3.0s in their liberal arts majors could get As and Bs in calculus classes.

I can't remember what I got, it was either C-, C or D+...I know that much.

Ds get degrees, at least that was the case at my university, some of the bigger ones like PSU, OU, Wisconsin that is not the case, notice to all....if you are weak in math I'd strongly advise going to one of the smaller schools, they tend not to have the C or C- requirement for core courses and generally are more forcast based....nobody is going to ask for your transcript the majority of the time outside the NWS and even if they do they could give a rat's booty about your Ds in math if your Met class grades were good.

For all the complaining about just GETTING a job being a problem, my experience myself and among others is that often times the 2nd or 3rd job is the harder one to get...the reason being the field is so low paying, as a result even though you might have strong experience after 4, 6, or 10 years alot of the hiring companies are going to tend to go for the less experienced guy they can pay less money too.