When looking for a job, one of the important things is to define what the individual can bring to the organization over another from a similar technical background. One must define the skills and tools which one possesses, and somehow differentiate oneself from others. In this regard, I am unique, and the following paragraphs illustrate why I am a better choice for employment within any firm.

Economics had always been one of those very broad, very vague, and somehow very respected fields of study which not too many people really know anything about. Most people, when asked what economists do, tend to guess that it has something to do with business. Other, more enlightened persons might hazard a guess around something having to do with business statistics, or forecasting. We hear mostly about economists in business news as those who form predictions about the state of various markets, or governments. This is one of the many applications of the science, and as a consequence, most small-scale employers will not consider hiring an economist on the basis that they usually do not know in which context they can be useful in their business. This is a fallacy.

The basic economics curriculum is divided into two main sections. The first is theory, which basically teaches us how we should think about various market environments and situations. We learn to justify why and how people make decisions, generally having to do with how they spend money, given a certain salary, and how this affects the overall demand for a specific product. We can also study how the supply or demand for a product evolves given any kind of change in the environment of the model (a major ecological disaster, the introduction of a new more efficient technology, a sudden unexpected fall in price of similar products etc…) We also study how businesses maximize their profits, and how they make their investment and hiring decisions, in order to reach this maximized level of profit. All of this modeling depicts how the world should work, and has some bearing on the truth. However we all know that at the end of the day, there is a tremendous line between pen and paper modeling, and real life.
The second aspect of economics involves a great deal of statistical training, which usually includes some fairly heavy mathematics. These statistical tools allow us to take the theory we’ve learned in the first section, and put numbers to it which might have some real meaning to someone. We learn to use advanced statistics software packages, which many businesses use. Every economist becomes proficient with a computer and has some basic training in computer programming. Furthermore our training has given us the opportunity to learn about how data is generated and where it is located. True, any individual given time, and a little luck on Google, can learn about where data is found. I know because I’ve already been through that.

The result of this is that economics will tell you what the situation is in a certain market, and from time to time be able to lend advice on how an organization involved in this market can improve their situation. The real emphasis is on researching a certain economic environment. Say you wanted to sell a bunch of pencils. Given data, an economist will be able to tell you weather your product will sell, and how changes in the market are likely to affect your production and profit. As far as “getting the job done” it probably won’t help that much.

However, people are constantly publishing and talking about the trends of various markets, and how the world is reacting to various phenomena. Any business which acquires a study claiming that pencils are very profitable will jump at the opportunity to get into the pencil industry. Some more skeptical businessmen will even bother reading the technical paper, and more often than not walk away with a headache, and little more enlightened than they were before. This is where having someone with an economics background is useful.

Economics doesn’t just teach us how to look at the bigger picture of a market, it also teaches us how to think, and how to read through the multitude of bullshit which exists in the business world. It is for this reason, that we get so much respect. No matter the numbers which are pulled out of thin air, we possess the capacity to read through a lot of the glorification, and fast-talking which exists in the business world. Given information we can, to a degree, predict the future, and for those companies relying on other people’s research, having someone with an economics background can help explain from where this prediction came from.

However in spite of the obvious attraction which economics has for the business world, it is not only limited to that. Indeed economics can be applied to a myriad of situations because it is a way of looking at and solving problems. I myself applied a branch of economics, to studying how students form study groups in a classroom where the professor enforced a fixed class average and a bell curve. A great deal of economics can be applied to studying human nature, decision-making, and even strategies involving bidding for various contracts. Even the pharmaceutical industry hires economists to study the efficiency of various drugs on humans (this mostly to the vast statistical background which comes with the degree).

Most people who study economics end up working in the private sector for various firms and organizations, doing jobs which have nothing to do with economics. Why does this happen? The answer is simple. Business is something which anyone can do. It can be taught, and you don’t need an advanced degree to come up with a business idea, and to make it work. Such things are generally learned through trial and error, as you feel out the process for yourself. You can get a B. Com or and MBA to facilitate the process, but at the end of the day, learning to run a business is not a terribly difficult thing to do. The fact of the matter is that the economics background will not only be able to do the job as well as a B. Com, but he/she will also be able to look at various problems/situations from a perspective which your average Joe will never be able to do.

Now that I am done defending my degree, I would like to address why I am different from your average MA in economics. As far as economists go, many of them end up focusing on the statistical aspect of the science mostly because it doesn’t necessarily require very much imagination to understand mathematics. Somewhere along the line there is a chain of logic which remains intact. The reason I was attracted to economics in the first place was the vastness of its applications. I never look at the world the same way since my first microeconomics course. At one point, friends of mine and I were discussing how we could model male vs female behaviour in dating. My master’s thesis itself was quite unorthodox in that I invented a problem which had never before been solved using economic logic. The main thing which distinguishes me from your average economics student, is that I have that extra imagination to use my theory, and apply it to all sorts of situations where economics might not usually be considered. There is a book written by Steven D. Levitt called Freakonomics. This book won national acclaim because an economist had the imagination to use his educational tools in ways which no one had ever even considered. Now I do not claim to be nearly as brilliant as Dr. Levitt, but having read the book, I know that he and I have a similar view on economics and its applications.

One of the major attacks which economists receive is our inability to be understood by any but the hyper-educated. Another way in which I consider myself different from your average economist is that I have a rare talent for explaining difficult concepts to just about anyone. This talent was reflected in the fact that I managed to hold on to a teaching assistantship for the entire time I was at Concordia University. I was also an economics tutor during my time at Concordia because I was a good teacher. Furthermore (and one can choose to agree with me on this or not), I consider myself a fairly articulate writer. I pursue creative writing as a hobby, and I am comfortable with expressing myself on paper. I have been acknowledged in three separate master’s theses for my contributions to correcting the English, and just making it sound better. I leave you, the reader, to judge my writing skills.

Finally I am young, smart, and motivated. I get exited when solving difficult problems, because it makes me feel good about myself when I do. I’m also stubborn when coming across a problem which I can’t solve because I seldom encounter any situation which is beyond my abilities. I tend to prefer dynamic work which challenges me with new situations. I am not afraid to take criticism and I always take advantage of opportunities to learn from others. I speak French and English fluently, and I speak Spanish very well. Whilst my written French is not quite as good as my English, I nevertheless write fairly well in French, and my written Spanish is also quite excellent. As I grew up and lived in five different countries, I am culturally open-minded, and at ease, even excited by coming into contact with foreigners. The experience has also made me charismatic, and most of all adaptable to situations which are unfamiliar to me. I also grew up as a computer geek, and almost went into computer science myself, when I noticed at young age that by the time I would hit the job scene, the IT market would be well saturated. I like to think that this early sign confirmed my vocation in economics. The result of this is that I am comfortable enough with a computer to learn most software packages in a reasonably short period of time.

I believe that these reasons paint an accurate picture of myself, and illustrate exactly what makes me different from any post university student interested in joining the business world. I am not only different in my education background from your standard business school candidate, but my education is nevertheless relevant in the field. Furthermore, I am different from most economics students in that I can actually apply my education to more than just statistical interpretations, and explain the logic behind most complex economics theories in ways which are understandable to those who lack the technical background. In addition I write well. Finally I differentiate myself on my diverse background and upbringing which has made me adaptable to working in environments which I am unfamiliar with, and in arguably the three most useful languages in the world today. Bottom line, you want to hire me.