First and foremost, congratulations! You should be proud and take some time to celebrate - worry about the logistics after you've taken some time to enjoy the news.

Now that you've taken the appropriate amount of time to celebrate, we can start figuring out the best way to approach your new job. You have an opportunity to reinvent yourself. What we mean by this is your new position (even if it's in the same company) can be a catalyst for you to be more outgoing and engaging with your coworkers. All of us essentially create different versions of ourselves for different people. This is why someone can be described as outgoing or introverted depending on who you ask. It's worth forcing yourself to be more outgoing and engaging in the workplace because you'll enjoy it more, make more connections that could benefit you later, and you'll be more likely to get promoted.

Despite the popular advice to stick with a company for awhile before considering leaving, this advice is not in your best interest - it's in the best interest of the employer. At the very least, we recommend leaving your JobHelper profile set to active and, if desirable, to increase your minimum salary requirement. This way, you can passively receive information about what is available. It's better to be prepared for an unfortunate event (like getting fired) than to be blind-sighted. It also gives you leverage when asking for a raise.

You should strive to put forth your best effort so that you are at the top of the list for promotions and at the bottom of the list for "belt-tightening". The caveat to this is: NEVER work for free. Do not work overtime hours that you are not fairly compensated for and do not get persuaded by the "we're a team" rhetoric. It's perfectly fine to like your coworkers and even your boss, but that should never be taken advantage of to convince you to work for free.

Congratulations again on your job! If you enjoyed this tip, then please share it with others :)

This is a very common thing people ask themselves when looking for a better job, but it's a huge mistake.

Your skills are not static, meaning that the skills you have today don't have to be equal to the skills you have one month from now or one year from now. When you only focus on your current skill-set, you narrow your field of view to exclude some tremendous opportunities.

Here's a simple example. Let's say you hear about a job posting for an administrative assistant position. You know you can perform all of the duties except for the minor tasks performed in Microsoft Excel. If you dismiss this role simply because you don't know Excel today, then you potentially missed an opportunity. You could have easily learned the basics of Excel before your first interview and potentially gotten the job.

The above example is obviously a simplified and idealistic scenario but it still emphasizes a good point: there are so many free resources that you can use to learn almost anything. And if you're not regularly taking advantage of them, you are doing yourself a huge disservice. Strive to make your skill-set that you have next month better than what you have now and you will be amazed at how far your career progresses!

We hope you enjoyed this tip! Feel free to share it with someone you know who you think could benefit from it :)

Answering this question correctly can either save you thousands of dollars of pointless debt or increase your lifetime net worth by hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's worth taking the time to really weigh the pros and cons. Note that this not only applies to potential first time college students but also those who are considering returning.

Parents and teachers will unanimously tell you that college is not only worth attending but it's also one of the best investments you can make. This is wrong simply because it is not true for everyone. It is a financial decision that must be made on a case-by-case basis.

Cost and the expected salary increase is arguably the biggest thing to consider. Sorry to tell you, but your passions aren't relevant to this decision. It doesn't matter how much you love underwater basket weaving, art, or history - they will cost you thousands of dollars but won't increase your pay rate. Your landlord isn't going to care that you loved what you studied in college when your last tuition payment makes you unable to pay rent this month. A job will kill your passions anyway so keep them as hobbies. The only relevant thing to ask yourself is how much will tuition cost and what is the expected financial gain?

Something you should keep in mind is that the value that college provides has remained relatively constant. However, the tuition price has increased by more than 1000%. This is why you have to be very skeptical about people who glorify college as some miracle improvement to your life because odds are, when they chose to go there was almost no risk. They could easily afford it with a minimum wage job. Now, you need to be certain that the value you're getting out of college is greater than the thousands of dollars in cost. You don't want to be in a position where you are buried under student loan debt and your only way out is a Presidentially ordained forgiveness bill.

Time is next on the list but always remember that time is your most precious resource. You can always make more money but you can never get your time back. You know how long a degree should take so the real question becomes what could you have done in that time had you not gone to college? In some cases, the relevant skills you acquire from a 4 year degree could have easily been learned on your own in 6 months or less. Is it really worth paying thousands of dollars just to have a professor force you onto an arbitrary learning schedule? Probably not.

You may have noticed that the above two criteria end up mostly suggesting a no to the question, and that is not an accident. Most degrees aren't worth pursuing based on their cost and time. This is the section that "rules in" a degree based on your desire to go for the experience. You would still have to weigh the cost and time commitment against how much you value the experience but there are genuine experiential reasons that could trump cost and time. This is especially true for first time college students - connecting with thousands of other students close to your age can allow you to build relationships that last your entire life. And you will never be in that age range again. It's an expensive decision to make just for the experience so make sure you really think it's worth it and it isn't just some knee-jerk decision because it's what a lot of people do. A lot of people are also buried in student loan debt that follows them for decades.

You're the only one that can ultimately decide if college is right for you but hopefully this gave you a straightforward way of analyzing the question. Feel free to share this with anyone you know who you think could benefit from it :)

You need to have the right perspective so you can fully appreciate the situation that college puts you in. And for full disclosure, part of the reason I am writing this is because I am someone who regrets how I spent my college years and I wish I knew this information back then.

Enjoy the experience by actively participating in social events and meeting people. You're going to meet plenty of people who could become lifelong friends and professors who are not only interesting people but have excellent connections. If you just go to class then retreat home as soon as possible to play video games or watch TV, then you've wasted some of the best opportunities college can give you.

The above tip is a big one and is worth emphasizing. You are likely surrounded by thousands of other students who are close in age and have similiar interests and goals. It is very unlikely that you will ever be in this close to a perfect situation to make lifelong friends or meet a compatible partner. Don't believe me? Just ask people in their 30s or older how hard it is to make friends with similiar interests or date. Trust me, you do not want to waste this precious time doing things alone. College is the perfect chance to reinvent yourself and force yourself to be more outgoing and extroverted. If you've read some of our other tips, then this will sound familiar to you because improving these skills will benefit you in a job as well.

Don't pick a major because it sounds fun or it's easy. You will regret this later on when you have thousands of dollars in student loan debt and you apply to thousands of positions but don't get any offers. I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you this but if your parents or teachers have given you the impression that college is a magical place that grants you full access to any job you want, it is not true. The expensive piece of paper you get upon graduation is only as valuable as the skills you learned to earn it. If you studied computer programming to get your degree, then you'll likely be fine. If you stared at pictures and went to art galleries, then an empty $2 notebook is more valuable than your degree.

Get an internship. An internship is one of the best ways to land a well-paying job after you graduate. This can massively accelerate your career trajectory by saving you the years of experience it would take to compete in a very competitive market. And if you do get an internship, do the best possible work you can -- not only is this a good habit that will pay off later, but it also increases the likelihood of that company hiring you full time after you graduate without even having to compete with other candidates.

Use the newfound independence as a springboard to improve yourself in other areas. Even if you live with your parents while you attend, learn to cook, do your own laundry, and get on some sort of exercise routine. You'll be glad you did all of this later on. With rent, mortgages, commute, and work - your future professional life with throw enough at you to be very overwhelming at first. The last thing you need is modern survival basics to get piled on top of them.

We hope these tips help you get the most out of your college experience! If you know others who could benefit from this information, then send them here :)

We're very sorry you're working a job you hate. It is an awful feeling and no one should have to go through it. We hope after reading this section that it will help you get out of there ASAP!

Let's discredit the really bad advice first. Some rather unfortunate but popular advice in this situation (which I've heard from my grandpa several times) is "Deal with it. Most people hate their job - that's just life." Sorry grandpa, but no. Life is far too short to be miserable 5 out of every 7 days a week.

The first step toward getting out of your nightmare is identifying what it is about your job you hate. Is it the work you do or the people you're surrounded by? If it's the latter, then the good news is that you just need to take a more active approach to looking for similar work with a different company. We highly recommend tailoring your JobHelper profile toward the work you're already doing so our AI system can help direct employers to you. You can also supplement this with actively searching on your own.

If your issue is the work you do, then you're going to have to be willing to learn skills in your free time. The idea that you need to go to college in order to change your career trajectory is complete nonsense. At worst, you could earn a certification. Most likely, you can learn on your own with all of the resources available to you: YouTube, random websites with tutorials, or online classes. I have worked in data science for over 13 years now and all of my knowledge was self-taught and came from the above resources.

The worst thing you can do is spend another day employed in a job you hate without working toward an escape. This is not to say that you should quit immediately because for many, this is not an option. But it does mean you have to be critical with how you spend your free time. If a month goes by and the only thing you "accomplished" was finishing a TV series, then you are nowhere closer to getting a better job.

Again, we're sorry you're working in a job you hate. It is an awful feeling. We hope some of these tips resonated with you and help you move toward finding better work. Please share this with others if you think they would benefit from it :)