Picking a career is a delicate balancing act, and there’s a lot of competing advice for which direction you should travel in. You’re told to pick what you love and to follow your heart, but you’ll ultimately need to make money, and ultimately pick a career that you think you’ll excel in if you want to advance.
Choosing between careers requires not only knowledge of what you want to do but an understanding of the sector and roles within it. Each industry sector has the capacity for people with a diverse range of skill sets; the medical industry attracts many people who want to help people face-to-face, however, there’s also plenty of room for those who have a clerical or administrative mindset.
Knowing the ins and outs of the sector can help you find your precise niche, and to help you with that, we’ve prepared a quick rundown of some promising career paths and future growth sectors within various industries.
Education
The education sector is enormous and highly multifaceted, which means there’s space for all manner of skill sets and personalities within it. It’s also projected to grow enormously over the coming years, with a 13.3% increase by 2018.
With Australia’s birth rate increasingly on the rise, there’ll always be a place for somebody with skills and talent for teaching children. Administrative roles abound; clerical and secretarial jobs are abundant among senior staff, and accounting roles are vital for the ongoing function of schools. Not to mention the thousands of staff responsible for human resources, counseling, and IT on a daily basis.
The most traditional role in the sector, and the one with the most overall competition, is that of the teacher. However, the industry also includes more flexible positions such as childcare and nannying that allow you to devote more time to each individual child, teacher’s aides that help categorize and formulate educational plans, as well as teaching English as a second language.
ICT
Information and Communication Technology is already a major part of modern business, and as more and more of our transactions start to take place online, the e-commerce sector only stands to expand.
This is another booming sector and looks to be the second largest sector for growth according to the LMIP official 2016 report, with an outstanding 14% by 2020.
The best thing about working in the ICT sector is that you’re not tied to any particular commerce. Working on the backend can put you in a creative position as a Web Designer, allowing you to help connect businesses with the local or global market, or it can put you into the financial specialty of an MYOB practitioner.
The medical industry
The largest projected 2020 growth, weighing in at 23.2%, is the medical sector. If you’re looking to specialize within an industry that has growth room, this is the place to start.
The medical industry depends upon a veritable legion of people, from the receptionist that welcomes you to a hospital to the insurance code referrer that navigates the complicated payment system. No matter if you’re the most outwardly facing person, have a knack for numbers, or would rather get out and get your hands dirty, there’s a career path tailored to it.
When you think of the medical system, you think mostly of hospital or administrative roles such as Pharmacists Assistants, helping with the painstaking job of helping people with medication, or doctors.
However, there are plenty of alternate routes that aren’t quite as regimented for those who want to help people on their own terms. Therapeutic massage falls within the industry spectrum, as do nursing assistants for the elderly or disabled (this is an increasingly valued job, as Australia’s population skews more elderly overall). The industry is as wide as it is welcoming, and you’ll always feel like you’re making a difference in people’s lives.
Law and Justice
The law and justice sector encompasses just as hefty a backbone of dedicated workers as the medical system to keep turning. Every day, the dedication of tens of thousands of people goes into maintaining order, from the Paralegal secretarial who researches and processes court documentation, political scientists who theorize and control future policy, even down to the Private Investigators who pursue justice for individuals on a case-by-case basis.
Beauty industry
The beauty industry isn’t as widespread or vast as the others in this list, but it is making strides in market growth rivaling the biggest of them. Increased consumerism of beauty products has driven a market no longer led conspicuously by the absurdly rich and well-to-do, as well as a massively increased male beauty sector.
If you’re looking to break into this sector, Beauty Therapy, and makeup is a good start. However, the addition of a large male market for beauty products means that men aren’t necessarily just going down to the singular local barber anymore; Hairdressing is now a much wider and larger industry for both men and women. Double the customers equals double the profits, after all.
Learning about industry sectors to choose a great career
It’s important to do your research and be able to have a general forecast of various industry sectors to make an informed decision about the kind of career you wish to pursue. The International Career Institute offers a number of courses across a wide range of industries, giving you the ultimate choice in high-quality training that caters to your schedule.