Living on your own for the first time, would it be best to take a job as a car salesmen or a bank teller?

These are both unfortunate jobs that add little value to the people who interact with them and are on the fast track to being completely automated. But with the car sales job you also might just be detested by the customers you'll have to try and close and a sales manager who is upset because (if you're normal) then you won't be very good at persuading people to buy cars. The career paths are pretty limited, but at least with the bank you'll be learning a bit about retail banking and residential finance, There will also be opportunities to get into sales if you want, via their loan and retail products sales programs or perhaps retail management. It could also eventually be a path to becoming a financial adviser, which has its own career path.

Can you sell? Can you see yourself selling five vehicles in your first month? No? Then go with the bank teller job. It's going to be dull and repetitive, but you need the stability.

Read Rich Dad, poor dad and then revisit this question. It shouldn't take you longer than two days. TLDR In it he advocates getting jobs to expand skills that you can use in the long term. Now tell me which job would improve your skills in general, being a bank teller or being a salesman. In selling you will have to improve your social skills, you will have to improve your persuasion skills and you will have to tough it out. Being a bank teller will require you to learn a limited subset of skills that you will use over and over. Maybe if it's a bit more advanced job you will have to offer advice and do research on banking but otherwise how is it going to help you develop skills for the long run. What happens if you want to open a business one day? Sales skills are invaluable. Or you're trying to convince someone to hire you? Improve your social and persuasion skills and you might just get ahead of the pack.

I would choose another sales career. Working as a bank teller would help you gain stability. If you have sales skills, you will be able to apply to become a personal banker, which is a sales role and could be a good starting point until you get tired of banks and decide to sell something more lucrative. I've sold cars. It requires unique personality to be successful. A car salesperson would never even think about being a bank teller as an option.

If you only need to support yourself, you might want to try the car sales job, because it puts you right on the edge of survival. You will have a chance to develop invaluable skills in reading people, persuasion and negotiation. Embrace for impact though, it is like learning to swim the first time, you might choke water, have near drowning fear, but once you get over it, you would have acquire a surviving skill that will stay with you for life.