If someone were to ask me, “Jim, what is the right career for me?”
I would probably shrug my shoulders and say something like, “Umm… I don’t know. Probably the career that will be there next year and for years to come.”
What do I mean by that? Simply put, industries are hot one minute and then laying off the next. You can give your life to a particular trade and before you know it, you are replaced by some form of technology. How can you safeguard against that? Well, one way is to put your tax dollars to work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is a government agency that studies and measures what is going on in the world of labor. One of the studies it focuses on in particular is Occupational Projections. In other words, they see what has been hot and by using statistical data, they make their best guess on what will be hot later. Let me show you how it works.
Step 1: Click this link and A) select a search method. For our demo, I choose to search occupations by keyword. For giggles, I choose “recruiter.” With that done, B) I click “continue.”
Step 2: I get a list of occupations to refine my search further. I choose the first on the list – “Employment, recruitment, and placement specialists” and then I click the “Search” button. (See the *asterix?)
Step 3: I review the data and make a judgement call. This is what the data is telling me.
- In 2008, there were about 207,900 Recruiters employed and by 2018 there will be about 265,900 thousand Recruiters employed.
- Between 2008 and 2018 there will be about a 27.9 percent increase in Recruiter jobs
- In 2008, about 1.6 percent of Recruiters were self-employed
- Between 2008 and 2018, there will be about 112,300 job openings for Recruiters
- In 2008, the average annual wages for a Recruiter was $45,470.00 which was rated “High” when considering salaries of jobs overall in their survey
- It also states that a Bachelor’s Degree is the most significant source of education or training for this role. (Although I would debate that.)
So there you have it! Do a search on the career you are currently in and then in careers you may have had a bit of curiosity for. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Is the average salary of the job I am considering fitting my lifestyle (or at the least, the lifestyle that I want)?
- Will there be a significant number of jobs for me over the next few years?
- If I ever wanted to make this job a self-employed business, what are the chances of that?
- If a college degree is the most significant source of training, am I willing to devote time towards that goal?
- BONUS QUESTION: If I am entering college now, am I studying (and spending my parents money) on something that may be difficult to get a job for later? What are the chances that I will get a high ROI on my degree?
I hope this gives you some good food for thought? I look forward to reading your comments below.
– Jim Stroud
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This is an interesting approach to things, and it is definitely well thought out. However, the big question is don’t you think that you are more likely to be successful at something you find interesting? You can not go blindly choosing a career based on statistics if you don’t have the least bit of interest or skill at it. You could tell me that everyone will be looking to hire singers tomorrow, and they will be in demand for the next century. Nonetheless, I know better than to go out and hire a singing coach, because no amount of coaching will make me a decent singer 🙂
I do think this could be a worthwhile approach to narrowing down fields of interest, but it shouldn’t be used to actually create one!