Careers You Should Pay Attention to and Probably Aren’t

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

EP 1763 Many people are having trouble finding work or launching a career and have forgotten about certain careers for which there is a need but a short supply.

Stop Being So “Professional!”

I’m thinking about a younger audience for this video– people who are in their 20s and the classic stereotype for some of you is living in your parents’ basement. Let’s think of it in terms of “you haven’t figured out what to do yet with your life and with your career.” If this is you, this is a video for you. It can also be for someone who’s midcareer and going, “I really think my job sucks. I don’t like doing this anymore. What do I do next?”

I’m telling you there is a plethora of careers out there for many of you that you’re not noticing them. To me, it came up because I was talking to someone about my town which is Asheville, North Carolina.

Asheville is a town that basically has a few basic careers. You can work in something medically related because there is a huge hospital here. You can work in hospitality. You can bring the job with you. Here’s where this video makes sense. The fourth category is people who provide services to local residents. What kind of services or those? Plumber. Electrician. Carpenter. Home inspector… you get the idea where I’m going here?

A lot of you are so fixated on the job for which you don’t get your hands dirty, for where you wear are a nice shirt and, maybe, a tie, and can work in offices somewhere. You’ve lost track of the fact that there’s so many careers that have disappeared or are in the process of disappearing, not because there isn’t a need, but because, frankly, their isn’t the labor force there that’s going to be deployed to do it.

What Most People Miss About What A Hiring Manager Wants

So, think about it for a second. In a place where there are homes, there is a need for someone with a restoration firm. For a plumber. I belong to a BNI chapter with a plumber in there who has 20 some odd trucks on the road. They are working all the time. The long and the short of it is, these are good paying jobs and there are a lot of places that are desperate for talent.

There are jobs in manufacturing that require training and some facilities will train you and then employ you if your grades are good and don’t act like a moron during training You have an opportunity to land after the training.

So, think about it. Go exploring. Talk to people who are doing this kind of work. Just call up and talk to some places and say, “Hey, look, I haven’t really launched yet. I am one of these college grads that doesn’t want to serve coffee at Starbucks and I’m thinking about going into your field. Can I get 1/2 hour of your time to talk with you about what it’s like to be a (fill in the blank)?” Someone’s going to take some time with you. They may even pay to send you to school for training. Obviously, you should have a have an aptitude to do work in these areas and, maybe, tell a story about how, when you were a kid, you build such and such or fixed such and such. You shouldn’t just take a job for the sake of having a job. The idea is to have the aptitude to do it, too.