I agree with you about "stealth jobs" and that they're not a bad way to back door your way into something. Work experience is work experience. A parable if you will, however: My wife graduated magna cum laude with a degree in math. It did not do much for her. I acknowledge that she's still within that vaunted "STEM" cohort but the "M" is far and away the least useful from an undergrad standpoint. So she spent some time tutoring for Sylvan, she spent some time answering tech calls for Sierra. And, while she was busy being under-employed, she took a couple free courses at Egghead Software (back when it existed) in Microsoft Access. Up jumps one of these jobs about which you speak - back office at an insurance plan administration company. So she applies with her freshly-minted BS in Math, one of too-many applicants, even back then. She got the gig - basic data entry with a pathway towards her CPA, eventually, after a lot of time. Two months go by and a woman from another department stops by her shared cubicle. "I hear you know access." "A little," she said. "Why?" Within 24 hours she'd gone from "data entry" to "database administrator" and within 2 months she'd gone from "database administrator" to "software architect." Her new department head had let the data entry pool take the risk on vetting competent candidates and then skimmed through looking for anyone with the barest database competency. My wife's salary doubled and she went from "being on the path to being a CPA" to "being on the path to being a director." No offense meant to English or its majors - had I not had a driving and substantial need for financial independence as soon as humanly possible, I would have been one. But that drive did put me in the pathway to an elevated salary. Simply by taking "music mixing" as an elective instead of "music performance" gave me an after-school job that is most directly attributable to my current $63-an-hour-when-I-can-get it "profession." If it's remuneration you're after, there's a reason STEM tends to lead the pack.