The pendulum around “what’s hot” in career hunting swings regularly.
In the not to distant past we had the swing of the dot-bombs, companies were being started almost every minute of each day. Then came the swing of the pendulum, companies folded, jobs vanished, and now ten years later many of those buildings remain bare.
Then we entered the “oughts” and the hot industries were bio-tech and health-care. The Bay Area saw a growth of schools training people in the medical field; even the EDD started training people for the medical field. Unfortunately, after a couple of years, the number of people looking for healthcare jobsfar exceeded the needs of the industry and today many of these professionals are now seeking a new hot field.
The new buzzword for jobs in 2009-10…and maybe beyond…is “cleantech”. The government has injected mammoth sums of cash for companies in a variety of connected fields - like energy storage, energy grid, CPV solar, small wind. These sums are allowing these companies to expand and also helping new companies to get a start. According to CNN Money (11/18/2009), the government stimulus money has created 110,185 jobs in California. In discussions with Paul Davis, V.P. of Client Services here at the AA-Careers job hunting center, this year 25% of new customers are seeking career changes, and over 20% of them are taking clean tech jobs. The job openings cover the complete rante from engineering to testing developers to project planning and merchandising.
According to an article done by CareerBuilder, hiring in the 2009 period in “Green” jobs increased across the US by 13 %, and that will gain again in 2010. Clean Edge.(October 2009) states “President Obama and Chinese President Jintao have both made clean-tech development and deployment a cornerstone of their leadership, targeting the creation of millions of new clean-tech jobs”. “Many believe we are just at the beginning of the clean-tech job creation era.” It could be the biggest growth area since the advent of the computer and the Internet.
The top 5 industry sectors for clean-tech career growth, according to CleanEdge are:
1. photo-voltaic solar
2. Bio fuels & Biomaterials
3. Conservation and Recycling
4. Smart Grid, and
5. Small Wind.
Making career changes has never been simple. Many people using the old “Historical Style” resume have no success and tend to give up, using excuses like “they are only hiring people with prior experience”. Paul Davis and his staff at AA-Careers have been very successful for years using highly targeted resumes which contain more and highly specific information regarding the job hunter’s ability to make the company money or save them money, based upon past accomplishments. Think about your past accomplishments and how could they apply to the new rapidly growing “green” jobs.
Stay tuned for more hiring trends with our new job hunting blog!
