Getting a job in today’s job market is extremely difficult. It doesn't matter if you are a high school grad, a college grad, or an adult transitioning, navigating the complex waters of landing a full-time position is challenging. That is why when I read, “These are the best degrees for the job s of the future” at the World Economic Forum, my interest peaked. In this short article that is also found at Business Insider, the information gleaned is pretty basic; there are a handful of specific degrees that can get you a good job with, with a good salary, in a growing field. This is great and that is why I am dove into the original report that these two articles drew from and came to my own conclusions about how this information could be used for working adults and people transitioning careers.
The source material used by the World Economic Forum and Business Insider is the State of Opportunity from the indeed hiring lab. Here, you get a much more complete and complex picture of which degrees have better opportunity than others. To understand this excellent report, indeed defines opportunity in three ways. The first way is the classic definition of the term. The second is “the ability to comfortably support themselves and their families. Attaining such security mean not only being paid a certain salary but also seeing that salary keep pace with purchasing power over time” (Sinclair, 2016, p. 4). The third definition of the term is more in line with what indeed as a company offers people, opportunity jobs are jobs that have “high pay and income growth, identifying occupations that have defied the downward pressures of the wage crisis” (Sinclair, 2016, p. 4.)
The first few pages of the State of Opportunity is stark, “Today, many people feel that the labor market is polarizing, with high-paying opportunities going to a select few, middle-wage jobs disappearing, and low-wage jobs proliferating” (Sinclair, 2016). This is a bleak way to start a report created by a website that helps people get jobs! But the reality is that there are amazing opportunities for people in fields that pay well and are growing while in many other fields, there is a great deal of instability and uncertainty (stagnant wages, automation, high education requirements, and a surplus of potential workers).
When you read the World Economic Forum article, it has six main areas: finance, health professions and related programs, management, architecture, engineering, and computer and information sciences. This is a simplification of the top 25 “opportunity” jobs at indeed because besides management, all the opportunity jobs are in specialized fields that require a bachelor's or graduate degree (except registered nurse) and a lot of specialized training.
Below are the top 25 opportunity jobs in five specialized fields (architecture and engineering were two separate fields in the World Economic Forum article):
Health Professions and Related Programs:
1.Registered nurse;
7. Physical therapists;
9 Medical and Health Services Managers;
12. Physician Assistant;
14. Speech-language pathologists
17. Occupational therapists;
23. Family and General Practitioners;
Computer and Information Sciences:
3. Miscellaneous Computer Occupations;
6. Software developers, applications;
8. Network and computer systems administrators;
13. Software developers, systems software
15. Computer systems analysts
24. Database Administrators;
25. Operations Research Analysts.
Finance:
4. Accountants and auditors;
20. Financial Managers.
Architecture and Engineering:
16. Architectural and engineering managers.
To provide an example of the educational journey it takes to get one of the health professions jobs, to become an Occupational Therapist (#17), you have to get a bachelor's degree (not specialized) and then an MOT (Masters in Occupational Therapy). This requires a handful of undergraduate courses to first become eligible to enter an MOT program and then it takes almost three years of graduate study. After graduation there is licensure and continuous professional development every two years. The amount of time and cost to become an occupational therapist is considerable but if you know this early you can plan accordingly during your undergrad (take some pre-recs during your last two years) and then get into a graduate program for three years after.
The difficulty of being in school for almost seven years is obvious, financing. This is doubly difficult for adults who might be transitioning careers and would have to take additional coursework to first become eligible to enter an MOT program and then take three years of graduate work while having family obligations and/or a job. In addition, MOT programs are only at residential campuses because of the hands-on nature of the work with no option to take online (most of the healthcare jobs are this way). This is why so many of the opportunity jobs in the indeed report are difficult for working adults because they require a lot of education, require hands-on training, and a great deal of time and money to be eligible for these jobs.
This leads us to the part of the report that I find provides the greatest opportunity for working adults, the management jobs. Management jobs still require a great deal of education and training, but the nature of management allows for more real-world, on-the-job training to be eligible. Below are the management jobs from the top 25 opportunity jobs from the State of Opportunity report.
Management:
2. Sales manager;
4. Miscellaneous managers;
11. Marketing managers;
18. Human Resources managers
19. Sales Engineers;
21. Administrative Services Managers
22. Industrial Production Managers
Each of these management jobs require a bachelor’s degree (Administrative Services Managers require an Associate) and are all specialized to a point. Any working adult with a bachelors and experience can work hard and eventually gain the management and leadership skills and competencies to move into management. Unlike the above jobs in healthcare and IT, to become a manager (although getting one is not easy or straightforward) is really a mixture of common sense, extroversion, holding others and yourself accountable, and feeling comfortable around leadership. See my series, Thoughts on Leadership, about the skills, traits, and approach needed to be a manager and people leader.
To have a fresh perspective on what is needed to be a successful manager, FastCompany listed the following skills needed to be a manager in 2025: technology management skills, outcentric leadership skills, soft-skills assessment, ROWE focus (results-only work environments), tension-tolerant collaboration, transparency, and emotional intelligence (Moran, 2017). This brief, yet informative article is the perfect compliment to the management jobs in the indeed report; what is needed to be a manager is not a specialized degree or training but the ability to lead, use technology, focus on results, collaborate, and understand others. (Each of the skills in the Moran article could be a separate article by themselves besides just becoming and being a successful manager has been written about for decades).
In summation, indeed’s report, State of Opportunity is an excellent deep dive into the many fields that provide great opportunity for people to have well paid, stable jobs. For those who are working adults and are changing careers, the management jobs in the State of Opportunity are the best options to tap into the opportunity that this report espouses. At the end of the day, if you work hard and become a manager the skills and competencies you acquire will be wildly different than the ones you had before, you will have a wildly different career trajectory, and most importantly, you will be changed forever as a person.
References:
Sinclair, T. (2016). The State of Opportunity. Indeed.com. Retrieved from http://blog.indeed.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/State_of_Opportunity-Indeed_Hiring_Lab.pdf
Martin, E. (2016). The 21 best college majors for landing high-paying jobs in growing fields. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/best-college-majors-for-landing-high-paying-jobs-in-growing-fields-2016-8?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds?r=US&r=UK&IR=T/#6-finance-1
Martin, E. (2016). These are the best degrees for the jobs of the future. World Economic Forum. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/08/the-best-degrees-for-the-jobs-of-the-future
Moran, G. (2017). 7 skills managers will need in 2025. Fast Company. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/40451582/7-skills-managers-will-need-in-2025
No comments:
Post a Comment