by Sharon L. Jones
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke
Are you familiar with the occupations in the following fields?
- Healthcare: electroneurodiagnostic technologist, advanced practice psychiatric nurse, histotechnologist, orthoptist, biomedical photographer, polysomnographic technologist, health physicist
- Engineering: photonics engineer, energy engineer, transportation engineer, nanotechnology scientist
- Finance: financial engineer, algorithm scientist, risk analyst, decision science analyst
- Marketing: search engine optimization specialist, community manager, corporate blogger
- Social Science: restitution specialist; victim, witness, children’s advocate
The rapid pace of change in the job market makes it difficult for career counselors to keep current on students’ opportunities. What forces drive creation of new and emerging occupations? What are examples of these new positions and their requirements?
How New Occupations Develop
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) conducts extensive research to evaluate whether a new occupation should be added to government publications. The following categories describe three types of new or significantly changed occupations.
- A new occupation includes duties that have developed recently and are not included in a current occupational classification. No predictions are available about the field’s growth rate. Retinal angiography, a sub-field of biomedical photography, is an example.
- An emerging occupation has been recognized in small numbers but continues to grow. For example, search engine optimization (SEO) is established enough to have its own professional association and trade group.
- An evolving occupation includes tasks that are changing significantly. For example, data base administrators are often expected to assume IT security duties, and a new job title would be data base security engineer.
Types of Trends
New occupations typically arise from trends such as technological advances, new laws and regulations, and changing demographics. Recent factors contributing to new employment opportunities include natural disasters, war and terrorism, and global competition. New and emerging occupations are increasingly multidisciplinary, specialized, and international.
Multidisciplinary Occupations
Many new occupations, especially those in the technical and scientific fields, require diverse skills. Multidisciplinary occupations may be a good match for the increasing number of students who choose to double or triple major. This trend was highlighted in “So, What’s Your Other Major?,” an article in the March issue of Counterpoint: The MIT-Wellesley Journal of Campus Life. Career advisers often see students with wide-ranging interests who choose multiple majors (or majors and minors) because of those broad interests. (Note: The Renaissance Soul by Margaret Lobenstine is helpful in advising “people with too many passions to pick just one.”) See Figure 1 for a list of emerging multidisciplinary occupations and the necessary education and skills for each.
Specialized Occupations
Allied Health Occupations
Some have already dubbed this the “biology century,” due to innovations and advances in the field. Those advances can result in new and/or evolving occupations. For example, the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 has created unprecedented opportunities in genetic counseling, organ transplantation, drug development, computational biology, and biomedical engineering, among others. In addition, the number of drugs is expected to increase from 500 to 3,000 by 2020, which may lead to an increase in the type and number of occupations related to the research and development of new medications.
To increase the supply of primary care providers and lower medical costs, occupations evolved for “physician extenders,” such as physician assistants and nurse practitioners. Newer advanced nursing occupations include certified nurse anesthetists, certified nurse midwives, and clinical nurse specialists. Other physician extenders include radiologist assistants and radiology practitioner assistants. Dentists can now expand their practice with advanced dental hygiene practitioners. These new occupations usually require two to three years of graduate school. (See Figure 2.)
Some occupations have become more focused due to technological advances and could be considered new or emerging occupations. For example, radiologic technologists are more marketable if qualified in two of the following areas:
- Bone densitometry
- Computed tomography
- Magnetic resonance imaging
- Quality management
- General radiography
- Cardiovascular-interventional radiography mammography
- Nuclear medicine
- Sonography
Resources for those interested in allied health occupations include:
Career Fields With New or Emerging Occupations
Education
The No Child Left Behind Act and Americans with Disabilities Act have had a significant impact on education professionals. The Civilian Language Reserve Corps and National Security Language Initiative are providing resources for more citizens who are skilled in languages with critical shortages. (See Figure 3 for emerging jobs in the education field.)
Those interested in more information about emerging education occupations can consult:
Social Services
The American Psychological Association has labeled the period of 2000 to 2010 as the “Decade of Behavior,” highlighting social problems that behavioral scientists could help prevent. New occupations have been created in social services. (See Figure 4.)
Resources for those interested in jobs in the social services, law enforcement, and security fields include:
Marketing/Information Retrieval
Social networking has led to many new jobs, such as social networking writers, bloggers, and online community managers. They conduct online media outreach and viral campaigns, and contribute to webzines, web sites, online bulletin boards, online chat rooms, and wikis. More than 90 percent of online consumers use a search engine (such as Google or Yahoo) to identify a web site. Since almost half of them will not look beyond the first page of results, media and marketing consulting companies are paid to get a site in the “optimum” location as one of the first entries on the first page. (See Figure 5 for information on new occupations in these fields.)
Resources for further exploration of new marketing and information retrieval occupations include:
Financial/Quantitative
Before the evolution of financial engineering, Wall Street traders used the skills of mathematicians, statisticians, physicists, and computer scientists. Several dozen universities now offer master’s degrees in mathematical finance and financial engineering, according to the International Association of Financial Engineers. Career counselors at Purdue University are seeing new jobs for supply chain analysts, logistics analysts, and quality control analysts. (See Figure 6. )
Resources for those interested in more information about new occupations in the financial and quantitative fields include:
Science and Engineering
Science students may qualify for jobs as clinical trial assistants, regulatory compliance assistants, forensic technicians, criminalist trainees, trace evidence microscopists, aquarists, research fishery biologists, protein chemists, antibody specialists, cytogenetic technicians, air quality analyst/ noise analysts, satellite data analysts, and energy policy analysts, among others. Linden Perrin, associate director for career development at Purdue University, has reported seeing many new engineering occupations. (See Figure 7.)
Resources for information on new and emerging science and engineering occupations include:
Government
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has many employees in new occupations that help prevent terrorism. Some agencies with fast growth rates include the Citizenship and Immigration Services, Customs and Border Protection, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Transportation and Security Administration. Programs have also been created to prepare families of soldiers before deployment, and treat the mental and physical needs of returning veterans. (See Figure 8 for information on new occupations in the government sector.)
Resources for information on government occupations include:
Information Technology
“Geek” has become a positive term for ideal applicants, as this ad illustrates: “Are you the geek we are looking for? Do you think in hand coding? Do you dream in JavaScript instead of English? Are XHTM and CSS more natural to you than riding a bike?”
Emerging technologies have spawned the creation of many new occupations for creative students with computer skills. (See Figure 9.) Further resources about new occupations in the information technology fields include:
Arts and Entertainment
Many of the new and emerging occupations in the arts and entertainment field have information technology aspects, such as social networking site community manager, web site traffic analyst, and character animator. Those interested in pursuing these types of occupations need diverse skills in marketing, programming, animation, and/ or Photoshop. (See Figure 10.)
Resources for more information on new arts and entertainment occupations include:
International Careers
Some international careers open to new college graduates include global business credit risk analyst, trade relations coordinator, and import and export specialist. A software localization engineer translates and adapts programs to a foreign country, with sensitivity to customs and cultural values. Most international positions are held by employees with experience or graduate degrees.
How to Find Jobs in Emerging Occupations
According to the BLS, small companies have the highest percentage and large companies have the lowest percentage of new and emerging occupations. Small companies— those with fewer than 50 employees— often lead the economy in innovation. They can respond quickly to consumer trends and advances in technology. However, college students may be reluctant to apply to an unfamiliar employer for a job with an unusual title.
Timothy Seward, owner of ROI Marketing, has had difficulty recruiting students for entry-level positions (i.e. search engine optimization analyst, pay-per-click specialist, and Google analytics technical specialist) despite his location near Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He substituted the job title “Internet marketing associate” and successfully enlarged his applicant pool.
Professional associations and trade groups are good sources for you to identify jobs in emerging occupations.
The revised and updated edition of Do What You Are, by Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger, includes many examples of new occupations and their projected growth rates.
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RESOURCES
New and Emerging (N&E) Occupations, Methodology Development Report, The National Center for O*NET Development, March 2006.
New and Emerging Occupations-Initial Listings, 100 Occupations Approved for Data Collection, O-Net, June 2007.
Do What You Are, Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger, Little, Brown and Company, 2001.
The Renaissance Soul, Margaret Lobenstine, Broadway Books, 2006.
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