YOU are your most valuable job qualification.
The future is cloudy, a likely economic depression makes all projections a bit chancy. How then can we decide on the top jobs for the future?
We can see large trends and act on them, such as the emergence of self as the largest employer category. The best job in the future will be a job you develop to satisfy needs in a valuable way.
A job custom fit to you.
Prepare
"Will your life be based on what you want to use it to accomplish, or by random urges of what you want to do?" - Allan Wallace
Jobs of the Future
Exactly which future were you asking about?
"It is interesting to stand at a crossroads and wonder what lies in each direction. The world is at such a juncture, and we are in position to influence its choice." - Allan Wallace
Do I need to get a college degree?
What is a college diploma's value, to me, in the future.
"Wisdom and understanding are enthusiastic pursuits rather than a historic record." - Allan Wallace
The primary purpose of a degree in our bureaucratic society is not evidence of learning. The importance of education is no longer personal growth.
A degree is most often sought today as a self marketing tool. A degree was the meal ticket of the late industrial age. Sadly, this style of education is counterproductive to learning, conditioning students to resent reading, thinking independently, and acquiring wisdom.
"knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind" - Plato
Picking your subjects according to your passions, and developing mastery within your own chosen field - that is the basis for an enjoyable, useful education. That is only occasionally accompanied by a college diploma. More frequently, we have to detoxify our pleasures of learning that were poisoned by compulsive schooling.
Self directed learning is about passion. If you love liberty you will examine psychology also, this will lead you to sociology and economics. You study what you want to know. Your knowledge raises other questions, and you seek other answers. Learning becomes an all day, every day, all life experience. Learning is a pleasure.
If you want to start walking the walk immediately: learn a skill or start a business that can support you anywhere.
" There Are NO Short Cuts To Success... But, you CAN spend yourself into failure." - Pot Pie Girl
To start your own business on the internet, I can think of no better guide than Jennifer, the Pot Pie Girl. Her One Week Marketing is a solid entry into your own web based, portable business. She has an easy to follow, step by step guide, to building your own internet business.
This is a usable education that will add knowledge and understanding. Jennifer will teach you how to construct a micro internet business in a week, and how to develop another micro cash flow business next week. You do the work to build out a series of small cash flows. In a year most of your 52 weeks of accumulated cash flows should be flowing together every week, providing a healthy income stream. And you can keep on developing more micro businesses, building ever more income.
What will you be doing in a year if you don't start One Week Marketing?
By contrast, those late industrial age college diplomas are a prison release for proper execution of a four, six, or ten year sentence. They qualify their holders to voluntarily enter new prisons, working to make others wealthy; paying taxes and following rules to make others more powerful.
As of today, work at becoming interconnected and personally valuable. There is no security in surrendering to life as a drone. Sales ability and independent thought combined with action will always be valued; human drones are being replaced by robots, talented and well educated foreign labor, and computerized solutions. "In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different." - Coco Channel
Rediscover the pleasures of learning. Do it for yourself this time.
Our interconnected future will favor the prepared (your responsibility) and adaptable (your opportunity) mind.
Prepare
"We are surrounded by easily perceived barriers that limit our achievement.
Most such walls were erected using substantial appearing mists of ignorance.
We need to discover and acknowledge these boundaries, and then run through them."
Allan R. Wallace
What sort of job do you want to be working at in ten years?
How you prepare now will determine what you will be doing.
"You don't need a longer book or more time with a talented consultant. What you need is the certainty of knowing that you ought to do something (one thing); then you need the will to do it." - Seth Godin
You already know what to do -- start doing it.
Most of us do not want the next five years to be a repeat of the prior five years - we want something better. To have a chance of something better, something has to change.
The easiest and hardest thing to change is yourself.
Is It becoming more important what you know and how you use it, than where you learned it?
Today a college degree has value.
A College degree's value is decreasing as they become common and as bloated bureaucracies shrink due to technology. You didn't want to spend your life in a cubical anyway.
In five to ten years the depression we are entering should bottom. I think: as we come out, technology enabled individuals and their flexible teams, not bureaucracies, will bring in a new era.Your reputation and integrity are therefore most important.
What do you think?
Will college degrees be more or less important in the future?
Fetching blurbs now... please stand byLess important, Your ideas, integrity, history, and gumption will be more important.
BFuniv.com says:
fb82, The future belongs to prepared (your responsibility) and adaptable (your opportunity) minds.
There are not many job offers to this year's graduates with a starting salary that high. The exception might be protected jobs in science or medicine for those with doctorates, at least this week ...
I could not hire college drop outs or non attendees like Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs or millions of other entrepreneurs for only 100k a year. I can easily hire overqualified workers in India or other countries for that 100k job, workers who would be thrilled with earning much less in a year. They would probably have a work ethic too. They also have families to feed.
Hiring them frees up money to improve the product, lower the price for appreciative customers, take a needed vacation -- or all three. Competition will determine what is best.
If you want a job, you will be competing with too many graduates for vanishing positions in shrinking bureaucracies. If you become self employed as a freelancer, or start a business of your own - 100k could be a minimum goal.
Of course the future is unsure, all we know is monumental changes insure it will not be a repeat of the past.
Posted October 22, 2009
jew says:
I think they will be less important. I think people will choose a career they want to get into and then go to college or not depending on that.
Posted August 26, 2009
ajh182 says:
I feel an undergraduate degree is necessary, as everyone seems to have a degree of some sorts. My dilemma concerns a graduate degree. Should I go to grad school? Is it worth the time and effort? Or should I just try to start an actual career now? I hate the idea of getting an MBA - it is far to common. However, a masters of science for management may be a waste of time as well. So many decisions. My belief, though, is that if you do not wish to learn - if you are not truly curious and passionate - then you are wasting your time. An education shouldn't be a means to an end, but should be a constant pursuit. The real question is - does a degree earned represent that?
Posted July 22, 2009
Pastiche says:
I took 20 years to get my degree, and it was time well spent. I learned new skills as a lifelong learning adult, and I am now, ironically, self-employed and doing much better than I was when I graduated. Do what you love/know, the money will follow.
Posted April 07, 2009
dc64 says:
I think the college degree has become more of a status symbol than a foot in the door of the career the person was going for. Some with a degree aren't working where they want, while others are working where they want, but it has nothing to do with their college major.
Posted April 03, 2009
GREATEST-CHER says:
in the future,
people all over the world are getting intimidate and
they will be beginning to figure out what is really important and what is really useless tradition.
so, the flow of New technology era will give men never-existed concepts and new notions.
Posted March 24, 2009
TheSovereignIndividual says:
It's already marginally important. As it soon becomes an entitlement to the masses, it will be cheapened to the point that the graduate degree will soon hold the cheap status that an undergraduate degree now holds.
Posted March 07, 2009
nikki says:
Degrees can be overrated; however, there are some fields which require a special degree of learning which college provides. I have been a nurse, teaching assistant, restaurant manager, worked in customer service and now I work for the Postal Service. As the economy gets worse, everyone is panicking, but the thing is most of the people with degrees in the positions controlling the situations which have occured did not have the common sense necessary or the concern of others to help them make better decisions. It never stops to amaze me how many people with degrees lack the common sense necessary to get everyday tasks done. It could be that they are used to the way things used to be done rather than the way things can be done in a more efficient and most of the time better manner. Continuing to learn new skills throughout your life is the best way to stay in demand. Everything learned does not have to come from a college instructor. We have so much information available now on the internet, in libraries, and other public forums that there is no excuse not to be able to make yourself more valuable in the workplace. I agree that reputation and integrity are very important because it is truly about the brand that you are selling. You are your brand and if you think of yourself in that manner, wouldn't you want to be considered the "Gucci" or "Hermes" of the office rather than the "generic worker." From what I've seen the degrees might get you the position, but it doesn't mean you will get any respect. Knowing your job, being willing to help others, gathering information and relaying information pertinent to your and your coworkers duties and lives will gain you much more respect. Thus, I don't agree that the degree is a dominating factor in your worklife.
Posted March 03, 2009
You can't do anything but work for yourself without a degree, certification will keep becoming more important.
fb82 says:
try getting a 100k+ job with a high school diploma...tell me how that works out
Posted October 22, 2009
John says:
It is important to get the first job!!!
Posted September 04, 2009
ThatGuySteve says:
I wish there were more choices... but I do feel that young employees (in business) will need a degree to at least get started.
Very shortly after graduation, once there is some REAL experience under your belt, just having the degree will be enough, no matter what the degree is in.
Posted April 16, 2009
Daryl Mumford says:
A Tech. Degree with several years on the job training to match the degree will prove to set the stage for the strongest and concrete notion which supports our current thinking as it relates to the common ideal of a college degree.
Posted January 27, 2009
NBrown says:
If 40 is the new 20 then a college degree is a H.S. diploma anything less consider yourself a drop out
Posted January 02, 2009
Sidesplitters says:
They seem to be getting more important, yet college enrollment is rolling back...which leads me to belive it will become more specialized and valuable, yet even less about personal learning and growth.
Posted September 10, 2008
Prepare
We share many possible futures. The most rewarding jobs will be personal journeys as you develop the future you would most like to share.
Free Agency & Freelancing
The horribly slighted and manipulated "middle class consumer" will soon be gone.
The salt of the earth has been treated by government, business, education, union organizers, and themselves as an expendable resource. They have been depleted.
In general, the value of further formal education has reached equilibrium with the costs - deferred income, books, and college expenses are now roughly equal to the extra income derived from a degree. The remaining advantage to college is that perhaps you can party a bit more than in a salary slave job for those few years.
A way out of the malaise created in our fracturing "one size fits most" society is available - take control of your own life.
* Rediscover the pleasures of constant self directed learning.
You do not need to ask permission to read, learn, and understand new ideas. You have personal authority over your own life - use it.
* Embrace the new frugality while escaping old middle class conspicuous consumption.
Eliminate debt and dependency while developing a sustainable lifestyle of inexpensive security, food, and energy.
* Avoid commuting by discovering local solutions and networked opportunities for entrepreneurship.
Help develop co-operative and collaborative relationships that will be mutually supportive as disruptions in centralized services increase. In sustained periods of local autonomy, these relationships should be able to resist aggression and still prosper.
* Refrain from paper and international investments while first constructing personal and neighborhood productivity platforms. Retain personal, international safety nets in case your neighborhood falls apart.
There will be physical requirements in the process toward new communities and ways of organizing - consider developing new skills that complement your technical development.
Just as the guilds were replaced by the unionized factory worker and their lower level management, so the middle class is being replaced by collaborative networks of innovative knowledge workers - those individuals comprising the Netcohort.
Keep dispersed contacts, developing new social networks that emphasize insights, encouragement, and shared methodologies. Open systems that are not geographic in nature will be important for developing new technologies and responsive systems.
There are already communities that will cherish your contributions and leverage your efforts - put in the time to find them. It only takes five to ten dedicated people to build the core of a community, be one of them.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
prepare
I've found several tools that make me more effective on the internet. Squidoo is one useful tool worth learning.
Any employment requires sales skills, especially self-employment.
Even finding and keeping relationships requires sales.
New Jobs Immediately Available
By Zig Ziglar
Never shall I forget an incident in Atlanta, Georgia, when I was conducting a sales seminar. Just before the seminar started, two well-dressed young men in their late twenties came and asked if they could get a refund on their tickets. They explained that they had just lost their sales jobs because of a personality conflict with their manager. Since they had no sales jobs, to learn additional sales techniques would be of little or no value to them (they obviously had momentarily lost perspective and did not realize that they now more than ever needed their sales skills and training to sell their way into another job).
I asked the two young salesmen two questions. Number one, 'Do you like to sell?' They both replied in the affirmative. Number two, 'Would you like another sales job?' They again replied in the affirmative. Then I assured the two young men that before the evening was over I would have a dozen interviews for sales jobs for them if they attended the session.
That evening when I reached this point in the presentation concerning the security of the sales job, I asked the audience two questions. Number one, 'How many of you are in sales management?' Roughly one hundred of the five hundred hands went up. Question number two, 'How many of you would be interested in interviewing two enthusiastic young salesmen who present an excellent appearance and are sold on the profession of selling but lost their jobs because of a personality conflict with their manager?' Something like seventy-five hands went up. The two young men were able to pick and choose from a dozen solid offers as to what they wanted to do.
Yes, selling is a secure profession.
General Douglas MacArthur defined security as the ability to produce.
As long as you can produce, my selling friend, you have financial and career security.
The key to your future success.
THINK - don't follow
Zig Ziglar Setting Goals 1 of 3
Zig Ziglar Setting Goals 2 of 3
Zig Ziglar Setting Goals 3 of 3
Prepare
"The risks and rewards of natural enterprise are greater, and of far more value to society, than any illusions of security that bind human cogs to a social machine." - Allan Wallace
Good books about a more flexible future.
This more flexible future can birth a more rewarding life for those willing to become more flexible themselves.
Henry David Thoreau
"Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after."
Is There Opportunity?
It is so crowded out there, are there enough new ways to be successful?
There are some big players, but a few years ago they were small players. There are millions of ways to succeed, unfortunately they all require thought and effort. That makes success a choice.
Follow this link, no sales presentation, just something that will let you realize there can be a single moment when your life changes.
Of course, you can be an employee and make someone else rich instead.
This video is hot - let it ignite you.
2008 Latest Edition - Did You Know 3.0 - From Meeting in Rome this Year
curated content from YouTube
Your Comments & Suggestions
In case you want to contribute outside the debate.
Your ideas on jobs of the future would be appreciated. It may be hard to see beyond the increased regulations of dying bureaucracies, but individual initiative will propel life as the throes end. The greatest service would be if you know of jobs that are currently shunned, but will still be in demand within a pluralistic, less regulated, more connected society.
The one thing we know is that major change is coming, those that are not adaptable will become the new lower class, or disappear. What humans normally expect is a nice continuation of the past. That seldom occurs - far more likely is a major disruption that will redefine our lives; again. Life is not linear.
"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." - Eric Hoffer
KimGiancaterino wrote...
This lens is featured on A Day of 100 Squid Angel Blessings.
Posted June 18, 2009
Pastiche wrote...
Learning is a lifelong adventure. Please consider joining our group, Senior Geek Squids. 5*
Posted April 07, 2009
Treasures-By-Brenda wrote...
There is a lot to think about here. I have one son graduating from high school this year. He's not sure what he wants to do so we are totally unsure of where he might wind up...
Brenda
Posted April 07, 2009
poddys wrote...
Very nice lens, 5***** When I started my career Computing was the way to go, but now this has no security and the wages are not good either. Right now I would advise anyone to look for a job with the Police or any of the services, or in the Medical field, where there is always demand.
Posted April 05, 2009
dc64 wrote...
I have no college degree, although I did attend the Defense Language Institute. While I would have loved the opportunity to go to college, I think I would have been impatient having to learn all the freshman basic courses before getting to learn what I was passionate about. At DLI, you delved right in to the language, and I loved that. I'm not sure how I would have done in college. I would be so anxious to study what I loved that I might have been one of those college drop-outs. Maybe it is a lack of discipline on my part, maybe impatience, or maybe I would have hung in there. I just know that there are people I have come across in life who have a college degree and hate their jobs, but feel stuck because they don't want to "waste their degree".
Posted April 03, 2009
PrometheusIV wrote...
I'm an Oracle Database Administrator, and I can tell you that people are always looking for DBA's. This includes Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase, Teradata, and DB2. Really good DBA's are not in great abundance, and companies usually want them to have at least 5 - 10 years of experience. It's a hard field to get into, due to the high work load demands, 24/7 availability requirement, and mistakes made on the job must be non-existent or to a minimum due to the damage that can be done. Definitely considered the "Doctors" of the IT industry, they are responsible for all of the data stored for a corporation, and ensuring that it is accessible whenever it is needed. This data is highly valuable to companies, and can be worth billions of dollars!
Posted March 19, 2009
change
Denial is most dangerous when change is structural. The bureaucratic age is ending, your past is not your future.
Your survival is not guaranteed.
Your historic world view is self-destructive. Improvement is only available through intentional perceptional change.
I've been a bit tough on all of us.
We need it, if we don't embrace change, we will all suffer.
Change is not an option, the only option is how well we handle it. The easiest and hardest thing to change is yourself.
A kite doesn't rise with the wind, but against it - give yourself permission to change - then soar.
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Complicit Simplicity - a hackers end game
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Writers create for themselves and an audience, authors write for publishers. I am a writer. My novel Complicit Simplicity, A Hackers End Game reflects a writer's effort. This free online book is therefore dedicated to you my audience. I have alr...
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Bastiat Free University: share the wealth of centuries, comprised of knowledge
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Join Bastiat Free University in developing a love-of-learning platform. Bureaucratic Age, one size fits some education, belongs in the past. Use, support, and expand its replacement -- self tailored learning. Explore natural educational mod...
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How Free Markets Make Our World A Better, Friendlier, and Safer Place
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Free markets are equivalent to neighbors trading vegetables for fruit at a garden gate. An insightful quote from one of the greatest economists of the last century: "The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care wha...
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Living a Win-Win-Win Life
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Most of human history was a zero-sum, win-lose proposition based on scarcity and need. You can help create a win-win-win society, starting with yourself. Historically, if one person gained another person or group lost. This inspired cultures of clu...
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Go PT, Start Your Permanent Tourist Lifestyle
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As a PT, a permanent tourist, you can usually live and travel in better style and for less money than it costs to remain where you are. You can also chose to enjoy places that encourage the life style you have always dreamed of living. As a Per...
Thoughts and Actions
"Our actions may be restrained, but never our capacity for analysis. Interactions are framed by one of three choices;
reacting as an emotional pinball machine
surrendering to the mob's perceptions
or
developing our own adaptable world view."
Allan Wallace
The best of job-search techniques - start your own business instead.
To re-read, contact the author, rate, blogroll, lens roll, and e-mail this lens to folks who need it:
I will repeat one piece of advice from the raising money for charity lens:
"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." - Howard Thurman
100% of direct income from my lenses goes to micro-finance solutions for world poverty provided by the Grameen Foundation. The Grameen Foundation is creating a rising tide of positive influence upon our world.
by BFuniv.com
Allan R. Wallace trains visionaries.
Allan is Rector of Bastiat Free University, Rector Emeritus of Junior Partner Ministries, and director of developm...
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