What types of careers consistently make the most money entering with no background or social skills?
"You may think it sucks to have learned a crap ton of category theory, which is seemingly useless outside of academia, but have you considered picking up a ""functional"" programming language, e.g. Haskell?  How about Java or, more recently, Scala? I would bet that you would love Haskell.  And then you can make a fortune working at Jane Street Capital, which uses OCaml, another functional programming language. Time to get your hands dirty with some programming experience.  Minimal social skills required, as you had wished for, plus maximal compensation, plus you get to keep using math that was sort of close to your research area. Good luck." "It sounds like you're massively under-selling yourself.  You presumably have a degree to get into the PhD program, and you now have work experience as well.  But you're applying for jobs in fast food restaurants. You may struggle to get a job because they will expect you to only be there a few weeks until you find a ""proper"" job."
If that's not a politically loaded title to your post I don't know what is.  Wal-Mart pays it's employees the wage that it is competitive, in line with similar types of work, and what it is able to afford and still offer the pricing they can on the products they offer (and still make money).  What they're doing is legal and ethical.  Additionally, if the people that work at Wal-Mart need more money than their jobs offer, what concern of their employer is that?  If the people don't like that they don't make enough money at their job and have to take welfare, then it's their responsibility to improve their situation, not their employer's to give them more money for the same work just because they don't earn enough.  Is Wal-Mart's (or any place of employment for that matter) mission to enrich their employees or to do business to make a profit?  I hope your answer is the latter.  If it's not I think you're less an advocate of business and more an advocate of socialism and wealth redistribution. Your gut feeling is absolutely spot on - you shouldn't be worrying about pension now, not at the age of 25. Assuming that you're not a footballer in the middle of the most productive part of your career and already have a fat wad of crunchy banknotes under your pillow that you're looking to set aside for a rainy day when you won't be able to play at your prime any longer. That doesn't mean you shouldn't invest, nor that means that you mustn't save. There are several factors at play here.  First of all as a young person you are likely to have a high tolerance for risk, there is still plenty of time to recover should expected returns not materialise. Even a pension fund with the most aggressive risk / return strategy might just not quite do it for you. You could invest into education instead, improve health, obtain a profitable skill, create social capital by building connections, pay for experience, buy a house, start a family or even a business. Next, as a young professional you're unlikely to have reached your full earning potential yet and due to the law of diminishing marginal utility a hundred pounds per month now have greater utility (i.e. positive impact on your lifestyle) than a seven hundred pounds will in 7-10 years time once your earnings plateaued. That is to say it's easier to save £700 month from £3000 and maintain a reasonable level of personal comfort than carve £100 from £1300 monthly income. And last, but not the least, lets face it from a human point of view - forty years is a very long investment horizon and many things might and will change. One of the downsides of UK pensions is that you have very little control over the money until you reach a certain age. Tactically I suggest saving up to build a cushion consisting of cash or near cash assets; the size of the stash should be such that it is enough to cover all of your expenses from a minimum of 2 months to a maximum of a year. The exact size will depend on your personal comfort level, whatever social net you have (parents, wife, partner) and how hard it will be to find a new source of income should the current cease to produce cash. On a strategic level you can start looking into investing any surplus cash into the foundation of what will bring joy and happiness into the next 40 years of your life. Your or your partners training and education is one of the most sensible choices whilst you're young. Starting a family is another one. Both might help you reach you full earning potential much quicker. Finding what you love to do and learning how to do it really well - cash can accelerate this process bringing you quicker there you want to be. If you were a start-up business in front of a huge uncaptured market would you rather use cash to pay dividends or finance growth? Thank you very much for your reply.   I'll look more into the CFA but I have a question - does it require an undergrad degree in finance/accounting to become licensed if you pass? Obviously that's an area that I need to do more research but a great place to start based on your suggestions.   If I take it in December I'll be 5 months from my masters. In that case it makes more sense to complete the masters because quitting that close to the end really throws a lot away. I know counseling isn't specific to the field, but people skills seem to be the cornerstone of every career.   Thank you again for taking the time to respond. I feel like a small fish in a big pond. The earning potential is shiny, but I'm more interested in a career that is not as emotionally taxing and that tailors to my skill set, critical thinking, and love for evaluating/speculating/problem-solving. "Yes and No.  Almost everybody wants to own their own business. And they would gladly piss away an investor's money trying to make it happen. It's not just FUNDS that are required. I'm sure we both know some people that should not start a business of their own, no matter how it's financed.  One of the big barriers to starting a business is regulation. We all want products that are safe to use and produced responsibly, but if the regulations are such that only a handful of the largest companies are capable of compliance, then those companies can be assured they will never have any credible competition. Regulation is a very careful balancing act.  But your question wasn't ""What stops new businesses new businesses from forming?"" You asked what creates more business owners.  A lot of that is actually cultural. To be a business owner you have to have a lot of specific personality traits that most people don't have. You have to be motivated to work hard, passionate about what you want to do, organized enough to approach it consistently, analytical enough to create a solid business plan that makes sense, and rational enough to know when to quit if it's not working. Finally (and this is a big one) you have to be able to **sell** that passion to investors, prospective customers and your first employees. The best widget in the world won't sell if it's being marketed by someone who doesn't know how to market things.  What we need to do is find a way to provide consulting and resources to people who are developing those skills." Actually I found companies hire based on experience, if you jump around you have more experience even if your work is average.  Companies pay what the job is worth now, i.e. market rate - why pay more.  Thus the real issue is many employees are not moving up with out moving out.  But you can look at it as people are mediocre (less than average) which would be true ~50% of the time. "Typically in on campus recruiting, at, as you said, a limited number of schools. It seemed safe to assume this wasn't OP's situation. ""Breaking in to banking"" is effectively impossible for a random profile post-graduation from a non-target.   As it turns out, the job OP is talking about isn't in this area so it's irrelevant." redethmoid, excellent questions and I appreciate that.    The fact is that we do need employees in the workforce in all sectors, blue collar/white collar.  The problem is the shift in the economy and how companies are responding to it.  The corp execs only look at the bottom line especially when they are a public company(they have to impress wall street as their first priority).  So what happens when profits and growth dip?  They immediately start looking for ways to cut the budget and it's usually by firing/lay offs and/or offshore outsourcing.  It's happening daily unfortunately.    If you live in the U.S., there's no reason to be living in poverty. People are dying to get in this country because of the freedom and opportunities we have.  It's all about mindset and how you view the world.    Here's my advice. I don't know you or your background but I can feel the frustration and where your mindset is.  First, remove the negative self talk from your language.  Saying that you're broke and have no money will force the universe to leave you in that state.  Start reading books on how to improve yourself first.  Change starts with us, not outside forces.  This is real shit my friend, not just some hype talk.    Next, if you need a rat race job to make ends meet, then do it even if you have a college degree.  Drop the ego and do what you gotta do.    Find something that inspires you and you love to do and figure out how to make cash doing it.  There are so many options out there, you just have to be willing to find them and open up your mind.    I'll leave you with that for now. If you'd like to connect on social media and learn more about this topic, let me know and I'll give you my details.    Have an awesome day!  William &gt; To clarify, I meant the general field of finance and investment banking.  This is still a wide field. Accounting? Product control? Quants? Equity Research? FX Sales? Trading? Compliance? Technology?  I know a sales person that majored in History if that's the kind of quirk you're looking for.