Business
Operations Manager
Leaving their imprint throughout
several company departments, operations managers hire people, acquire materials
for customers, and attempt to predict what products are most likely to sell.
The field can be characterized as
high-demand and low-supply, with plenty of opportunity for those thinking of
dipping their toe in it. "If we talk to any employer, that's the
[position] they're most interested in, especially around the idea of project
management," Cote notes. "So being able to run an operation and [in]
particular, to manage complex projects, there's an increasing demand and fewer
people there to fill it."
It's also a profession welcoming of
individuals who possess the rare duel qualities of business instinct and a
penchant for number-crunching. "It tends to require a blending of
quantitative skills and qualitative skills, and that seems to be an area where
people fall on one side or the other, but that middle road is not one people
pursue," he says.
HR
Specialist
Depending
on the size of a company, the responsibilities of a human resources (HR)
specialist can include recruitment, hiring, training, employee benefits,
compensation, job enrichment, relocation, performance, termination, and
outplacement. Over the coming decade, the field is expected to grow by 20.5
percent.
With
a brighter economic picture, companies are seeking more HR specialists to help
integrate new employees. "As we come out of the recession, companies are
adding people, and you need HR people to take care of the people coming
in," says Sharmyn Calhoun, president of the National Human Resources
Association.
To
achieve success in the field, Calhoun recommends a formal education and
possibly a graduate degree in an area like human-resource management or labor
relations. A law degree can also be a great asset if you work for a unionized
company, she notes.
If
the company you work for has a large staff and the area of your focus is
singular, it's still important to be well-versed in all HR disciplines and know
how they affect the company as a whole. "You have to be able to think
strategically across all the disciplines to be successful in an HR specialist
or generalist role," Calhoun says.
Market
Research Analyst
Conducting polls, crunching numbers,
analyzing human behavior--these are a few of the techniques market research
analysts use to decipher the shopping patterns and trends of consumers. The
field is expected to grow by about 41 percent in the coming decade.
A key driver of that growth is the
business world's love of data. By dissecting and analyzing data, companies not
only gain a strategy for increasing their bottom line, but for understanding
what makes consumers tick.
"The more we have of data and
the better quality that data is, the more useful it will be in creating
strategy, and so I just don't see the market research analyst as a position
going away anytime soon," says Joseph Cote, professor of marketing at
Washington State University.
Financial
Adviser
Mutual
funds, asset classes, diversification--these are a few investment terms
financial advisers break down as they direct you on where to allocate your
money. Employment in the field is expected to grow by 32 percent by the
decade's end.
Thomas
Blanchfield, managing director of investments for the private banking and
investment group at Merrill Lynch, notes that the need for financial advisers
has grown in part because employees are increasingly managing their own
retirement savings these days.
"I
think that person is obligated to look after their own finances in a way that
they perhaps weren't in a previous generation," he says. "For those
people that don't feel they are prepared to do it themselves, they are seeking
advice," he says.
While
successful financial advisers are savvy money managers, they must also
understand their clients. "The understanding of human emotions and how
that affects people's desire, or lack of desire, to be an investor, is really
an important part of the job," Blanchfield says.
Management Analyst
Companies
hampered by disorganization often turn to management analysts for thoughtful
strategies to shave away inefficiency and increase profits. Between 2010 and
2020, employment in the field is expected to grow by 22 percent.
Good
management analysts, according to Cote, grasp how various organizational
players create wealth for a firm. Another piece to that puzzle, he notes, is
having the skills to manage stakeholder relationships to maximize a company's
profits. "As you move into a more global economy, what we're seeing is
that what makes a firm successful is understanding how to balance the
[corporate] network or ecosystem around it," says Cote.
In that
new business climate, "really understanding how an organization functions
and how you structure an organization to gain its maximum value--I think that's
going to become an increasingly important function," he adds.
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