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The best career advice: be as successful on a job market as philosophers

Begina Slawinska
Oct 24, 2017
3 min read

Stereotypes are strongly fixed onto people’s minds. I can’t even recall how many times I’ve came across an opinion that all that Philosophers do is swimming in the air on their pink clouds, like Moomins. As far as one knows Philosophy is impractical.

Apparently Philosophy graduates have to be prepared to face unemployment. Regrettably, I’ve seen too many philosophers accepting these labels as truth. Graduates tend to downgrade their own value on a job market by believing that skills that they’ve developed through studying Philosophy are not transferable, which then pushes them to give up too early on pursuing their professional goals.

So let's end this misunderstanding once and for all. I decided to gather a bunch of fulfilled philosophers, and present them to you in this post. They all used Philosophy as a tool for their career building. Be careful (said with a sarcastic smile) this list can almost give you an idea that Philosophy is one of the highest skills, and that Philosophy’s interdisciplinary character can help one succeed in their life.

Carly Fiorina - was president and CEO of Hewlett-Packard Company from 1999 to 2005 and served as chairwoman of the board from 2000 to 2005.

Carl Icahn - the chairman of Icahn Enterprises and is one of the most well-known and aggressive activist investors of our time, buying and eventually folding Trans World Airlines, and more recently trying to take over Netflix.

Sheila Bair - served as the chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, having been appointed by George W. Bush in 2005. She helped prevent the financial system from collapsing in 2008.

Gerald Levin - joined Time Inc.'s HBO in the 1970s and helped develop the business model that made HBO a huge success. He later engineered the merger with Warner Carner that turned the company into a true media giant. He became CEO in the early '90s. However, his tenure ended less positively with a disastrous merger with AOL.

Stewart Butterfield - founded Flickr with his then-wife Caterina Fake in 2004. About a year later, Yahoo snapped the photo-sharing site up for $35 million. He's now working on Slack, a workplace communication tool.

Peter Thiel - a co-founder and former CEO of PayPal. He currently serves as president of Clarium Capital and as a managing partner at venture capital firm the Founder's Fund. He was also the first outside investor in Facebook.

Ethan Coen - along with brother Joel, Ethan has produced some of modern cinema’s most beloved masterpieces, such as Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, No Country for Old Men, and plenty more.

Also:

Steve Allen (writer & comedian) Vaclav Havel (former President of Czechoslovakia) Woody Allen (director & comedian) Iris Murdoch (novelist) Martin Luther King, Jr. (civil rights leader) David Duchovny (actor on X-FILES) Susan Block (radio and TV host) Ed Broadbent (former leader of Canada's NDP) Mary Higgins Clark (mystery writer) Philip K. Dick (science fiction writer) John Elway (quarterback, Denver Broncos) Ivan Frolov (editor of PRAVDA) Rebecca Goldstein (novelist & MacArthur Prize recipient) Harrison Ford (actor) Don Harron (comedian, author of Anne of Gree Gables libretto) Christy Haubegger (editor of LATINA) Mark Hulbert (financial columnist for FORBES magazine) Carl Icahn (business person & corporate raider, bought TWA) Bruce Lee (martial arts expert & actor) Michael Lerner (editor of TIKKUN) Peter Lynch (director) Paul Martin (former Canadian Prime Minister) Beverly McLachlin (Canadian Chief Justice) Kate Millett (author of Sexual Politics) Bob Moses (civil rights activist) Robert Motherwell (painter) Lachlan Murdoch (son of Rupert Murdoch, media magnate) Robert Musil (Austrian novelist) Freeman Patterson (photographer, author) Neil Peart (drummer for rock group, RUSH) Chaim Potok (novelist) Pope John Paul II Brad Roberts (singer-songwriter) Patricia Rozema (film-maker) Rick Salutin (columnist) Mick Schmidt (former Philadelphia Philly) John Silber (former president of Boston University) Dave Thomas (SCTV) Alex Trebeck (JEOPARDY) Pierre Trudeau (former Canadian Prime Minister) David Foster Wallace (novelist & MacArthur prize recipient) Robert Weaver (doyen of Canadian literature) Moses Znaimer (Owner of CITY-TV and MUCH-MUSIC)

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/successful-philosophy-majors-2014-1?IR=T http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/14-famous-people-who-were-philosophy-majors/ http://www1.uwindsor.ca/philosophy/famous-people-who-studied-philosophy http://www.apaonline.org/?whostudiesphilosophy http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/why-philosophy-majors-rule_n_4891404?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base_recent_activity_details_all%3BBkKlRnNbQpiUott%2BHIYd1Q%3D%3D