Dying Careers You Should Avoid

Yahoo ^ | Terence Loose

[BenLurkin]

It's been said that if you're not growing, you're dying. Well, that seems true when it comes to careers, too. Unfortunately, in today's fast-paced, technology-driven world, sometimes it's hard to predict which jobs will be winners and which will be losers. But understanding the likely trajectory of your chosen field will be crucial to your professional success.

"People need to ensure that they're in an industry, or working to enter one, that has long-term potential and security," says Debra Wheatman, a certified professional career coach and president of Careers Done Write. She says that if you're not careful, you could find yourself putting your best earning years into a dead-end job.

Or worse: By the time you do see the light, you might be stuck. "A career change often times means you have to start over at a more junior level," says Wheatman, "If you have a family or other debt obligations, it could be really difficult. These things have to be considered."

With your professional future in mind, we combed the U.S. Department of Labor, the authority on the nation's job trends, to find five common careers that may not be so common by 2020. And while they might not be completely phased out by then, they'll likely be either on their last legs or barely staying afloat.

And yet there is a silver lining. We also identified five alternatives that the Department of Labor says have a more promising future. Read on to see if your career goals are destined for success, or headed to the unemployment line.

[cuban leaf]

Dying Career #2: Reporter
Alternative Career: [Democrat] Public Relations Specialist
It’s worked for so many liberal reporters, why not?

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I think that one is spot on because I compare reporters to musicians. It used to be that musicians only made money when they actually performed. Then technology allowed them to play once and sell that single performance as a recording to tens of thousands of people.

Then they applied marketing to the whole scheme and we eventually ended up with the industry that spawned magazines like Rolling Stone. Musicians not only sold to thousands of customers but they became stars.

And then technology attacked again, giving people the ability to copy existing recordings or create their own bands and record them. Being in a bar band could bring you serious cash in the 60’s and even in the 70’s. But it’s both easy and fun to be a musician. As more and more people did it, it got to the point that being in a bar band now is like being on a softball team in the later 20th century. And it pays squat. Most “musicians” are not in it for the money. They are either young and ignorant and think they will make it big or they just want enough money to pay for gas and maybe meet chicks.

And on the subject of reporters, I get more in depth and reliable information from unpaid (or low paid) bloggers than from the MSM. And everyone is a potential reporter - and it can be loads of fun.

Why should it pay real money when there are plenty of people who will do it for free or very little and anyone with a computer can get the word out. And thanks to search engines, it can be found.

Not to ramble too much, but it reminds me of the fear the FedGov had regarding color printers and counterfeiting. They stopped worrying about a guy printing a million $50 bills and were concerned about a million guys printing one $50 bill each. That is the kind of competitive market the MSM finds themselves in - small competitors too numerous to count leaving them to die of a million paper cuts.

[ItsOurTimeNow]

is “Assistant Crack Whore” (political intern) on the list?

[cuban leaf]

I was a draftsman in the mid-1970’s. :-)

[CrazyIvan]

My first full time job was typewriter repair

[The Working Man]

Dying career? Try teletype operator. Yep. My area of expertise for years.

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And I was a Teletype repairman amongst other duties. Fascinating piece of mechanical engineering. Keep it oiled and greased and with an overhaul every few years and they would run 24/7 for a long, long time.

[muir_redwoods]

The job I spoke if was back in 1973. I don’t know why anything except labels gets printed anymore. That and the federal reserves manic production of currency.

[RoosterRedux]

I would also recommend taking the Myers-Briggs personality test to find out what careers you would like and be good at.

If you love your work, you stand a better chance of being successful.

[Mr. Jeeves]

I think the whole notion of a "career" is dying.

You need a variety of skills - and a variety of people who know and trust your work - so you can fill roles as needed, with no real expectation that you are going to be doing the exact same type of work five years from now.

[EQAndyBuzz]

COBOL programmer. I had a choice. Find a new career or be put into suspended animation until Y3K.

[G-Bear]

Seeing as the source for all their information is the Department of Labor, one of the most useless of government agencies, I would ignore the entire article.

[left that other site]

Proofreader.

Supposedly, “Spellcheck” does that now, but from the number of spelling, grammatical, and syntax errors I encounter in my daily reading, it does NOT do a very good job.

[lewislynn]

one of our vendors who does corporte tax consulting (20k property tax returns a year!) told me his dad told him to either become a mortician or a taxman. Good advice

Your friends success is due to being a consultant (self-employed) and not an employee for fortune 500 companies.

Being self-employed isn't for everyone but when you are self-employed you'll know the direction of your future and what to do about it long before you read it at Yahoo.

[onedoug]

In my next life I’m going to be a petroleum engineer.

[onedoug]

Ah, the funerary business....

[Maceman]

One of my early jobs was as an offset cameraman. It essentially doesn’t exist anymore. For any work done with offset plates in small job shops, ( and perhaps big ones) the image goes directly from computer to plate.

I graduated college in the early '70s with skill in electronic typesetting which I acquired during my tenure as editor-in-chief of my college newspaper. When that technology came out, it spelled the end of the old lead linotype which we used to get from a local printshop who was very sad to lose the business after many years.

I supported myself with typesetting skills for the next several years as I furthered my education after graduation. When the next generation of computer typesetting equipment came out, I made it a point to not learn to use it, fearing that if I did I would spend my life as a typesetter.

Now of course, typesetting is a distant memory. Here is the good ole IBM Magnetic Tape Selectric Composer system (input and output units), which financed my post graduate education:

[Resolute Conservative]

Actuary.

[dfwgator]

What about Lion Taming?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMOmB1q8W4Y

[IYAS9YAS]

I would also recommend taking the Myers-Briggs personality test to find out what careers you would like and be good at.

I know someone who studied for the Myers-Briggs test. Really. He figured out which personality traits the management team was looking for to fill a newly-opened supervisor position, and figured out which way to answer to get the results they were looking for. If Manipulative Obsequious Weasel ever becomes an actual job, he's set for life.

He got the job. I mentioned to management that he was going to be there just long enough to grease other palms and make himself known to upper management, then move to something else. They said he was a great fit and wouldn't do that at all. Six months later, I got to have an "I-told-you-so" moment with them.

This guy was an all-out suck-up as long as he wanted the supervisory job. When he got it, and set his sights on the next thing, everyone he sucked-up to was left on the ash heap.

[Resolute Conservative]

I always wanted to be a cartographer. I love maps. GPS is the opiate of the geographically challenged.

[Lazamataz]

Worst career prospects:

1) Congressional and Senate Ethics Officer.
2) Media Accuracy and Fact Checker.
3) Heterosexual Marriage Counselor.
4) Gunsmith.