Hottest Careers Through 2014

If you're looking at starting a career or changing to another one, knowing which careers are expected to grow the fastest over the next few years can help you focus your plans for career change. An article on the ten hottest careers at CollegeBoard.com provides some interesting data from government economist; the ten fastest growing careers for college graduates includes several medical and computer-related careers, which is no suprise; but forensic science technician is also on the list. Occupations projected to create the most new jobs in the next seven years are also listed for college grads as well as grads with associate and vocational educations.

Flexible Optimism

A correspondent was intrigued by my statement that Martin Seligman's research suggests that the self-esteem movement is one of the root causes of the drop in the age of onset of depression in industrialized nations that we see today. So I thought I'd expand on this a bit. Seligman attributes the drop to three causes:

1. We worship individualism today, but our grandparents were connected to community, extended families, God. He comments, "Our children have threadbare spiritual furniture to sit on." I believe this leaves younger people with little reserve to rely on when life deals them (as it always will) a major loss or setback.

2. When I was a child, one of my favorite books was "The Little Engine Who Could." Today, teachers and books tell children they should feel good about themselves no matter what. In Authentic Happiness, he comments that children need to fail, to feel sad, anxious and angry: when we build up their self esteem to lessen the blow of their failures, we hinder their ability to develop mastery; and without mastery, they will fail to develop real self esteem which is grounded in a realistic view of their own abilities and limitations.

3. Everyone blames others or society or "fate" for their situations. We are breeding a nation of victims. The negative side of this is a failure to take responsibility for one's own choices and for determining our own outcomes.

Seligman suggests that the pessimist tends to see setbacks as permanent, pervasive, and due to external circumstances rather than one's own choices. The optimist, on the other hand, tends to see setbacks as temporary, localized, and due to their own choices. Pessimists are twice as likely to become depressed, and are more likely to have health and relationship problems. Seligman suggests using the pessimistic viewpoint only when the cost of failure is high, and using the optimistic viewpoint when the cost of failure is low (he calls this Flexible Optimism). That is, whether we avoid connecting with something larger than ourselves, view our abilities and limitations realistically, and take responsibility for our own choices (and hence our own success or failure), is up to us.

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? If you'd like to explore your own optimism, you can take an assessment at Martin Seligman's web site (look for "Optimism Test" in the list of questionnaires).

Métier Squidoo Career Change Lens!

I've created a Squidoo lens for Métier; it includes links to recommended books on Amazon, career blog articles from various sources, and other items. It's rather redundant with this site at present, but it's a start. I plan on adding additional book recommendations and other content over time.

The Self-Directed Search

The SDS is a career interest inventory developed by Dr. John Holland, whose career theory is widely used by career counselors and coaches around the world for working with clients who are pursuing career changes. People can be categorized with respect to six career types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional. These types are often represented as the vertices of a hexagon, and the theory says that most people have a strength in one of these areas, with secondary strengths in adjoining vertices on the hexagon. For example, I'm an IAS. The data collected from the SDS over the years suggests that people with a certain SDS three-letter code are more likely to be happy working in certain careers than in others. Your SDS report will suggest careers that you may want to consider. Note that the SDS doesn't indicate a natural aptitude for a certain career, or the possession of the skills needed to be successful in the career; it will however tell you whether a person like yourself is likely to be happy with the career in question.

You can take the SDS at this web site for only 9.95USD; the website also has a sample report so you can see what you're getting into before you pay for the report. Once you've identified careers you're interested in, you can investigate them further at the O*Net website at this link. Good luck with your search!

Too Old For A Career Change?

"You can't teach an old dog new tricks!"

We've heard many messages in our lives that can make change difficult in the second halves of our lives. I've known people in their 30s who were already planning for retirement, which for many means endless rounds of golf, and a couple of cocktails before hitting the Early Bird Special at the local restaurant. Retirement becomes a kind of second adolescence: no kids, no job, no responsibilities. And yet, plenty of people choose to start a new career relatively late in life. Personally, I have a lot of energy, and the thought of "classical" retirement holds little appeal. I want to do meaningful work until I drop. When my paternal grandfather retired from his job as a machinist, he spent the last years of his life parked in front of the television. No hobbies, no meaningful activities. Sorry, that's not my cup of tea.

So, you're 50, or maybe 60, and for whatever reason you decide to start a second (or third) career. How do you keep going knowing that you probably have fewer years of life left in you than you've already lived? I don't know how it works for others but for me, I find it useful to live each day of my life as though it were the last ... and paradoxically, to also live as though I had all the time in the world ahead of me! I might drop dead tomorrow, but so what? The 25 year old next to me at work might die suddenly tonight, and I might outlive him!

Years ago, my sister was dying and my family was trying to avoid talking about the inevitable. One day, she looked up at me and asked if I thought she was dying. To comfort her, I told her that each day was a gift, and none of us knew how many days we had left. I could get hit by a car on my way out of the hospital and she could outlive me. So we need to appreciate each day we are given on its own terms. Since them, I've come to understand that this is among other things true, and that the life lived in fear is not worth living.

Do you look forward to each day as though it were a great gift, and truly enjoy it for what it is rather than for what it isn't?

The Depression Epidemic

Martin Seligman's research suggests depression is ten times more prevalent than it was for our grandparents, and the average age for onset of depression in developed nations has droppped from 29.5 to 14 years old. He attributes this to our individualism and lack of connection to real community, the self-esteem movement, and a growing sense of individualism in modern culture.

At a farewell party for a faculty member at the University of Virginia years ago, the wife of the departing professor broke down in tears and said, "I'm tired of moving from one place to another every few years, and having to make another set of friends." I've often heard people since speak of their weak social networks, their sense of isolation, and the difficulty they had connecting with other people.

And yet, our isolation is by choice: it sometimes seems we value our careers and our "advancement" more than we do our connections with other people. In the 1830s, Alexis de Toqueville commented in "Democracy in America" that people in the New World would finish building a house, then immediately start looking for the next place they were going to move. Rugged individualism has always been an important part of who we are in the USA. But I have to wonder what kind of price we've paid for this aspect of our modern lives.

Seligman's research suggests to me that the antidote for the depression that is so prevalent today must include a reconnection to real community and taking responsibility for our own successes and failures. I truly believe that there is an opportunity for us in every setback we face, and that a joyful life is possible for anyone if he/she chooses to pursue it ... even in the face of failure and loss.