Are You On a Dying Career Path?
January 24, 2014I’ve had the opportunity over the holiday break to talk with my daughter about her future. She’s a freshman in college this year and living away from home has been a bit of an adjustment. Another thing that has adjusted a bit is her potential choice of major. Since she was 4 years old, she has been convinced that she wants to teach kindergarten or at least younger children. As she’s gotten older and had some classroom experience (as an intern during her senior year of high school and through a class in her freshman year of college) she still enjoys the children.
Because she has a lot of adults in her life involved in teaching and they are nearly all unhappy this year (or in general) with the business side of teaching, she has been questioning her choice. She has other true passions that she may follow or she may stay with her original major. As a dad, I just want to see her make a choice that will allow her to be a productive member of society post-graduation and allow her to smile while she is at work.
As a part of our conversations (and there have been many on the subject of changing majors, potentially transferring to another school, etc), I try to inject a dose of reality and she gets it. She understands that some degrees prepare her for the future better than others. While “typewriter manufacturing” could be an interesting college major for someone, it probably won’t lead to a bright future right now. I found 3 articles that I’m going to ask her to read (along with my draft version of this blog post to make sure I didn’t misrepresent her in any way…) as she prepares to make decisions about her major and her future. These may be very instructive to anyone in your life, including yourself, if a career change is something that you are considering or if you have been caught up in a downsizing.
Trends matter. I jokingly said typewriter manufacturing could be an interest for someone and it probably could be. There are a lot of interesting things in the world, but not all lead to employable pursuits. That’s why this article about dying careers to avoid jumped out at me. Desktop publisher, reporter, semiconductor processor, auto insurance appraiser, and insurance underwriters are all projected to be careers with shrinking job opportunities. The article is helpful in that while it identifies careers that may have limited upside (I’m surprised by reporter because of the number of new news outlets but given the shoddy state of what is considered journalism today, maybe I shouldn’t be unhappy about that one!), it also points out alternative careers with a more promising future that draw similar personality types and are somewhat related.
After reading that article and not seeing my daughter’s other passions listed, I breathed a bit easier. And then I saw this one about low profile yet high paying jobs. I could definitely see her as a fit for some of these if she opts to change majors and pursue a different career path. Computer programmer, H.R. manager, marketing manager, electronics engineer, and P.R. manager are all careers that have relatively high incomes and where a solid bachelor’s degree and some experience could lead to a fulfilling future. All of these jobs have long term potential given trends in our economy and I don’t see any of them going the way of typewriter manufacturing. My daughter has some big decisions to make about her future over the upcoming months and years, and I know that it took me a long and winding road to find my current career so she may be following in her father’s path of exploration.
If you find yourself in a position where you don’t believe that it’s in your best interest to remain for the long haul, check these articles out. In the past, I’ve had to make a lot of hiring decisions and I’ve found that there are 3 types of people applying for any given role that I had to fill. First and and least likely to get hired was the person who wanted a job. That’s it…just a job. I’m sure they might’ve been fine but I tended to not hire them. The second type was the person who was looking for a career and I hired plenty of those and it almost always turned out to be a great decision on both sides. The truly rare hire, the third type that was darn near impossible to find but when found was a home run every time, was the person for whom the role was part of a passion or a calling that transcended the word career. If you find that you are in a first type, just a job, situation right now…I hope this blog post sparks you to examine your future the way my daughter is examining hers right now and that you have some new information here to work with!