Apologies in advance for the length of this post. I’ve learned many helpful things from this blog and the forums. I still have a ways to go in terms of reducing my expenses to MMM levels, but the elephant in the room is the fact that my career and income haven’t grown as well as I would have liked them to. I’m trying to fix that, as well, and am open to suggestions. Here is my situation:
I’m currently employed full time as an attorney. I’m paid as a self-employed individual, so on top of the nasty self-employment tax, I have to provide my own health insurance, disability insurance, my own retirement plan match, etc., which effectively lowers my income even more. My gross income averages around $45,000 per year. When you subtract out ½ of the self-employment tax and the health insurance, it’s equivalent to around $40,000 per year if I were an employee. I’m in an economically stagnant area and my prospects for growing that income are slim. I have applied to numerous other positions (in this area as well as others) over the past couple of years, and have gotten a couple of interviews, but no offers. Not to be a complainypants, as I don’t mind most of the work that I do, but I’m not in love with it either, and I feel like I’m spinning my wheels.
Computers and technology are my passion, and I have done computer repair, networking, and consulting for various businesses and individuals on the side since I graduated from high school. I don't think it would be possible for me to expand this business enough to do it full time, though. I have a Computer Science degree but no work experience writing code, so those skills are quite rusty at this point. My other IT skills are current, but I don’t have any certifications. Since it appears unlikely at this point that I’ll advance as an attorney[1], I’m ready to try something else, and have begun applying for higher paying IT positions for which I feel I’m qualified, such as software training, support (not helpdesk), or hardware operations manager.
I have been underemployed for several years now, and my goal at this point is to try to catch up by increasing my earning potential as quickly as possible. Am I thinking about this wrong?
Has anyone made a similar switch in the past, and do any MMM forum members have any suggestions for what types of positions/companies I should be targeting? I feel like I would be valuable to a law firm’s IT department, but I’ve had one interview where I was looked upon with a fair amount of suspicion due to the fact that I have an advanced degree and was applying for a position which was “beneath” it. I explained that I tend to enjoy that type of work more, and that the position was a better opportunity than my current one. If I leave my law degree/employment off my resume, anyone who does a Google search is likely to discover it. Does anyone have any other suggestions to make the JD degree less of a burden?
[1] There are numerous reasons for my pessimism besides my own experience in investing tons of time searching for positions and cranking out cover letters. The ABA-accredited law schools have overproduced JD degrees for decades, and as a result, there are far too many attorneys competing for far too few attractive positions.