How would you approach your career of choice today?

[Nima]

You were born around 18-20 years ago.

As of today, your mission is to set out and learn what you want/need/love the most and make a living.

What would you do and how would you go about?

Rules:

- You can pick any career you want

- You have no resources (that includes savings, contacts, previous experiences, or gear)

- You have to pay your own rent soon

- Loans are allowed

- Circumstances, prices, technology, etc. are current

[Marc Wielage]

Does it have to be legal?

My plan would be to take every penny I had and put it in Apple stock in October 1998, when it hit $8. Then sell by the summer of 2012, when it hit $700 (and split once). Good deal.

If the question is, "if you were just starting out today, how would you approach the sound business in late 2012?", that's a different question (unless I'm misunderstanding the message).

[Mark Andrews]

I gather you are stating the question in general, and thus don't want to go into too many specifics, but it is close to impossible to accurately answer that question. The way most modern human lives evolve is as a sum of our experiences, even in our earlier years. No-one really has a completely free choice about the career they choose, as the choice is made for them by preferences and circumstance. Both of which can change very rapidly. But to play along...

"- You have to pay your own rent soon"

This would be the primary limiting factor, we must first fulfil our basic needs of survival before we can be picky. I'm not going to debate the definition of 'soon'. If you have two days to come up with $1,000 for rent and you have literally 0, then it's nearly impossible to do through legal means. Even loans require security and take time to process. So unless you are a complete moron, you would be aware of the fact you need to pay rent and address it say.. two months before you completely run out of money. But.. to play along. If you have no money, and need to pay rent then you must simply take ANY job you can get in the short term. Chances are I'd do waiting/bar work rather than office jobs. But that's my personal preference and beggars can't be choosers. You might also be applying for unemployment benefit.

With the basic needs fulfilled, you then get to address the issue of developing a career you choose. That means gaining the resources you need to develop the career you want. It's highly likely the career you end up with, won't be your initial choice. As you learn more about the field you want to work in, you learn about additional limiting factors. Given the same early life choices and circumstances, my development path as an 18-20 year old would likely be the same, just a few years behind. But I was only born 24 years ago. For me from the moment I picked up my friends guitar aged 7, I dreamt of a career as a musician. I followed this by having lessons and spending school breaktimes practising with friends. As I grew older I discovered that careers as a music performer are so exceptionally difficult to obtain you really need to be talented, which made it hard for me with my mediocre talent. Thus I chose to learn about recording and studied that for 5 years of college/university. Whilst I enjoyed my studies, I learnt it's equally hard to even get a regular job recording music in the current climate, thus I turned my attention to the next choice on my list. Film.

When I finished university, I applied to several post production houses to be a runner. I wanted to work in film/TV and it's post production where it's all put together and becomes a story. If I couldn't do post production sound, an editing career was my second choice. I had some interviews, but never got given a job. In the meantime I was going to networking events looking to get involved in amateur/student no budget productions mostly to stave off boredom and occupy time, again doing post production. Getting talking to a few people about my skills/background in recording, I ended up on set holding a boom pole. I didn't like the physical experience of holding a pole for so long, but it was an interesting experience which I repeated. After I'd done a few more similar jobs, I found it to be an interesting, varied, technically challenging and social job. Thus I began slowly investing in equipment, reading up, and taking jobs as a recordist. Now I can't ever see myself sitting in a room doing Post work on my own for long periods of time, much preferring to work in production sound.

If I had the chance to go back 5 years, I'd still make the same decisions because at least in terms of career, I am happy to be on my current path. Maybe in another 10 years i'll have a different answer.

~Mark.

[gpiegari]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siu6JYqOZ0g&feature=share

[Diego Sanchez]

I would become a producer and undercut every crew member in every shoot i did, that way i'll be doubling my cut.

[RPSharman]

If I were starting out today, I'd probably become a producer's assistant. It's enough money for a young person, and a good assistant is always in demand.

Develop long-term relationships with every actor and producer and executive and money person you meet along the way.

It's the good/smart assistants who become producers.

Robert

[ccsnd]

I would invest in fireworks.

everybody likes fireworks

[Jay Rose]

1. Hook up with someone who believes, like you do, that it's more important to love what you're doing than to make a bundle. These things are so much easier if someone else has your back, and is willing to share the risks.

2. Then find what aspect of the thing you love that you can do incredibly well, and polish both the skill and the selling of that skill. The money will come.

Or are you asking, what specific hardware/software should you buy, what should you call your business, where should you locate, what niche of what current industry should you strive for, without caring what you love?

You can't answer that definitively without hindsight. Hence the advice for buying Apple stock.

Unless you know someone with a time machine, use the two numbered steps instead. In other words, it has to be about you. Not about the industry.