GINA POGOL WOKE UP AND FOUND BIDER AND POSTED THE FOLLOWING COMMENT IN RESPONSE TO HARDKNOCK'S INQUIRIES:

Gina Pogol said...

Hello, I wrote the article and I do earn six figures editing and writing. My research is all from government sites and verified data, not anecdotal, which is what you guys are supplying. I also earned $80k as a paralegal with a finance degree and a paralegal studies certificate which took me six months to get. And I never say online schools get you six figure jobs; I say what education is required, online or on campus, what the growth possibilities and median salaries are per the US Dept of Labor. I think that's better than your sources which seem to be the personal experiences of disenchanted unsuccessful types. Clearly you have not "done everything right."

THANKS FOR THE WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT. I'M HAPPY THAT YOU'RE HAPPY.


Then she toned it down by saying:

Gina Pogol said...

Lawyers with business or mortgage expertise can earn excellent money writing for online publications. It's also a great way to promote yourself and drum up business. In the past, you had to go to a fancy private college, then slave for a decade before you could get a good editorial job in a publishing house. Today, publishing is cheap, demand for content is high, and good business writers are hard to find. My finance degree and research/writing experience as a paralegal helped me get my first editorial job and it's the most fun you can have with clothes on. The $ is great too. Sorry to be a little sharp with some of you but I don't like being called an imbecile for completing a writing assignment as requested. Yahoo content is more infotainment than serious stuff, but I'd be happy to offer up my sources to anyone who wants to supply an email address. They are reliable, government or edu or business sites.

Yahoo HotJobs: Legal, Advertising, Writing??

Yahoo should do their homework before posting another article like this one on the front page of their website. Unsurprisingly, the article which includes law, online journalism, and advertising as future hot careers is written by Gina Pogol who works for Find the Right School, another scam-like website that takes your email address and spams you with junk mail from University of Phoenix, Devry University, American Intercontinental University, and Kaplan University. I looked up this "journalist" and discovered that her past job before she became an editor was loan officer at CTX Mortgage Company. This is what the former loan officer turned third tier toilet shill had to say:

Not hot: data entry, customer service, and collections
As companies look for ways to save on labor costs, more of them are off-shoring entry-level "knowledge worker" jobs such as customer service, collections, and data entry. Many of these jobs can be handled remotely from countries like India, where English is widely spoken and the educational system is good. The trend is for English-speaking countries with low labor costs to pull these formerly lucrative jobs out of North America.

The writer doesn't seem to realize that a lot of our legal jobs are beingoutsourced to India too.

Prepare for top careers
The top careers of the future are not entry-level positions. They require career training in the form of an on-campus or online degree to get started. Here are five careers that are most likely to offer interesting work, loads of opportunity, nice paychecks, and job security.

Anyone who tells you that an online degree could lead to a six-figure legal job or online journalism career is clearly a scam artist. Guess what, Ms. Pogol? Most of us here have professional or graduate degrees from top schools and even a few years of work experience and we're still considered to be "overqualified" entry-level candidates. I don't thinklegal temping for $12/hour or doing freelance writing for $20/hour part-time in Manhattan with no benefits qualifies as interesting work with loads of opportunity and job security.

Writing
Most working writers have bachelor's degrees in English, journalism, or communications, but other degrees are acceptable in many industries if applicants demonstrate good writing skills. Many work on marketing, instructional, and technical materials; online journalism is popular, too. (Only a few writers pen bestsellers and award-winning screenplays.) Many writers work as freelancers, so business courses can come in handy as well. In-demand professional writers and editors can earn six-figure incomes. There are many opportunities, but competition is keen because many people want to enjoy this career.

Yes, an editor or regular columnist at the New York Times or Newsweek makes a six-figure salary. But for every Paul Krugman or Fareed Zakaria, there are millions of unemployed journalists making pennies a day on their personal blog hoping to be the next Julie Powell. Newspapers and magazines are shutting down all over the country and the online journalism market is as saturated as the legal profession. Most freelancers and online writers live at the poverty level. The luckier ones who work for reputable online newswires make around $40k a year in New York City and DC.

Legal careers
Legal careers can allow you to work in any area that interests you, including environmental law, estate planning, personal injury, and politics. And there is a career for every education level--from legal-assistant certificate programs to bachelor's degrees in paralegal studies to Juris Doctor (JD) degrees for attorneys. Despite excellent growth in these professions, the BLS states that competition will be tough, and you'll need formal training to grab the best jobs. Earning potential for top-level pros ranges from about $60,000 for legal secretaries and assistants to about $75,000 for paralegals, to hefty six-figure salaries for lawyers.

Do I really need to go into this one? The legal profession is shrinking, not expanding. Most lawyers do not make a six-figure salary outside of BigLaw. Thousands have been forced to make a career out of temping for $20/hour and no benefits. The author also forgets to mention the six-figure debt to get a JD.

Advertising
Advertising is a sexy profession and a "highly coveted" one, according to the BLS. So of course there's a lot of competition. Advertising, marketing, public-relations, and sales managers are responsible for their companies' market research; marketing strategies; public image; print, online, and TV ads; and more. This job allows a lot of creativity but also brings pressure, long hours, and frequently a lot of travel. Most employers prefer candidates with a bachelor's degree in business, an MBA, or a degree in communications, public relations, or journalism. If you can take the heat, you can pull in a cool salary--top dogs earn over $120,000 a year.

I don't know a ton about the advertising biz, but several of my friends who have worked in advertising say it is anything but glamorous. Starting salaries are around $30k and this is in cities like Los Angeles and New York. Just look at any big city's craigslist under marketing and pr and you'll see internships that require a college degree that are unpaid or offer $20 a day for lunch and travel expenses.

A View From the Trenches by Hardknocks, a Guest Blogger!

A friend from college decided on a whim to apply to law school after being unemployed for over a year. She's received several acceptances to tier 1 and tier 2 law schools. Remember that excitement you felt when receiving that huge package in the mail from your law school of choice? I was a senior in college and the first acceptance I received was from a T14 law school. I was on the verge of tears standing in the hallway of my residence hall as I ripped open the thick brown envelope, eagerly opening the glossy brochures about public interest and study abroad programs and making the world a better place with my JD. I believed that this would be my ticket to a lucrative and rewarding career serving the public interest.

HAHAHAHAHA. Oh boy, was I naive.

Nearly five years later my friend is excited about her admittance into a lower tier 1 program and all I can feel is concern about her actual career prospects upon graduation in 2013. How can someone who has never held a full-time job after college, has a significant unemployment gap, and goes to a law school not even in the top 20 expect to be marketable in our new economy? And who are the people working in our universities and colleges who perpetuate the myth to 45,000 students each year that going to law school - any law school - will make their job search any easier?

My career service counselor in college never mentioned the debt and the risks of attending law school. She just looked at my social science major and my grades then asked me what I wanted to do with my life (a questions surely any 22-year-old should know the answer to). I mentioned that I liked politics and may want to do non-profit work or become a lawyer. Her next suggestions was that I take the LSAT as if that was the natural step any poli sci, English lit, philosophy, or history major should take if they haven't a clue what to do with their life. No one at any university of law school will ever tell you that a JD, rather than being a versatile degree, on the contrary could harm your chances of employment as Esq. Never has written about over the last year.

You see, university employees aren't paid to tell students the truth or discourage them from more education. They are paid to promote the myth that education undoubtedly leads to success, money, and happiness. All too often students come to the dangerous conclusion that the more education you buy the more success, money, and happiness you will achieve in life. Only until recently has this longtime myth been debunked. The Law School Scam movement and websites such as this one affiliated with the movement remain the only sources of truth on the internet for the majority of college students who won't attend Harvard, Yale, and Stanford Law School. Slowly but surely, more students who are coming out of years of formal education - some at the most elite institutions in the world - only to be confronted with six-figure debt and no job prospects are coming forward to tell their tale. I predict many more will come forward in the coming years as law school applicants rise and job creation in the U.S. remains stagnant amongst unprecedented unemployment. Now more than ever, the truth needs to be told about the risks, the debt, and the ABA rat bastards who continue to accredit criminals to steal more money from America's youth.

I commented at the incomparable Big Debt, Small Law (if you don't have BDSL bookmarked do it now) that despite attending a T14 school, a significant amount of my former law school classmates have been laid off from Biglaw less than a year out of law school. Some of these brilliant minds who Did Everything Right! will almost certainly never be hired into Biglaw again. Well, there goes three years and $150,000 down the drain! Biglaw and the ABA will always have an endless supply of fresh meat and those who don't make the cut due to grades, LSAT scores, or sheer bad luck during an economic downturn will be tossed aside like yesterday's leftovers. The TTT institutions will continue to grow and more students will be conned until we stop them with truth and testimony from as many law school grads as possible.

I can only reiterate what I wrote at Big Debt to my friend and others like her that they need to walk into law school with knowledge of the risks and the very high probability that they will be among the sweatshop temp workers in the basements of BigLaw, a very different reality from the dreams we all had going into our first law school lecture. Law students who aren't at the top of their class need to be warned about continuing their legal education and going further into debt with their fate already confined to $10/hour Craigslist law firms. My classmates, who frequented Above the Law to laugh at the sweatshop TTT grads, are now working alongside them to survive. The legal field, like the US economy, will never be the same again. No one is safe.