Career Development Office - Blog

From the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE)

3. Emerging Careers Can Present Exciting Opportunities for Students

While many are fretting about the impact of the economy on jobs for college students, Sharon Jones is excited about the prospects for students who can apply their knowledge, skills, and abilities to emerging occupations.

An emerging occupation is one that has been recognized in small numbers, but continues to grow, according to Jones, assistant director at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There are many catalysts for emerging occupations, such as technological advances, new or altered laws and regulations, and changing demographics. Jones tries to identify emerging occupations by surfing the web to identify job leads for students or poring over U.S. Department of Labor reports.

“It’s not easy,” she says. “Most information in government reports is old, and by the time they’re written about, they’re established and no longer ‘emerging’ occupations. The world of work is changing so fast that it’s hard to keep up with it.”

Many emerging occupations manifest in small organizations, Jones says, meaning highly recognizable organizations don’t have positions in these fields at the start.

“When the field does mature, it might be blended into a job description that has a lot of other duties, such as webmaster,” she adds.

That blurring has led to college students’ lack of awareness about new career fields.

“Many times, students don’t know that a function can be a career,” Jones explains. “For example, I’m amazed at how few know about search engine optimization (SEO), which has been out there for a while. Some students have done SEO work during their internships, but either don’t understand that it can be an occupation, or don’t describe it correctly on their resumes.”

Still, Jones feels that members of this generation are uniquely qualified to enter new occupations on the ground floor, before degrees, majors, or courses even exist for these occupations. College students are more likely than ever before to choose double or triple majors, and one or more minors.

“They just need help applying skills that they have or should acquire and seeing the connection to an emerging occupation,” Jones says. “It’s important that career advisers know what’s required to be a successful job candidate in these fields so they can steer students toward critical electives and valuable experiential opportunities.”

Following are some emerging occupations that Jones identifies:

LIBERAL ARTS

Accent reduction specialists—A growing speech pathology specialty, sometimes people go into this through English as a Second Language training. Applications for accent reduction specialists include helping someone who is unable to make a presentation because of an accent, or training customer service representatives to speak perfect English without a strong accent.

Linguistics—There are many emerging occupations within linguistics. For instance, some companies are looking for employees to name their products and services. Because of globalization, brand naming is important to ensure a name is acceptable in many languages. Globalization requires that products and services be delivered in local languages. It also has applications associated with national security, interpreting, and international business.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

Cultural analysts/linguists—One offshoot of this career is accompanying military forces and analyzing media content in a country to report implications of what’s reported and its influences on the local population.

Human terrain analysts—These professionals conduct primary ethnographic and social science research with local leaders in a country and translate conversations and documents to interpret local or regional culture.

Leadership analysts—Professionals in this field are used by the CIA, among others, to produce assessments of foreign leaders and officials and help key U.S. national officials to deal with their foreign counterparts.

EDUCATION

Child life specialists—Professionals who are trained to help children and families cope with traumatic situations, such as hospitalization or violence.

Patent analysts—These professionals help local companies determine how new concepts or products are unique and marketable. (These jobs are also available in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.)

SCIENCES

Creative perfumers—Creative perfumers evaluate the odors of chemicals for everything from expensive perfumes to deodorants, according to a client’s goal for its scent. Creative perfumers are trained to create fragrances during a rigorous training process that requires them to study hundreds of natural and synthetic materials.

Security engineers (federal job)—Security engineers create analytical and physical security systems that foresee and prevent future security problems.

Transportation geography researchers—These professionals apply geographic information systems to work on existing and new transportation networks. They also interact with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to conduct vulnerability assessments.

Genomics—This group of professions is centered on using DNA in research. For example, clinical genomics analysts can use DNA for personalized medicine, to increase the likelihood that treatment will be effective for an individual.

HEALTH

Nurse anesthetists—These nurses collaborate with surgeons, anesthesiologists, dentists, and other healthcare professionals to administer anesthesia.

Health informatics specialists—Health informatics specialists work with doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to use electronic medical records and computerized programs to guide their diagnoses and treatment plans.

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