There's always a conflict between leveraging your background and optimizing for what is highest pay currently (unless you're really lucky). Neither direction is a guarantee. Certainly we would like a society where a person who follows the latter policy is always able to succeed at it. It's an important signal for where the need is the highest. At some point (hopefully soon..) society will have way too many real estate agents again, and it's better if they go where they are needed rather than toughing it out because they think there are no alternatives at their age.