“Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”
– Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland
In this economy it seems there are many road blocks. Companies not hiring, projects on hold until…., too many candidates per job. Yes, that’s all true. So what do you do? Keep sending thousands of resumes to human resource departments? Go to Job Open Houses? Call Recruiters?
How about this as a solution: Read the paper. No, not the classifieds (do that later). Actually read the paper. Go to the library and read the current magazines if you want more information. Now follow the trends. Where are the bright spots in the local or regional market? Here’s an example. I currently have open my local business journal and here are the cover stories.
“Regions Banks Struggle in Q2″
“Large builder lets go more employees”
Pretty depressing stuff, but I read further. I’m not looking for the bad stuff, I’m looking for the good stuff.
Pg. 9 – Software company pinpoints geographical areas for messaging – Two individuals, attorneys at that, developed a system for municipalites for texting and messaging. Ahh, communications.
Pg. 10 – Retailer profitable; sells eco-sustainable furniture and accessories – goes on and talks about the company making money selling ‘sustainable’ furniture. Selling ‘green’
Two examples hidden in the middle of the paper. Boring stuff, so not on the front page.
Get excited, start thinking. What else is going on in the economy? Where else is the money?
Here are a few to get your juices flowing:
1. Energy – Wow, is this a hot subject or what? Outside of gas, there’s natural gas, nuclear (believe me this is a big part of our future), wind, solar, recycled oil, recycled tires, etc…. There are so many jobs in these sectors for every profession.
2. Energy Grid – Oh, by the way. How does the energy travel from Hoover Dam and get allocated to California, Arizona, Nevada, etc… Who allocates this? How does it happen? Who’s making the systems to make this happen? what companies protect us from the terrorists who’d like to destroy it. The Development of the U.S. and worldwide Energy Grids is booming.
3. Broadband Telecommunications – great story I heard of a guy golfing with his buddy. The buddy takes out his iphone, and to figure out how long the hole is he downloads a software application (‘an app’). Within 2 minutes he knows the rest of the course on his phone. How does that happen? Bandwidth. Wireless Telecommunciations. Cellular Towers.
There are so many others; waste/garbage solutions, recycling, ‘green’ alternatives, health record management, auctioneering, etc..
Lay the tea leaves on the table and you’ll find new and exciting opportunites in the field you have chosen.
And, perhaps it’ll help our newspaper industry at the same time.