Five Big Career Trends for Job Seekers
This post by David Couper — author of Outsiders on the Inside: How to Create a Winning Career…Even When You Don’t Fit In! — identifies and briefly describes five major trends impacting where jobs may be found in this challenging — and changing — economy.
Benefiting from this information does not necessarily require retooling, retraining, and drastically changing career paths — though it might. In some instances, taking advantage of these trends to help find a job simply involves using existing skills and qualifications in a different arena and/or job classification.
1. Green is this Decade’s Color.
Green jobs can be found in a very wide range of industries and occupational classifications. For example, a variety of construction trades will be involved in efforts to improve the energy efficiency of new and existing buildings and in installing alternative energy facilities. Solar energy, alternative fuels, and energy conservation are all hot! Social awareness and socially and environmentally conscious investing are also growing.
An example of the impact of green jobs growth is that a client of mine was offered a job in the solar panel industry making 30% more than he was earning in his previous job.
For more information, see Ten Best Green Jobs for the Next Decade.
2. Aging Baby Boomers Will Create Demand for a Wide Range of Products and Services.
Baby boomers have taken some hits in the recession. Their retirement funds and homes are worth less. But they will still have huge needs as they retire.
Meeting their needs will bring jobs in areas as diverse as assisted living for active seniors, travel, career planning (lots of boomers will work after they retire) and even dating services!
A friend of mine who was laid off from a broadcast journalism position found a new job as a consultant for a not-for-profit working with seniors on how to present themselves positively in their job search.
For details, see The Baby Boom and the Future of the Economy.
3. All That Government Spending Doesn’t Seem So Bad When It’s Paying Your Paycheck!
Despite current budget crunches, plenty of money is being invested in and by federal, state, and local governments. Stimulus (Recovery) Act money is still being spent. Whether it’s new roads or electronic medical records or overseeing bank bailouts, this spending provides lots of opportunities.
See the official federal website that tracks Recovery Act spending for lots of ways to access information about this spending, and this page for job-specific Recovery Act information.
There is considerable demand for project managers who have government experience. And on recovery.gov there are stories featuring examples of Recovery Act projects from expanding broadband coverage to community-based health and wellness programs to mass transit and road building projects.
4. Healthcare Means More Than Nursing and Medicine Careers.
Healthcare jobs are expected to grow faster than any other industry — roughly 22%, or 3.2 million new jobs, by 2018.
Healthcare includes all kinds of professional jobs directly relating to patient care that do not require a medical or nursing degree — such as social work and physical and occupational therapy — and even more that support them — from patient check-in to HR.
While the number one healthcare occupation will be nursing, there will be a demand for lab and technical jobs, as well as a wide variety of administrative and support positions such as project managers and medical coders.
See this article on the Top 10 In-Demand Healthcare Occupations.
5. Alternative Work is Becoming Mainstream.
Yoga is taught in law offices, poetry is shared at corporate retreats and meditation is a recognized part of some treatment programs at traditional hospitals. Self-help, consciousness raising, and spirituality are all expanding, and related jobs or business opportunities are growing.
At a major TV network, female executives meet regularly with a yoga mistress! Kids are being taught meditation as part of a youth intervention program. And at one of the most respected universities in the country, UCLA, there is a center that combines East and West medical theories in one holistic discipline.
I’d recommend staying up to date with your computer skills, such as the basics with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. It wouldn’t hurt if you learned Photoshop as well. These can be done on the cheap – YouTube lessons for Excel or Photoshop and a bunch of hits will appear. To be able to list the most current versions of available programs on your resume is a powerful tool.
I’d also recommend reading this blog post I found: http://blog.insourced.com/2010/08/things-job-seekers-should-be-doing-but-arent/ – I like the portion on blogging on yourself. Great idea.
Green jobs are going to be huge in the next 10 years. Where ‘going green’ was for hippies 10 years ago, major corporations are now giving their operations a complete green makeover. The result of this? More green products, more green services, more green jobs!