Posts | - Part 3

Want a career change? See fastest growing jobs!

Here’s a list of the fastest growing jobs from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It shows their current average salary in USD plus their expected growth percentage by 2030.

If you want to know the core job duties of these jobs, visit http://online.onetcenter.org/Type the job title into the search box in the right-hand corner of the page, and select the Tasks associated with that job.

How do you know if you’re suited for doing those tasks? Whether you’ve got the talents or motivations to succeed in that career? Read my answer below the list.

Fastest growing jobs

Wind turbine service technicians ($56,230): 68.2%
Nurse practitioners ($111,680): 52.2%
Solar photovoltaic installers ($46,470): 52.1%
Statisticians ($92,270): 35.4%
Physical therapist assistants ($59,770): 35.4%
Information security analysts ($103,590): 33.3%
Home health and personal care aides ($27,080): 32.6%
Medical and health services managers ($104,280): 32.5%
Data scientists ($98,230): 31.4%
Physician assistants ($115,390): 31%
Epidemiologists ($74,560): 29.6%
Logisticians ($76,270): 29.5%
Speech-language pathologists ($80,480): 28.7%
Animal trainers ($31,520): 28.5%
Computer numerically controlled tool programmers ($57,740): 27.4%
Genetic counselors ($85,700): 26.2%
Crematory operators ($28,420): 24.8%
Operations research analysts ($86,200): 24.6%
Actuaries ($111,030): 24.5%
Health specialties teachers, postsecondary ($99,090): 24.3%
Forest fire inspectors and specialists ($42,150): 23.9%
Interpreters and translators ($52,330): 23.7%
Athletic trainers ($49,860): 23.4%
Respiratory therapists ($62,810): 23%
Substance abuse, and mental health counselors ($47,660): 22.9%
Food prep workers ($27,080): 22.8%
Nursing instructors and teachers, postsecondary ($75,470): 22.4%
Woodworkers ($33,630): 22.2%
Phlebotomists, i.e. techs who perform blood tests ($36,320): 22.2%
Software developers and QA analysts ($110,140): 22.2%

If you’re going to make a career change, you want to be sure that it will work for you, provide you with some job satisfaction to keep you motivated to succeed, right?

Keep your job description aligned with what makes you happy and productive in the workplace, so that you operate 60 per cent of the time in a mode that comes naturally and effortlessly to you.

There is no such thing as a perfect job where you are 100% happy and satisfied all the time. The world is just not organized that way! The key to career success is to limit the downside of your job to 40% of your job duties. That means that the remaining 60% of your job duties will be organized around your natural talents.

This 60/40 split will energize you. This is jobfit. This is a key element of career success!

How to achieve jobfit

Sign on to my JOBJOY FOR LIFE™ Course. You will identify and define your key success elements to ensure a jobfit. Get the job that will energize and motivate you. You can be recognized and rewarded for your natural strengths and motivations!

Career change tip: Don’t make assumptions

According to many surveys, about half the working population is preparing to make a career change. We read stories about exhausted nurses and teachers leaving their fields. Or service workers going back to school for IT diplomas. Or senior executives cashing out to sell real estate.

Many individuals change careers for good reasons. But just as many make decisions based on assumptions that could lead them down the wrong path. For example, a good many people have come to me with the intention of going into HR because they want to have direct contact with people and help them. That’s a noble motivation, right? Yes, but most HR duties are about managing processes not people.

Processes or people

HR is about using software and systems to effectively and efficiently deploy a specific resource in an organization—that resource is called talent, or human resources. When employees actually need help for a work-related problem, such as managing their stress or mental health, they are most often referred to a third party. If you want to work directly with people, then consider working in an employee assistance program run by a third party provider.

We need to substitute our assumptions with a reality check. Before committing to a career change, verify that your natural strengths and motivations align with its core duties and responsibilities.

Let’s use the HR scenario again. If by “helping others” you mean meeting with employees one-on-one to listen to their problem, then advising them on their options and helping them choose and appropriate course of action–then you may not enjoy sitting in front of a computer all day using PeopleSoft or some other software to review payroll complaints from workers spread across the country.

If what you really want to do is influence the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of individuals towards some positive change, then identify which “jobs” in HR actually perform that function. Also, check to see what other careers are organized around that core activity.

You can make a better decision about a career change and what you need to do to make it happen with the assistance of my JOBJOY FOR LIFE™ Course.

Get it straight from the horse’s mouth!

How to determine if a job is a good fit for you.

If you want to know what another career field is all about, how it really works—then get it straight from the horse’s mouth. This old saying refers to the old practice of opening a horse’s mouth to check its teeth to help a buyer determine its health—whether or not it will be a reliable and dependable investment over time–and therefore it’s actual value.

Talking to workers who have been in a particular field for 5 years or more will often give you a true picture of that field. Try and find somebody who is doing a job you would love to do. Here are some questions, you can ask anybody who is doing a job you think you might enjoy:

_ How did you get into your field? Is that still a good way?

_ What are the major responsibilities of your position?

_ What is a typical workday or week like for you?

_ What do you like and dislike about your position?

_ What are the critical skills and personal characteristics needed in this kind of work?

_ What are some of the major problems or issues that someone in your position faces?

_ What are the prospects for someone entering your field today?

_ What are the career paths of this profession? With experience in this field where can a person move?

If you get into a discussion about your background, you can ask:-

_ Given my background, what do you think I need to do to become competitive for a job in this field?

_ Can you suggest anyone else I might talk to?

JOBJOY SMILE

HORSE PUNS

You’ll stirrup trouble!

Quit foaling around.

He has a colt following.

It’s pasture bedtime.

You sound a little hoarse.

I’m waiting for the mane event.

He’s my mane man!

To be or not to be…that is the equestrian.

Don’t look, I’m neigh-kid.

Job change or Career change–which is right for you?

The pandemic has caused many people to re-evaluate their life priorities and surveys indicate that many plan on changing their job this year, some for a better or different job and some for a whole new career.

In terms of deciding what to do, it may be helpful to understand the difference between a job change and a career change.

Career is derived from its Latin root meaning ‘wheeled vehicle,’ which lent itself to the modern notion of a single, linear, vocational direction (the metaphor equating to: ‘following a particular path’ or ‘climbing the corporate ladder’), as working permanently in, or committed to, a particular profession, such as a journalist, nurse, teacher, police officer, engineer, and so on.

Job change is not necessarily career change; some job change involves promotions, or demotions, with the same employer, or a lateral transfer using similar or related skills with a different employer in the same career field.

For example, social media has wiped out many daily newspapers and magazines, and some journalists who’ve lost their jobs have made a job change to a Communications/Media Relations Specialist with a large corporation, a government department or a nonprofit organization. Instead of reporting the news, they now work to “make” news by having their employer’s activities reported as news.

A career change, by contrast, is more difficult and involves moving from one career path to something completely different; for example, a journalist becoming a home renovator as an independent contractor.

Job change or career change—which is right for you? It will depend on your aspirations, preferences and circumstances. Your strengths and weaknesses will need to be factored into your decision. It may be important to do an objective evaluation of the pros and cons of each strategy for your situation.

What most people do in first 5 years of job loss … nothing, usually!

Only 1 of 5 individuals who lose their job are pro-active in finding another. Why?

During the pandemic, millions of individuals across North America were laid off or lost their jobs. How will they respond?

Many will, of course, look for another job in the same field.

But, if they do not find one, most of us assume that they take the situation into their own hands and do one of the following:

– go back to school

– move to another city or region

– sign up for an apprenticeship or trade

– become self-employed.

Turns out our assumptions our wrong. According to Statistics Canada, which looked at what workers did during the recession in 2009; most individuals do not adopt these seemingly obvious adjustment strategies.

There were differences depending on gender, age, level of education, and length of unemployment–but, generally speaking, whether it was in the first year of job loss or the fifth year, only 1 in 5 workers adopted even one of these adjustment options.

This helps us to understand why many employers are complaining about the difficulty of attracting workers to an economy that is starting to open up. Given a choice—supported by some economic security—most workers do not want to return to a dull, dirty or dangerous job (in general, these are the types of jobs that employers now want to fill)–and will wait until they must. Big surprise! Only a few it seems will use this period of unemployment to change their careers.

However, some white-collar workers with high levels of education also lost their jobs, and more may do so if the economy slips into a post-pandemic slowdown or recession.

This study from Stats Can indicates the most people, but especially this highly educated group, will ride out the effects of the pandemic in the hopes of getting their old jobs back or something similar within a year.

In other words, most people (4 out of 5) do not change their behaviour or make significant changes in their lives when they get laid off or lose their jobs.

Patterns of adjustment

For the 1 in 5 people that adopt an adjustment strategy, I have noticed the following in my 30 years of practice, which is now backed up by some statistics (remember, this is not most people but the 20% of unemployed people who adopt a strategy after losing their jobs):

– In the first year after job loss, the most common strategy among laid-off women is to enrol in post-secondary education.

– The longer the period of unemployment, the more likely both men and women will move to another region or city.

– Older displaced workers are set in their ways and do not want to change so they are less likely to move to another region or invest in skills, in both the short and long terms.

– Those with more education are more likely to become self-employed or go back to school for another degree, especially if they already have a university degree.

Interestingly, the data from Stats Can, there appears to be little difference between people who lose a job and those who don’t when it comes to making adjustments to their work situation—neither group is inclined to make changes to their behaviour or their career.

I am here to help those in the minority who must or want to make a change.

Would you quit astrophysicist job to run a fireworks business?

Just this morning, one of my clients called to tell me that his two nephews—one a dentist, the other an astrophysicist—can’t stand going to work each day…so they are quitting their jobs to take over their father’s very successful fireworks business in Baltimore! I kid you not.

Now, if you were to go to their mother’s FaceBook page, you would get a very different impression, one of a proud mother singing the praises of her boys, and rightly so…it’s no small accomplishment to become a dentist or astrophysicist!

But the misery these boys feel is quite common. Psychology Today, the Menninger Clinic, The American Management Association, and other eminent organizations estimate as much as 90% of the working population is not in their right work. And we all know that depression is now the #1 workplace disability in North America.

If you’re in this situation, it is not your fault!

We tend to do things because that is the expected thing to do. We’ve been told to go to school to get good grades, in order to get into a good university and get a good degree in order to get a good job and live a good life. We follow this formula.

Sometimes it works, much of the time it doesn’t. Why? Studies show that most individuals are motivated by extrinsic drivers early in their lives, i.e. to get a secure job, get married, raise a family—do what is expected of us. Nothing wrong with it.

What is true for university is true for trade school, the family business or the military—we conform to the norms of societal expectations, rather than finding out how our personal priorities and our public contributions can be combined through work to create a meaningful life.

But then life smacks us between the eyes—job loss, aging, divorce, death of a loved one, new values, new aspirations—and we start to question our values and priorities.

It’s just normal adult development after the age of thirty to re-order our priorities around intrinsic drivers, such as our deepest values and highest aspirations.

My client has no idea if his nephews—as a dentist and astrophysicist–have any skills or motivation to run a fireworks business! And neither does his brother, the father of these two men. They could run it into the ground for all he knows! But it hurts him, as a father, to see his sons so unhappy in their chosen professions.

That’s why my client told his nephews to sign on to my JOBJOY FOR LIFE™ Course. He wants them to take the time to find out now what they each have as natural strengths and motivations when it comes to work. This will increase their chances of finding job satisfaction and success in a fireworks business…while sparing their parents the misery of seeing their sons unhappy once again.

How Covid Time Unlocks Career Options

Examples of what you enjoy about cooking can reveal natural strengths and motivations that can unlock career choices.

Do you have time on your hands now that you’re social distancing, or working from home, or collecting a benefit? What do you do with that discretionary time? Many people gravitate to their favourite hobbies or interests or explore new ones.

These activities often reveal a lot about your natural talents and motivations, and the kind of work you might be best suited for, excel in, and be rewarded accordingly.

Let me give you an example. With so many of us at home, we know that more people are learning to cook or re-discovering their love of cooking. That doesn’t mean you should rush off to be a chef or short order cook (even if you could find a restaurant that was open!)

It’s a simple enough activity…but it often reveals natural talents or hidden strengths that can open the door to new career opportunities!

By closely examining what it is that you truly enjoy about cooking, the thing or things that come easily to you or give you great satisfaction provide clues to your motivational pattern.

Over the years, I have seen the following talents and motivations appear in the stories of clients and what they truly love about cooking:

– “I will think about some new ideas about food and come up with new recipes.” This knack for coming up with new recipes might reveal a natural talent for innovation for designing or developing and giving shape to new ideas.

– “I never follow a recipe but always use what’s available in my kitchen.” This might be a reasoning talent for combining, mixing, harmonizing, or integrating—bringing together diverse parts or elements to form a new whole.

– “I have all the tools and equipment in my kitchen, everything ready at hand, clean, and ready to go.” The inclination might show a talent for ordering one’s personal space, for sensing the most efficient positioning of materials for easy retrieval, and for maintaining things in their proper place (but does not necessarily include the ability to order space for others).

– “I like cooking but not for myself. What I really enjoy is the presentation of the food to my family or a group of people, that’s what I enjoy most.” This might reveal a person’s preference to work with Sensory subject matter in a visual manner in order to create a space where s/he feels comfortable socializing with a familiar group of people.

– “I like cooking but baking is what I really enjoy, especially decorating my cakes and sweets.” This person may have a understanding how objects and shapes affect people’s moods and feelings, like someone adept at sculpting in wood, clay or stone objects, or an architect or UI/UX designer.

I want to be clear: one of these talents by itself may not mean much unless it is viewed in the context of a bigger picture, i.e. your total motivational pattern. If you have a particular talent or motivation, it will show up in many of your enjoyable activities–both at work and home–and it will be linked to other elements in the motivational pattern, such as their natural talents, preferred subject matter, natural way of relating with others, the situations that motivate them and what it is they are trying to accomplish when they do what they enjoy most and do best.

So…if you find yourself with time on your hands and gravitating to certain activities that you might think are quite ordinary or mundane but truly enjoy—such as gardening, photography, needlework, car repair, word games, collecting things, rearranging home furniture, budgeting, gaming, electronic kits, model building*—you are using some of your motivational pattern.

Furthermore, if you want to know how these talents and motivations might help you develop your career in certain directions, use a simple career assessment process like my JobJoy Story assessment tool to help you identify and define your motivational pattern.

*If you’d like a list of a 100+ hobbies and interests that you might’ve forgotten how much you enjoy, email me and I’ll send it to you.

Example of Career Change as a Journey with a Clear Destination in Mind

As we get older, making a career change is more challenging for many reasons:

– we’re locked into a job that gives us economic security that we don’t want to risk;

– our identity is invested in our job—especially in the way that our family (you’re the breadwinner) and friends (you’re like me) view us—so there is little support for a major change;

– we might’ve tried a change previously and it didn’t work so we’ve lost confidence and don’t really believe we can make a change;

– we don’t have the desire or the energy to face adversity, it’s just easier to coast along with the devil we know;

– we don’t know where to start so we don’t do anything except daydream (news reports consistently tell us about 70% of workers fantasize daily about changing their job).

Whatever the challenge, there is a simple antidote that I have seen work everytime over the past 25 years–take one action towards what you want.

Did that action move you closer to your goal?

If so, take another action. If not, identify what was learned from that experience…then take a different action. Baby steps! We crawl, we pull ourselves up, we take a step or two, we walk, we run. That’s life. Same thing goes for career change.

For example. A local client visited me 10 years feeling “stuck” in her government job. She was thinking about going to law school. After exploring the pros & cons of such a commitment for a young family, she decided against it.

Last year she returned. She now had 18 years employment as a public servant but still desired a career change. She had an idea in mind for developing her own business. We discussed some options and developed a plan with specific action steps.

Action Steps

She took the first action of seeking advice from her network to evaluate the demand for the service she wanted to offer. Her network was very encouraging. At the same time, we reviewed all the legal and logistical requirements for starting a business in Ontario and established a timeframe. She approached several contacts in her network to solicit them as initial clients…but they turned her down! This took some of the wind out of her sails.

In the meantime, she found it difficult to choose between solopreneurship and registering as a corporation and received conflicting advice from lawyers, accountants and other professionals.

I encouraged her to continue prospecting with her targeted client base; in short, when faced with adversity, swim with your kind of fish. She attended professional networking groups for business women, some of whom took her under their wing. She started to feel supported in very practical ways. She decided not to incorporate, then launched her business and immediately got referrals, new clients and projects.

Her side hustle keeps her busy outside of a 9-5 government job providing grant writing and social media management to clients. She says, “I couldn’t be happier!”

Next Step

We can now plan the next step to build her business to the point that she can go full-time by moving from solopreneur to employer.

Ten years ago this client had one idea that did not pan out…but her desire for a new venture was strong. In the past year, she took her idea through baby steps to walking and is now preparing to run!

Career change is a journey with a clear destination in mind. How fast you travel is not the issue. The point is to enjoy the journey in the one life we get.

Newcomer’s Insights to Job Search

Eight months ago, I started working with an experienced IT Business Analyst who relocated from South Africa to Canada. While his previous experience was in the banking sector, he recently landed a role with a national gaming after applying to dozens of jobs and being interviewed for 4 other roles before landing this job.

Based on his job search experience in Ottawa with me as his coach, he asked me to pass on the following advice to others facing a similar challenge. In my view, anyone looking for a job whether they are relocating from afar or have been living in the same city all their lives will find some value in his advice, and anyone who has ever looked for a job will find his advice interesting.

Job Search Tips

– Don’t assume an easy transition because there are significant entry barriers to the local job market, e.g. Citizenship status, Security Clearance, and French language skills are all necessary to work with the city’s largest employers federal, provincial, and municipal governments.

– Customize your resumé for each job posting.

– Don’t think you’re going to get a job within two months, one that is comparable to the one you left behind. Instead, be prepared to be very pro-active in your job search in terms of time and commitment.

– Don’t underestimate the value of a partner to assist with financial support and provide networking opportunities through their colleagues and network.

– Be prepared to “sell yourself” in the job market. He came from South Africa where job searchers are expected to be modest and let their resume speak for itself. His experience here is that employers want you to paint a very clear picture in interviews about your value proposition. You have to speak to your strengths and be specific about how your previous experience applies to their needs and priorities.

He feels he got this job offer because I had prepared him with PAR stories and helped him practice giving concrete examples of his experience and skills, after asking specific questions to interviewers to help him determine the right examples to give. For example, when the interviewers told him that Ontario’s gaming industry is highly regulated, he was able to communicate in clear and coherent terms how he managed certain projects in SA’s highly regulated finance sector that turned out to be directly comparable to what his interviewers were looking for.

IT is a hot sector and most people assume it is “easy” to get a job if you have tech skills. But this is not the case for many job searchers, especially those who relocate to Ottawa, or those just getting out of school, or those with any other limitations.

Getting job search assistance can reduce the time and costs (e.g. every day without a pay cheque is an opportunity cost). If you’re hitting obstacles, get help!

What should a cover letter cover?

Break through the crowd of cover letter with these tips!

Only send a cover letter if they ask for one. When they ask for a cover letter, it’s usually because your resume is going to be screened by software or a low level HR clerk, neither of which is equipped to interpret your resume to determine if it matches the job description. Instead, they want a shortcut.

The purpose of your cover letter is to give them that shortcut. Therefore, a cover letter should be a clear, concise and coherent summary of a match between you and the key/essential requirements of the position.

Think of it as a fact-matching exercise

List their key requirements in one column then correlate your experience and skills in metric terms with those requirements. For example, if they require a degree in a field, name your degree and year of completion’ if they ask for X years of experience with a certain software, provide them with your number of years; if they want to know what kinds of projects you’ve worked on, be specific (name of project, duration, objective, your role, budget, results); and so on. Once you’ve done the two-column exercise, you can formulate a one-page cover letter.

You then refer them to your resume for details. The cover letter is not for you to emote about how much you admire the company and what a great candidate you are. The purpose of the cover letter is to give them a good reason to read your resume where you demonstrate your “job specific knowledge” and provide evidence of why you can perform the required “duties and responsibilities”.

Customize

Cover letters and resumes need to be customized to a job posting. They are marketing documents that help differentiate you from other competitors. In order to optimize your chances of breaking through the glut of applications and rise above the noise, get professional help!