Completely agree with what is stated. Jobs where you can learn something are much more valuable than jobs that pay well from the beginning.
I'd like to add that at least for me it was confusing how many valuable skills I need before I can really sell myself consistently. It's not enough to just develop in a programming language. You need to know how to QA your code, how to project manage, how to deploy your code to users, how to sell, how to survive office politics, and on a higher level how to survive the office politics that happen at your customer/partner companies where you are not on-site on a daily basis.
Not the single skill is the value, but the combination of the right skillset. Think about it from a customer perspective. You don't pay for a car that only screwed together correctly, it also needs to drive, it also needs to be useful quickly to you (intuitive), and needs to get repaired if it breaks down, even if you are the one who used it incorrectly. Only if you have the feeling you get all of that then you will buy the car.
The thing is that a leader without labor experience is not a leader but an a*hole idiot boss, and not idiot because people don't like him. More like idiot in the traditional sense.
No, seriously. If you never went through producing anything, the trouble of actually making it happen, the difference between the nice university theory in contrast to the real life experience of working with people, too little time and resources, etc. The stuff you never learn in any school because no teacher has the experience either.
It's really hard to express, but you are completely unable to lead without productive experience, as in show the way forward, as in organize resources, as in understanding organizational problems.
The best laborers are what becomes the best leaders, if they learn to use their laboring skills to improve others' performance and make people work together in a similar direction.
I'd like to add that at least for me it was confusing how many valuable skills I need before I can really sell myself consistently. It's not enough to just develop in a programming language. You need to know how to QA your code, how to project manage, how to deploy your code to users, how to sell, how to survive office politics, and on a higher level how to survive the office politics that happen at your customer/partner companies where you are not on-site on a daily basis.
Not the single skill is the value, but the combination of the right skillset. Think about it from a customer perspective. You don't pay for a car that only screwed together correctly, it also needs to drive, it also needs to be useful quickly to you (intuitive), and needs to get repaired if it breaks down, even if you are the one who used it incorrectly. Only if you have the feeling you get all of that then you will buy the car.