Career unlimited: some key emerging fields
Be it Services sector, Business Management or Science & Technology, every field has opportunities galore. Choose your type of career option.
Here are some key emerging career areas in different sectors.
Services sector
With tourism as the fastest growing industry in the world, travel and tourism related business as well as the hotel and catering industry require suitably trained professionals.
The recent expansion of the insurance sector has resulted in a demand for many more personnel in this field. Meanwhile, a more organised and quality conscious health care sector requires hospital health managers and administrators. This has been identified among the top ten careers of the new millennium.
What’s more, Hospital Management courses are open to non-science graduates as well.
As the “Education for all” movement gains momentum and the world moves from the industrial era to the knowledge era there is a great opportunity for professionals in Education and Training. More and more ‘quality’ schools promoting excellence in education are being set up. They require committed teachers and principals whose salaries are enviable!
Last but not the least, IT enabled ‘outsourced’ services like tele-shopping centres, medical transcription, maintenance of data bases, insurance claims processing and records for multinationals require thousands of English speaking, computer-literate graduates.
Business Management
Future organisations will depend on “intrapreneurial managers” for their profitability. An intrapreneur is an entrepreneur within an organisation. Another emerging trend is business consulting. Business management encompasses a very wide occupational area.
Law Globalisation has increased the demand for corporate lawyers. A potential area for specialisation is cyber law. The expansion of Internet has created the demand for cyber lawyers. Another emerging and potential area for specialization is genetics law.
All legal system needs trained people who can understand and interpret it. Apart from practicing as a civil lawyer or criminal lawyer, you can specialise in Business Law, Environmental Law, Patent Law, Tax.
Law, International Law, Real Estate Law, Labour Law, Cyber Law, Genetics, Human Rights Law etc. NGO sector Developmental activities aimed at eradicating poverty are increasingly being undertaken by Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). Hence, specialisations in Social Work, Anthropology, Human Rights, Gender, Developmental Economics and HRD have good job prospects in the social sector.
Social work as a career requires specialised skills in optimising a community’s development with people’s participation and in catering to the more vulnerable groups in society such as elderly people, those with physical or mental handicaps, children at risk and people who are mentally ill.
Other areas of specialisation are labour welfare, industrial relations, family welfare, counselling services etc. Social workers are also involved in conducting research studies, data evaluation, project formulation, training activities as well as programmes of awareness raising, gender sensitisation etc.
Science and TechnologyInformation and Communication systems are broadening the scope, accelerating the pace and increasing the synergy of scientific discovery and technological applications. It has also led to great improvements in medicine and engineering. Hardware and software are developing at an unprecedented pace.
The biotechnology frontier, especially developments in the field of genetics have already achieved significant breakthroughs in agriculture and human health care.
Biotechnology could eventually eliminate food shortages, improve health and life expectancy. Bioinformatics. the convergence of telematics and microgenetics will be a basis for a major jump in evolution.
The biotechnology sector will be the driving force of the markets. Herein lies a vast career opportunity. Some of the other key areas of growth are:
Robotics: The automation of all dangerous and dull work is increasing in surgery, security, health care, space, mining laboratory and fast food industry.
Nanotechnology: Machines whose parts are measured in millionths of a millimetre promise to lower unit cost and spread the benefits of technology.
Neuroscience: Is one of the new interdisciplinary fields, which combines cellular, and molecular biology with physics, chemistry, psychology and physiology.
Cognitive Sciences: Related to neuroscience, this specialisation is less about brain biology and more about reasoning, behaviour, language and logic.
Space Research: Space research is mainly carried out in the areas of astronomy and astrophysics, planetary atmosphere and aeronomy, earth sciences and solar system studies and theoretical physics etc.
Environmental Science: The new millennium will witness a greater emphasis on quality of life of which health is a vital component. Therefore, environmental professionals will be required to deal with pollution of various kinds.
Agriculture: Agriculture is another sector, which will witness phenomenal growth with an increasing demand for organically farmed and processed foods.
In addition, the expansion of the food processing industry in allied areas like agro-insurance and agrobanking will also require trained professionals. E-governance: Electronics governance is what we are heading towards in place of bureaucracy and red tapism. This will involve new styles of leadership, new ways of debating and deciding policy, a new way of listening to citizens and new ways of organising and delivering information and services.
Self-employment and enterprise: There is no dearth of scope for self-employment and enterprise in all the above-mentioned areas. Finally, what is important is to rise above all stereotypes and select a career that brings out your creative best. This will result in job satisfaction and career growth. The author is Director of Institutes for Career Studies.