Look Beyond the Ten Hottest Career or Highest Paying
Career Lists
Job-seekers
frequently look at the ten hottest career or the highest paying career
lists as a guide to which are the hottest jobs around. The more
determined ones then work or study towards reaching one of these ‘hot
jobs’.
In
a parallel career you’re NOT
looking for a better job or even a ‘hot job’. It’s
because you realize that a job is only as stable as whether your boss
likes you…or your boss’ survival in the company…or the survival of
the company...or other factors beyond your control.
You're
looking for something that lasts long-term, something you can
develop while you still have a job. You are not looking for short- to
medium-term gratification. In your quest for a parallel career,
the ten hottest career or highest paying career lists are used only as indicators
of what jobs (and hence skillsets and know-how) are in high demand in
the marketplace.
Look
for Trends instead
ParallelCareer.com
looks beyond the Ten Hottest Career or the Highest Paying Career
lists. It looks at trends instead…social trends,
technology trends, product trends, business trends, all-kinds-of
trends. Look at these trends before deciding on the choice of
your parallel career.
|
|
Trends
+ Assets & Skillset = Parallel Career Opportunity
Forget
the ten hottest career or highest paying career lists! When you spot
trends and combine them with your Assets
and Skillset you'll find parallel career opportunities...not jobs.
Look at these examples:
Example
1
Trend:
Increase
in population of an ethnic group
Current
job:
Your
job at a local council involves translating bi-weekly bulletins for a
particular ethnic group. Hardly rocket science. And unlikely to be in
the ten hottest career or highest paying career lists but you could
still leverage on it to start a parallel career.
Assets
& Skillset:
| (a) |
You
understand the culture of this group
. |
| (b) |
You
know the main influencers in this group
. |
| (c) |
You
have a good reputation amongst the members of this group. |
| (d) |
You
know where members of this group go to pick-up this bulletin. |
Parallel
career opportunity:
You
could start a parallel career in one of these areas:
| (a) |
Find
and market products to cater to this group’s particular needs
(e.g. ethnic food supplies, books and magazines, language
courses). |
| (b) |
Offer
services to this group (e.g. translation services, matchmaking
services)
|
| (c) |
Provide
useful information
about this ethnic group to businessmen and women (e.g. publish
an annual “Doing Business with..” Guide).
|
|
[Tip:
‘annual’ because this becomes a recurring income stream.]
|
Go
to TOP of page
Example
2
|
Trend:
The
percentage of people over 55 years old has been steadily
increasing in the past ten years
in a city/state/country.
Current
job:
You
are the product manager in a company that has been producing
motorized wheelchairs for 15 years. Again this may not be in the
ten hottest career or highest paying career lists but one that
you could leverage to develop a parallel career.
|
|
Assets
& Skillset:
| (a) |
You
know that over 80% of customers in this city/state/country are
the elderly
|
| (b) |
You
know the frustrations and worries of the elderly
|
| (c) |
You
know what they need and want
|
| (d) |
You
know what they can afford
|
| (e) |
You
have access to a database of thousands of customers (from
submitted warranty cards)
|
| (f) |
You
have access to a list of resellers
|
Parallel
career opportunity:
A
parallel career could be started in any of these areas:
| (a) |
Identify
and market special equipment for the elderly (but not anything
directly or indirectly in conflict with your company’s
products)
. |
| (b) |
Provide
remote-monitoring services for the elderly
|
Example
3
Trend:
An insatiable demand for consumer electronic products and gadgets
Current
job:
You
are a technical support engineer of a national consumer electronics
company. Yet again, this may not be amongst the ten hottest career or
highest paying career lists.
Assets
& Skillset:
| (a) |
You’ve
intimate knowledge of common product problems
|
| (b) |
You
know the solutions to most of these problems
|
| (c) |
You
know most of the suppliers of electronic components for
repairing faulty products
|
Parallel
career opportunity:
From
this trend...more ideas for parallel careers...
| (a) |
Publish
a website on consumer electronics and offer an e-newsletter
offering useful tips and information on repair, troubleshooting
and looking for spare parts for common electronic products. You
can write a series with such titles as “How to repair your
PDA for less than $10?”
|
|
[Tip:
(i) a 'series' gives a continuous opportunity to reach your
audience (ii) publishing and distributing an e-newsletter is
easy and cost very little these days]
|
| (b) |
Sell
difficult-to-get consumer electronic spare parts on your
website. |
| (c) |
Create
a “Repair Manual” and sell on your website as well. |
|
[Tip:
once this manual is completed it cost almost nothing to produce
and distribute to your customers on the internet – this means
you can make handsome profits with this one product]
|
You
have just seen in the examples that you can find parallel career
opportunities in trends. Look beyond the ten hottest career or highest
paying career lists if you want more than just another job.
Consider
these....
Who
would have thought
that there will be a huge demand for bottled water in a rain-drenched
country (over 80 inches of rainfall a year) like Malaysia? Yet today, a
litre of bottled water costs almost the same as a litre of petrol in
this country.
And
if you were old enough to remember in the early 1980’s a mobile or a
portable phone weighed and almost looked like a hundred pounds of
bricks!! No one would have thought that there will be a market
for mobile phone ringtones. Yet today, millions of teenagers and the
not-too-techno-illiterates pay for and download their favourite
ringtones.
So...begin
to spot trends and
combine them with your Assets
and Skillset to find parallel career opportunities
instead of looking at the
Ten Hottest Career or the Highest Paying Career lists. But...where do
you look for trends? Go
to "Trends 2005 ">>>
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