Top Ten Fastest Growing Careers

By Jesse Hodes, Campus Representative, Kansas State

When figuring out what you are going to major in at college, it seems not enough stress is put into what careers/jobs are in demand. With the economy in the state that it is, entry-level placement percentage is huge.

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics recently has come up with a list of the ten fastest growing careers that show a lot of promise and opportunities for growth. The website employmentspot.com ranks these 10 careers:

• Biomedical Engineers
• Survey Researchers
• Network Systems Analysts
• Financial Examiners
• Software Engineers
• Environmental Engineers
• Athletic trainers
• Personal Finance Advisors
• Personal and Home Care Aids
• Market Research Analysts

But does growth equal volume? For example, if there were 1,000 Biomedical Engineers in the country and then this year there are 2,000, that's 100% growth. However, if there were 500,000 personal finance advisors and then this year there were 650,000, that's only 30% growth. Yet the personal finance advisors have 150,000 openings vs only 1,000 for the Bio Engineers. It would also be interesting to look at the number of candidates that apply to each of these disciplines. I wonder what jobs have the highest "odds of success" - meaning the least amount of resumes competing for the highest amount of openings.

Coming into college as a naive 18 year-old, I tried to do my best in picking out a major with a balance of enjoyment for myself as well as a major with a solid starting salary wage and opportunity for advancement. I would like to think of myself as rather money-motivated, so I figured even if it wasn't something I would love to do, things would be okay. I mean how many people actually are in a career that they love? However when making my decision, never once did I research how highly demanded my career choice would be nor how fast the industry was growing...So while the economy is more volatile than this damned Kansas weather, I find myself along with hundreds of other students...still searching for an attractive entry-level job.