Cool Careers For Dummies E-Book

Marty Nemko

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 705

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Every year, thousands of people change careers. Whether you are arecently graduated student looking to put what you studied to gooduse or an experienced professional looking for a change in routine,finding a career that really suits you can be a daunting task. Cool Careers for Dummies helps you discover what youreally want out of life, what your passions are, and how well youperform in different environments, and then shows you how to usethis information to find a career that suits you. Now revised andup-to-date, this easy-to-use guidebook helps you explore your joboptions and make clear-minded decisions. This new edition gives youthe tools you need to: * Search for and find a career that fits your talents * Land the job you want * Train for your new found career * Mold your resume into a masterpiece * Put on a stunning interview * Improve your career by making the most out of your job * Explore the fun and profit of self-employment Along with these features, Cool Careers for Dummiesprovides a self-assessment section to help you identify yourinterests. After answering a few questions about yourself,you'll apply your answers to the Cool Careers Yellow Pages,which profiles more than 500 great careers. It also lets you in onsome unwritten codes of the office, such as having integrity,defusing saboteurs, and maintaining office relationships. So whatare you waiting for? Get Cool Careers for Dummies and findthe job of your dreams today!

Leseprobe

Contents

Title

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You’re Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Introduction

A number of years ago, I heard about a little-known career called child life specialist. When children must go to the hospital for an extended stay, they’re assigned a child life specialist to help them adapt to living without their parents.

When I told a client about this career, something happened that had rarely occurred with previous clients: her eyes lit up.

That helped me realize what people most want from career counseling: new options. So, I started collecting cool careers. Every time I heard of an interesting career, I added it to the list. I included unusual careers as well as neat niches within the popular careers. One example: lawyers who specialize in outer space issues. Plus, I included low-risk/high-payoff ideas for self-employment. After a few years, my list contained more than 500 careers.

This book contains a quick scoop on each of those careers. Each scoop focuses on the non-obvious insider information about that career and ends with a great Web site and/or book in case you want to learn more about that career.

The book also gives you, for free, the strategies that my private career counseling clients pay me big bucks for. These approaches have been the most helpful in choosing a career, in landing a job, and in making the most of it. I developed many of these strategies because, for many people, the standard career advice wasn’t working.

And that’s the book in a nutshell. Its ideas have helped many, many people find a cool career, including folks who were quite stuck. Whether you’re looking for your first real job, thinking about changing careers, or considering self-employment, I know this book will help you — a lot.

About This Book

Although the previous editions of Cool Careers For Dummies received uniformly gratifying reviews, from the day the second edition was published, I’ve been working to ensure that this third edition is even better. In this edition, I do the following:

Pack the book with advice aimed especially at people just starting out — two years on either side of graduation — and add plenty of tips for mid-career people and for Boomers.

Provide new guidance for career searchers who simply don’t have an overriding passion or skill.

Add, to the Cool Careers Yellow Pages in Chapter 2, new, rewarding, viable careers and drop some that no longer measure up. Also, I enhance or update 95 percent of the career scoops that were in the previous edition.

Completely rewrite the section on ahead-of-the-curve careers in the Cool Careers Yellow Pages. It’s filled with ideas on how to get in on the ground floor of the next Big Things.

Revise the 35 Most Revealing Questions in Chapter 3 so that they’re even more likely to reveal what you really want in your career.

Improve the advice in Chapter 4 for the many people who have a hard time making the final decision — “Yes! This is the career I want to pursue.”

Improve Chapter 8, which distills what really works into a doable step-by-step plan.

Add secrets to creating a winning resume in Chapter 9 — even if your work history isn’t ideal.

Enhance Chapter 11 on making any job better. Even more important than landing a good job is making the most of it. This chapter provides a step-by-step plan for making even a humdrum job much better. To whet your appetite, here’s one component: “The 3-Minute MBA: The world’s shortest management course.”

Streamline Chapter 12 on how to conquer procrastination.

Add two new chapters about the top ten career truths for women and men (Chapters 14 and 15). Being a guy, I wasn’t sure I was the right person to write the former, but I found the right person. She’s a huge career success; for example, she was named her region’s Schools Superintendent of the Year. Plus, she’s a straight shooter, willing to tell you the things a woman normally tells only her own child. Oh, I should also mention that she’s my wife: Dr. Barbara Nemko.

Create special lists of great careers in the Cool Career Finder (the Appendix) for liberal arts graduates, Boomers, offshore-resistant job searchers, and even slackers.

Conventions Used in This Book

I use a few conventions to make your experience with this book as easy as possible:

Italics highlight new terms and emphasize words.

Boldface text indicates the keywords in bulleted lists and the action part of numbered steps.

To draw your attention to Web sites, I set them in monofont — a font that looks like it came out of a typewriter.

These days, even some cool sites have addresses so long they stretch to Kansas — well, at least beyond the end of the line. In those cases, I don’t insert a hyphen to indicate the break. So, when using one of those Web addresses, just type in exactly what you see in this book. Pretend the line break doesn’t even exist.

What You’re Not to Read

I’d love to see you read every word in this book, but if you twist my arm, I have to admit that some of the words are less important than others:

Sidebars, which are shaded in gray, are useful stand-alone material, but the world won’t end if you skip them.

The 500-plus career intros in the Cool Careers Yellow Pages in Chapter 2 are arranged in categories, such as careers with people. If your idea of nirvana is to work in isolation, you can certainly skip that section. Just read the sections that appeal to you.

You can easily find and succeed in your cool career without reading the paragraphs marked with an Unconventional Wisdom icon. But they’re mind-expanding and you probably won’t find those ideas anywhere else.

Foolish Assumptions

Because you’re reading this book, I assume

You’re still unsure what you want to be when you grow up — even if you already have gray hair. This book will help you get clear.

You’re not aspiring to a low-level job. This isn’t the book for high school dropouts exploring options in manual labor. All work is worthy. Indeed, people willing to work on low-paying, boring, low-prestige jobs deserve great respect. But this isn’t the book for them.

You’re reasonably intelligent, somewhere between bright and brilliant. Don’t be fooled by the For Dummies title. These books are for intelligent people who don’t want a drawn-out, painful learning experience. They want the important information, and they want it fast and enjoyable. That’s what I try to give you.

You’re not easily offended. I sometimes write politically incorrect things. I’d rather offend you with the truth than anesthetize you with lies.

How This Book Is Organized

The chapters in this book are organized into five parts.

Part I: Finding Your Cool Career, Right Here

Whether you’ve never had a career before or want to dump your old career for a new and improved one, this part is for you.

First, follow your heart. Browse the 500-plus careers in the Cool Careers Yellow Pages in Chapter 2 and simply pick out one or more that make your heart beat a little faster. Don’t feel like browsing all 500? There’s a quicker approach. I divide the careers into categories to make it easier to home in on the ones that are right for you.

Next, use your head. I ask you to list what’s really important to you in a career. Don’t know? Answer the 35 Most Revealing Questions in Chapter 3.

Finally, blend head and heart. This part concludes with a virtual career coach. It simulates what I do with my private clients so that your final career choice makes sense and feels good.

Part II: Training for That Cool Career

Choosing a career is one thing; succeeding at it is something else. Often, a key to success is to be trained well. In this part, I show you how to find the right training for you and how to make the most of it. If a university seems like the right choice, I show you how to maximize your chances of admission to a great program and how to reap the maximum benefit from your training. But often, you can learn more at what I call You University, a custom mix of mentoring, articles, tapes, and live or online classes. I even show how You U. “graduates” can get hired over candidates with more degrees.

Part III: Landing That Cool Job

The standard advice — network, network, network — simply doesn’t work for lots of people. They either don’t have many contacts to network with or they’re uncomfortable with schmoozing. This part shows you an effective way to land the job even if the thought of networking gives you the creeps and you don’t have a 500-name Rolodex. For my clients, this approach has been invaluable. From creating a winning resume to knock-their-socks-off interviewing to staying motivated, this part covers it all.

Part IV: Making Any Career Cooler

When you buy a suit, it probably looks just okay off the rack. To really make it look good, it needs to be tailored and accessorized. The same is true with your career. This part shows you how to make any job better by tailoring it to your strengths and by using wise approaches with your boss and co-workers.

And if you’re a procrastinator, you probably won’t be after you finish reading Chapter 12. (Don’t tell me you’ll read it next year.)

Another approach to making your career cooler is to become self-employed. Chapter 13 takes the exciting but scary thought of being your own boss and shows you how to maximize your chances of success.

Part V: The Part of Tens

Many good ideas don’t require long explanations. So here’s where I plunk lots of good ideas that are self-explanatory: the top ten career truths for men, women, and everyone.

Finally, there’s the appendix. It’s called The Cool Career Finder — a way for you to find careers in nearly 20 categories, such as Cool Careers for Liberal Arts Grads, Offshore-Resistant Careers, Boomer-Friendly Careers, Make a Difference Careers, and even Cool Careers for Slackers.

Icons Used in This Book

There are some ideas I really don’t want you to miss, so I mark them with one of these icons:

This book is filled with tips. These are important good ideas.

Bigger than a tip, these are key strategies for finding and landing a cool career.

Many people procrastinate on their career search if it’s drudgery. So, over the years, I’ve kept track of approaches that are fun yet effective, and I put many of them in this book. This icon makes sure you don’t miss them.

This icon lets me brag. These are the ideas I’m most proud of.

Avoid these common pitfalls and you probably won’t bomb out.

Where to Go from Here

No need to read the book from start to finish. I write it so that you can skim the Table of Contents and simply start reading from the place that most intrigues you. For example, perhaps you’ll want to start by browsing the Cool Careers Yellow Pages in Chapter 2 or by answering the 35 Most Revealing Questions in Chapter 3. Of course, I believe you’ll enjoy and profit from reading every word. (That’s what every author thinks.) If you don’t, e-mail me. I promise to respond and maybe incorporate your suggestion into the next edition.

Part I

Finding Your Cool Career, Right Here

In this part . . .

You’ve probably tried to choose your career — unsuccessfully, or you wouldn’t have bought this book. The approach in this part was developed for people like you. I give you plenty of options to explore in the Cool Careers Yellow Pages and ask you 35 revealing questions to help you match a career to your talents, interests, and values. By the time you finish reading this part, chances are, you’ll have found your cool career — and had fun in the process.

Chapter 1

Your Cool Career Journey

In This Chapter

A morality tale on career planning

Previewing your own career journey

In this chapter, I give you an overview of what works as you find and enjoy your own cool career, but first, I show you what doesn’t work.

Julie Seeks a Career: A Cautionary Tale

Sure, some people come out of the womb knowing what they want to be when they grow up — the 5-year-old violin prodigy comes to mind. But most people aren’t so lucky — and they don’t get much help.

Some parents tell you, “It’s your life. You decide.” Other parents go to the other extreme, expecting you to follow in their footsteps: “Hazardous waste disposal is a great career.” Before you even learn how to tie your shoes, they’re pushing: “Come on, let’s visit Daddy’s toxic waste dump.”

In high school, you take a career test that asks what you’re interested in. How the heck are you supposed to know? If you’re like most teens, you spend most of your school life studying such career irrelevancies as the symbolism in Romeo & Juliet, quadratic equations, and the slave ships of 1628. After school, you play soccer and are forced to take piano lessons — a skill for which only your mother thinks you have talent. You spend summers at Camp Kowabonga, during which your career exploration consists of observing your counselor go postal. How in the world are you supposed to validly answer test questions about your career interests? It’s little surprise that many high school students laugh at their career test results: forest ranger, funeral director, or “You could pursue a wide range of careers.”

Many students remain undaunted. They figure that career clarity will come in college. Trouble is, most colleges proudly proclaim that their courses are not for career preparation but for general education. Worse, college courses are taught by professors — people who have deliberately opted out of the real world. So, many college students’ career sights are limited.

As college graduation approaches, panic often sets in and the same students who procrastinated endlessly trying to ensure that they made the perfect career choice suddenly force themselves into a decision, often based on very little information. Their entire reasoning often fits on a bumper sticker:

“I want to help people, so I’ll be a doctor.”

“I’m lousy in science and I like to argue, so I’ll go to law school.”

“I want to make a lot of money, so I’ll go into business.”

“I don’t know what I want to do, so I’ll get a master’s in something.”

None of these reasons would work for Julie. She was sick of school. So she headed to her college’s career center where she was pointed to a career library and encouraged to “explore.”

That’s inadequate guidance for most people. Julie did, however, fall into a job. Her cousin was the janitor at Western Widget Waxing, Inc., and put in a good word for Julie: “She has always been interested in widgets.” Julie wrote a letter to Western Widget Waxing, Inc., that began, “I believe I’m well-suited for a career in the widget waxing industry.” She got an interview. She wore that conservative suit she swore she’d never wear and told old WWW, Inc., that ever since childhood, she spent much of her spare time waxing widgets. She got the job.

Within days of starting at WWW, Julie realized that widget waxing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Now what? Not surprisingly, WWW’s human resources manager told Julie only about options in widget waxing. “Well, Julie, you are on track to becoming a widget waxing supervisor, and down the road, I think you have the potential to become a widget waxing director.” On seeing Julie’s face go flat, the manager tried, “Well, you could join our sales department. Would you like to sell widget waxing? How about the accounting department? Shipping? Well, what do you want, Julie?” That was the problem. Julie hadn’t a clue.

In desperation, Julie decided to seek help from a professional — even though it used up the money she’d been saving for that vacation. “What’s a thousand bucks if it can land me a cool career?”

Alas, when Julie showed up at her appointment with the career counselor, there were those tests again.

Counselor: Well, Julie, on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, you’re an INFP. That means you’re an intraverted, intuitive, feeling perceiver.

Julie: So what should I do for a career?

Counselor: Julie, you can’t rush this. That would be premature foreclosure. We need to review the results of the Campbell Interest and Skills Survey. You’re an RIC. That stands for realistic-investigative-conventional. Let’s interpret that.

Julie: So what should I do for a career?

Counselor: Well, Julie, use the information you’ve learned about yourself from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and from the Campbell Interest and Skills Survey by exploring in the career library.

Julie: Noooooooh, not again!

Instead, Julie returned to Western Widget Waxing, Inc.

Too often, career counseling is like psychoanalysis: You gain insight into yourself but your life is no better.

One day, Julie heard about a book called Find Your Career Joy While Doing What You Love and the Money Will Come While Your Flower Opens. So off Julie trotted to the bookstore, and although daunted by the book’s thickness and its 66 worksheets, she figured it was only $19.99 — the cost of two movie tickets. Such a deal. Julie bit.

Five years later, our hero was still on worksheet #4. Her father, her friends, and even her hairstylist were asking her, “Well, Julie, what are you going to be when you grow up?” Julie decided to get serious. She pulled out her aging copy of Find Your Career Joy While Doing What You Love and the Money Will Come While Your Flower Opens and actually managed to complete all 66 worksheets. This gave her a complete inventory of her skills, interests, values, job requirements, personality attributes, and inter-ocular focal length.

But doing all that still didn’t tell Julie how to figure out which career fits best.

I swear I’m not exaggerating. Even the best-selling career guides don’t take you through that crucial next step: showing you which careers fit your skills, interests, and values. The guides state or imply that if you do all their worksheets, you’ll somehow divine your dream career.

Julie cried, and Julie stayed on at Western Widget Waxing, Inc. “Maybe I am meant to be in widget waxing,” she told herself. She worked hard, and indeed the human resources manager’s prediction came to pass. Julie became director of Widget Waxing. But still she wasn’t happy.

Then Julie was sure she found a solution: the computer. WWW, Inc., benevolent firm that it is, bought a career-finding software program and made it available to its employees. Julie was first in line. A couple of hours and voilà, 15 best-fit careers popped out. Some of the careers made sense but didn’t excite her enough to make her quit her now-comfortable job at WWW to go back and get retrained for a profession she wasn’t even sure she’d end up liking better. After all, Julie had become a director and was vested in WWW’s retirement plan. A few of the generated careers did excite Julie, but they were careers that excite too many people — TV broadcasting, for example. So what if Julie would love to anchor the nightly news? So would half the continent.

Although Julie didn’t know it, many computer programs often fail for another reason. They eliminate careers if the career seeker lacks even one ostensibly necessary skill or personality trait. In the real world, many careers don’t have such rigid skill and personality requirements. Take book editors, for example. Some succeed primarily because of their aesthetic sense, others because of their feel for the bottom line. And aren’t some editors introverts, others extroverts? Even if Julie lacked a key attribute, if she found a career that excited her, she may well have been willing and able to put the energy into compensating for her weakness. But the computer program never gave her the chance.

Krishna Rama (nee Julie) now resides at the Harmonic Transcendent Monastery in Berkeley, California, hoping to find career nirvana through meditation.

All jokes aside (at least for the moment), despite taking career tests, plowing through fat career guides, and/or meditating, many people end up falling into their careers more by chance than by choice. Not a good way to ensure career happiness. There has to be a better way.

There is. Read on.

Taking Your Own Journey

There are two ways to use this book. You can simply flip to a chapter that intrigues you and start there. Or you can let me be your virtual career coach. After reading the overview in the following sections, just turn the page and I’ll take you by the hand and walk you through what, for most people, is the most successful way to go from career clueless to career contentment. Reading this book all the way through simulates what my private clients pay me big bucks for.

Discovering your cool career

Here’s what you and I can do together to start your journey:

1. Our first hour or two will be especially exciting. In browsing Chapter 2’s Cool Careers Yellow Pages, you discover fascinating information about 500 cool careers and self-employment opportunities. Even on the off chance that none of those 500 appeal to you, you understand the world more richly than you ever have before. But chances are good that one or more careers will call out to you.

2. I ask you the 35 Most Revealing Questions in Chapter 3. Over my 20 years as a career counselor/coach, I’ve tried zillions of questions to tease out my clients’ core skills, interests, values, and desires. These 35 are the ones that have been most revealing.

3. By this point, you likely have come up with one or more careers that intrigue you. Not so fast. Before committing to a career, you deserve to know more about it. So, in Chapter 4, I show you the smartest ways to learn more about a career. If, after that, you’re still unsure, I help you gain the courage to make a decision.

If, after completing these three steps, you’re still unsure of what career to choose, I’ve learned, over the years, that it’s far wiser to choose the best of the options you’ve considered than to wait on the sidelines hoping for something better to come along. By choosing something, and then getting the best training, and doing a competent job search so that you can unearth a good job offer, you’ll probably be further along on the path toward a cool career than if you took more career tests, visited a career library yet again, or even worked with a career counselor/coach like me.

Finding the best training for your needs

In Chapters 5 and 6, I show you how to choose the right training program and make the most of it. Feeling like an expert is more central to believing you’re in a cool career than the career itself. I’ve seen people who have ostensibly cool careers — for example, actors — who are miserable, because deep down, they’re not sure they’re that good. On the other hand, I’ve seen plumbers who think they’re in a cool career, largely because they know they can handle virtually any problem they’re likely to face.

Getting a cool job

The part of career-finding that most people hate is looking for a job. Some people will procrastinate until they’re homeless instead of sitting down to start the job hunt. So, in the next part of our journey, I do everything I can to make that job search easy and pleasant. I start, in Chapter 7, by helping you get into the right mindset — by the time you’re through, you’ll practically laugh at getting rejected. In Chapter 8, I lay out the plan, step by step. I show you how to create a great resume in just a few hours (see Chapter 9), and the secrets of impressive interviewing — even if you’ve been slacking on your parents’ sofa for the last two years. (Chapter 10 has the full scoop on interviewing.)

Making the most of your new career

The last step in your journey is probably the most important. Choosing your career carefully and then not making the most of it is like giving the gas station attendant $20 but putting only $10 of gas in your tank. I show you how to take your off-the-shelf career and tailor and accessorize it to fit you. And I equip you with skills critical in nearly every career: for example, people skills so out- standing that you become beloved (see Chapter 11), overcoming procrastination (see Chapter 12), and the art of being entrepreneurial (see Chapter 13).

Okay. Onward to what may be one of your life’s most exciting journeys.

Chapter 2

The Cool Careers Yellow Pages

In This Chapter

Using the Cool Careers Yellow Pages effectively

Discovering many great career options

Finding out what’s on the leading (but not bleeding) edge

The first step in finding your career may be the most fun: browsing the Cool Careers Yellow Pages. It gives you a fast yet substantive introduction to more than 500 good careers, including many unlikely suspects.

What Makes a Cool Career Cool?

Competition for a spot in the Cool Careers Yellow Pages was fierce. First, a career had to be one of the following:

A popular career

A little-known niche within a popular career

A little-known career

A self-employment opportunity that seems to have a high reward/risk ratio

I narrowed down the careers further by selecting the highest scorers overall on these criteria:

Potential to make a difference in society

Potential for at least a middle-class income

A good job market

Using the Cool Careers Yellow Pages

You have three options when you peruse the Cool Careers Yellow Pages:

The Very Busy Person’s Approach. To make it easy to home in on the right career for you, I divide the career profiles into categories. Scan the careers in the category that seems to best fit you (for example, careers with people and words), read the profiles of just the few careers that jump out at you, and pick the career that seems most on-target. A tentative career in ten minutes! (Of course, even the busiest person should check that career out in greater detail. So, each career’s profile ends with one or more Web sites or books that enable you to do that.) Most of those books are too specialized to be carried in your local bookstore, but most are available at www.amazon.com.

You can also learn a lot about a career simply by googling the career name and the word “careers.” So, for example, if you want to know more about a career in geology, just enter “geology careers” into the search engine at google.com.

Want another superbusy person’s approach to homing in on the right career? This book’s appendix contains special lists ofcareers: for example, the careers most likely to impress your family, easy-to-transition-into careers, careers that are too much fun to be work, those offering the surest routes to big bucks, and the careers most likely to improve society. You could start by browsing the careers on one of those lists.

The Busy Person’s Approach. Zoom into a couple of categories and read just those profiles. A tentative career in 20 minutes!

The Wisest Approach. The career profiles are short and pleasant to read, so it’s wise to read ’em all.Who knows? Your dream career could be in a category you wouldn’t have picked. Besides, at the risk of immodesty, I’m confident you’ll enjoy reading this chapter and learn a lot about the world in the process. A woman who had bought this book’s second edition for her son e-mailed me to say she couldn’t stop reading the Cool Careers Yellow Pages even though she wasn’t looking for a career.

The categories

A career can require skill with people, with data, with words, and/or with things. In the Yellow Pages, I categorize the careers accordingly. For example, the attorney profile is in the “Words/People” category. Most attorneys must excel at using words and must also have good people skills.

Puhleeze, don’t treat a career’s category as gospel. The individual job you land may be different. For example, one lawyer may mainly write contracts, in which case he doesn’t need exceptional people skills. Another reason not to take the categories too seriously is that many careers fall on the border between two categories. They could easily fit in another category.

The icons

Sometimes, a picture is worth 1,000 words. Not so with these pictures; they’re worth maybe three or four.

Each career profile is accompanied by an education icon. It represents the typical minimum that an average employer requires. Some job openings require more than that minimum, but, occasionally, a candidate is impressive enough to be hired with less. Before choosing a career, verify the current education requirements in your locale.

No degree required. Training may involve an on-the-job program, an apprenticeship, or a certificate program.

Some college required, usually a two-year degree.

Bachelor’s degree required.

Master’s or other post-bachelor’s — but not doctoral — education required.

Doctoral degree required.

Some icons denote things other than education requirements:

Careers marked with this icon have significant self-employment potential.

A career in which being older is often a plus.

Careers marked with this icon are profiled in-depth in the Occupational Outlook Handbook, an authoritative government source available in most libraries, and online at www.bls.gov/oco.

Taking the road less traveled

The Cool Careers Yellow Pages covers the popular professions, such as doctor, lawyer, and psychologist, but as you know, those careers require years of graduate school. Many people in those fields believe their education failed to prepare them for their career despite the enormous cost and years of effort. Before committing to all that schooling, know that many people find great career satisfaction and acceptable income in similar careers that don’t require you to spend so many of your peak years behind a student desk. Examples:

Aspire to be a doctor? Physician assistants and nurse practitioners realize most of a doctor’s benefits: They command a healthy salary, get to diagnose and treat patients, and because they rarely treat serious illnesses, most of their patients get well.

Leaning toward the law? Consider becoming a mediator: less confrontational work, fewer ethical temptations, and shorter training.

See yourself as a psychologist? Personal coaches not only train for a shorter time but because they deal with healthier people, they also see more progress.

Aspire to be an executive? It’s a long hard road. And in today’s flatter hierarchy, an ever-smaller percentage of aspiring executives ever get past middle management. That often means long hours and little power. Instead, consider owning your own small business, where you get to instantly catapult yourself from schlepper to CEO (with no MBA required).

So in addition to the popular high-status professions (which are covered in the Cool Careers Yellow Pages), consider checking out the Yellow Pages’ many other careers.

Okay, enough preliminaries. Enjoy.

Work with People

Mediator. Traditionally, the way that divorcing husbands and wives avoid killing each other is by hiring two attorneys and letting the lawyers slug it out. That’s expensive, adversarial, and often, just plain yucky. An ever-more popular alternative is to hire a mediator. Don’t like divorce mediation? Tackle employment cases — before going to trial, most wrongful termination suits must be mediated. Lawyers generally are chosen to mediate complicated fact-centered disputes while counselor-types more often are used when emotional issues are at the core. Whether a lawyer or counselor, a really good mediator needs the listening skills of a suicide counselor, the patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon, and, alas, the marketing skills of P. T. Barnum. Media- tion Information: www.mediate.com. Mediation Resource Center: www.nolo.com/resource.cfm/catID/B21C6122-6654-468C-83A6D0B4B74D37CD/104/308/239.

Geriatric Care Manager. Imagine you have aging parents living in another city. They need help dealing with the healthcare system, finding someone to look in on them, or completing paperwork. You’d help out if you were local, but you’re not. An answer? Hire a geriatric care manager. U.S. News tells of geriatric care manager Pat Gleason. She “has dozens of ‘adopted’ grandparents. As she makes the rounds to private homes and nursing facilities in Texas, she is showered with hugs and kisses from clients she helps with the problems of aging. It may be a woman recovering from a broken hip who needs help making her home easier to navigate, or a widower having trouble rebuilding a social life . . . One job perk, she says, is free history lessons, such as the stories she heard from a 104-year-old about crossing the Oklahoma Territory in a covered wagon.” Don’t want to be self-employed? Some hospitals and HMOs also hire geriatric care managers. National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers: www.caremanager.org.

Psychotherapist/Psychologist.Not long ago, experts thought that schizophrenia, autism, and depression were caused by bad parenting. So countless patients and their families were subjected to years of fruitless psychotherapy. Now, it’s clearer that these and many other psychological problems have largely physiological roots. That will increase the need for physicians trained in psychology but reduce the need for psychologists focused on the psyche. Nevertheless, for now at least, demand for psychotherapists remains solid. More health plans are covering psychotherapy visits because it’s tough to cope with life’s ever-greater demands and because new therapies are more effective. For example, brief solution-oriented therapy, sometimes combined with new drugs, is rapidly replacing prolonged analysis of childhood angst. New trend: e-counseling. Compared with in-person or by-phone counseling, the client can take more time to reflect on the therapist’s questions. Wikipedia entry:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/psychotherapy.Jeffrey Kottler’s book: What You Never Learned in Graduate School: A Survival Guide for Therapists.

My experience getting a PhD in educational psychology from Berkeley and then teaching at four different graduate schools has convinced me that psychologist training programs have been padded into doctorate-length marathons: It’s not because there’s so much that aspiring psychologists need to know, but because universities make more money the longer students are in school. And grad students are free or low-cost research slaves for professors. If you’re considering a career as a psychologist, ask yourself whether you want to endure that. Then consider whether a career as a personal coach (which I cover later in this chapter) may be less demanding and more fulfilling.

That said, the following niches, which don’t attempt to radically remold people the way traditional psychotherapy does, are, in my view, among the most likely to be rewarding:

(Neat Niche) Relationship Acceptance Therapist. Couples counseling apparently works best when it helps partners learn to accept each other as they are instead of trying to change each other. (This makes sense. How easy is it to make you change?) A study found that after just six months of acceptance therapy, 90 percent of couples considering divorce reported “dramatic” increases in satisfaction and none split up. Andrew Christensen’s book: Reconcilable Differences.

(Neat Niche) Men’s Therapist. The number of therapists for women and people of color have long been increasing. Now men are starting to seek counselors specializing in men’s issues. Mensight magazine: www.mensightmagazine.com. The National Men’s Resource: www.menstuff.org. Glenn Good’s book: The New Handbook of Psychotherapy and Counseling with Men, Revised Edition.

(Neat Niche) Infant Mental Health Counselor. This career emerged because more and more children are born with severe mental or physical problems, or into homes with parents ill-equipped to be parents. The infant counselor advises parents on how to bring up a challenging baby while retaining their sanity. The Infant Mental Health Specialist: www.zerotothree.org/vol21-2s.pdf. World Association for Infant Mental Health: www.msu.edu/user/waimh.

(Neat Niche) Money Counselor. Some people hoard money, others spend it too fast; Boomers can’t discuss it with their aging parents. Enter the money counselor. In my favorite incarnation of this career, you first help your client understand the cause of his money problem and, in turn, develop a plan to cure it. Then, if the client is deeply in debt, you negotiate for him, asking creditors for reductions in interest and penalties. Sometimes, creditors will even pay you a percentage of any debt payments you submit to them. Myvesta:www.myvesta.org. National Foundation for Credit Counseling: www.nfcc.org. Olivia Mellan’s book:The Advisor’s Guide to Money Psychology.

(Neat Niche) School Psychologist. This can be a great job: nine-month year, high status, no undue stress. Typical project: Johnny is doing lousy in school. What should school and parents do? In comes the school psychologist: Observe the kid; test him; pow-wow with parent, teacher, kid, and special education teacher; and write jargon-filled report. School psychologists may also conduct parenting workshops and screen students for gifted students programs. National Association of School Psychologists: www.nasponline.org. Kenneth Merrell’s book: School Psychology for the 21st Century.

Alas, programs for gifted students are being dismantled. Why do slow learners have the right to special, expensive instruction, and psychological and other services, but gifted students, with so much potential to contribute to society and who often flounder without attention, increasingly get zilch?

(Neat Niche) Consulting Psychologist. A dentist is losing patients and terrifying others. Maybe she’s just a bad dentist, but it could be she doesn’t know the art of calming patients. A consulting psychologist teaches the dentist how to calm her patients. Another example: a psychologist may teach a lawyer how to tease out honest responses from clients and deponents. Society of Consulting Psychology: www.apa.org/divisions/div13.

(Neat Niche) Sports Psychologist. A golfer has trouble concentrating. A pitcher freaks out under pressure. Teammates hate each other’s guts. Enter the sports psychologist. The American Psychological Association’s Division of Sports Psychology: www.psyc.unt.edu/apadiv47. Robert Weinberg’s book: Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 4th Edition.

(Neat Niche) Forensic Psychologist. Is he sane enough to deserve the death penalty? Rehabilitated enough to be released into society? Competent enough to manage his own affairs without a conservator? More worthy of being the custodial parent? Was the death a disguised suicide to let the beneficiaries cash in on an insurance policy? Forensic psychologists address those sorts of questions. The Forensic Psychologist: www.geocities.com/athens/7429/forensicpsychprep.html.

College Student Advisor. In years past, professors advised the students, but colleges have realized that professors are more interested in and knowledgeable about their own research than about what courses Jill should take. So, many colleges now hire counselor types to advise undergraduates. Some- times, it’s just a matter of reviewing a transcript and suggesting courses, but with the amount of career-planning and personal malaise that many college students feel, it often goes well beyond. National Academic Advising Association: www.nacada.ksu.edu. Virginia Gordon’s book: Academic Advising.

Personal Coach. Do you like to help others but would rather deal with problems easier to address than reconstructing a personality? Personal coaching is some combination of goal-setting advisor, time-management consultant, motivator, sounding board, confidant, dream-builder, image instructor, and cheerleader — everything but going back and discussing the childhood causes of one’s malaise. The emphasis is on problem solving — what are you going to do to solve this now? Some psychotherapists, who practice cognitive or rational-emotive therapy, do those things, but personal coaches can be adequately trained in far less time. Alas, coaches must market heavily to get clients — there seems to be a coach under every rock. Coaching is increasingly done by phone. Some even coach via e-mail for the clients who prefer having time to reflect on the coach’s question before answering. International Coaches Federation: www.coachfederation.org. Coach U: www.coachu.com. Choice magazine: www.choice-online.com. Julie Starr’s book: Coaching Manual.

(Neat Niche) Career Coach/Counselor. Here, I get to write about my own career. The part I like best is helping people make the most of their current jobs — I’m successful with nearly all those clients. Unfortunately, most people hire a career counselor to help them get a different job. And here I have mixed feelings. With students and new college graduates, it’s still fine. I help them identify new options and develop a plan to get hired, and it usually works. But many older people come in wanting to change careers, and my success rate and that of other career counselors I’ve spoken with is low. Few midlifers who say they want a new career end up being willing to put in the time and effort necessary to make it happen. The third type of client wants help landing a job. I find this work a little boring because it’s mechanical: cranking out a resume and teaching the client how to win the job-hunt game. More important, I dislike that part of my job because I believe it actually makes the world a worse place: My task is basically to make my clients look their best to employers. That gives my clients an unfair advantage over uncoached candidates who may in fact be more qualified. So I refer most such clients to a hand-picked colleague.

That said, a lot of things are great about my job. I work one-on-one in a peaceful environment — my home. I get to hear people’s life stories — fun. I get to wear many hats: counselor, idea generator, marketer, cheerleader, chastiser. I improve people’s worklives and often help them make a bigger difference in the world than they otherwise would have. If you want to be a career counselor, here’s what it takes: You must be credible yet not intimidating, and optimistic yet realistic. You must also be a perceptive listener, know a lot about the world of work, be able to motivate people to act, and know how to use the Internet’s myriad career resources. Private practice can work if you’re willing to self-promote, especially if you pick a niche: teachers, lawyers, middle-age men, whatever. If you’re averse to marketing yourself, some of the best jobs are at college career centers. The book you’re reading constitutes a summary of my style of career coaching. A book presenting a more traditional approach is Howard Figler’s and Richard Bolles’s Career Counselor’s Handbook. National Career Development Association: www.ncda.org.

(Neat Niche) Time Management Coach. When someone asks, “How are you?” the answer is as likely to be “Swamped” as “Fine.” Enter the time-management coach — the person who tries to help wring 25 hours from a 24-hour day. Many people and employers willingly pay for that kind of advice. Marketing tip: Conduct time-management seminars in workplaces. That generates a fee and helps you recruit individual clients. Start preparing for this career by doing the equivalent of writing a term paper. Read a few books and articles on time-management, do a Web search, and write down potentially useful strategies so that you have plenty of different strokes for different folks. Then do a few freebie consultations for friends. First, check out the time-efficiency section of this book in Chapter 11. Stephen Covey’s book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. AlecMacKenzie’s book: The Time Trap.Google “time management coaching” to get a sense of what various time management coaches do.

(Neat Niche) Simplification Coach. More people are recognizing that overly materialistic, hypercomplicated lives make for a worse existence. Some people may have no choice, like the 55-year-old executive with a stay-at-home spouse and a fat mortgage who’s still paying for two kids in college. Even if a person has a choice, it’s tough to get off the treadmill. Most people are conditioned to try (rarely successfully) to buy their way into happiness. A simplification coach can help. You help your clients evaluate every aspect of their lives: “If you opted out of the materialistic lifestyle, could you pursue a career you’d enjoy more? Will that home remodel truly be worth the hassle, cost, and resultant financial insecurity? Should you build in more time for just relaxing? Would your child benefit from a less packed after-school schedule? Michael Sheffield’s Simplicity Coaching: www.simplicitycoaching.com.Linda Pierce’s book: Simplicity Lessons.

(Neat Niche) Parenting Coach. Whether they have a newborn or an adult child who just moved back home, many parents worry that they’re not good enough at parenting. They don’t want a therapist; they just want help in getting their pride and joy to not drive them crazy. You can market to individual parents, for example, by offering free seminars at PTA meetings. Too, school districts and social service organizations may hire parenting coaches. Subniches: sleep consultant, potty trainer, adult child slacker coach. Search “parenting coaching” at google.com to get a sense of what different parenting coaches do.

(Neat Niche) Shyness Coach. Many people are painfully shy. Coaching them is a largely untapped market. You role-play stressful situations with clients and help them realize that the worst-case scenario isn’t so bad or so likely. New evidence suggests that shyness often has a physiological component, so improvement may be modest, but even that is often worthwhile. Wikipediaentry:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/shyness.

(Neat Niche) Dating Coach. You start by helping your clients figure out who the right sort of romantic partner for them would be and where such people are most likely to be found. Next, you help them with initial interactions: for example, writing a match.com ad or teaching them the art of flirting in a supermarket. Role-play the first date, and then “double date” with them, debriefing afterward. Finally, help them develop the ability to turn a great first date into a serious relationship. David Wygant’s book: Always Talk to Strangers.Romy Miller’s book: Understanding Women: The Definitive Guide to Meeting, Dating and Dumping, If Necessary. Ellen Fein’s book: Rules II.Joy Browne’s book: Dating For Dummies, 2nd Edition.

(Neat Niche) Image Coach. “Are you a winter, spring, summer, or fall?” As an image consultant, you may start by picking out their clients’ colors, but you’ll probably move on to helping them select their clothes, makeup, and maybe even posture and interaction style. New subniche: Teaching people the art of walking into a meeting or party. Image consultants are popular because primping up one’s image is a relatively painless way to get an edge at work and at play. The freshly divorced, for example, are often eager to present a new persona. Market your services by offering seminars for singles groups or for an organization’s employees. Or convince a corporation’s HR department to hire you to spruce up all employees who want an image assessment and upgrade. Neat niches: enginerds, singles older than 50, those who wear plus sizes, employees in a specific field. Association of Image Consultants International: www.aici.org.

(Neat Niche) Executive Coach. Many executives are just a beat off. They’re a bit too intense, too detail oriented, too something. Companies or the executives themselves hire coaches to help underperforming execs get into the rhythm. You may help them on such matters as posture, body language, speaking style, etiquette, nonverbal communication, running a meeting, and business protocol. Harvard Business School’s article on executive coaching: hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4853.html. Stephen Fairley’s book: Getting Started in Personal and Executive Coaching.

(Neat Niche) Retirement Coach. Boomers are entering retirement age, many with trepidation. They may need to plan on living another 30 years but have only saved for a fraction of that. Work is central to their identity and even with a bit of part-time work and volunteering, they worry they’ll feel out-to-pasture. Couples in retirement suddenly find themselves spending more time together and may not like each other so much anymore. Enter the retirement coach, who may assist in financial planning, helping the client figure out how to fill days, and/or readjusting to seeing the spouse 24/7. Jan Cullinane’s book: The New Retirement.

Organizer. Work and homelives are increasingly complicated and cluttered, so it’s no surprise that the demand for organizers is growing. Marketing tip: Contact HR directors at nearby businesses. Suggest they hire you to do “organizing makeovers” for any employees who feel they need it. Repeat business is likely because, generally, once a slob, always a slob. Tell your clients that, just as they get their teeth cleaned regularly, they need you to clean house (don’t forget the garage) regularly. Since 1993, membership has more than doubled in the National Association of Professional Organizers: www.napo.net. Julie Morgenstern’s book: Organizing from the Inside Out.

Doula. The most exhausting period in many women’s lives is labor and childbirth, and the first weeks after birth. Throughout, the doula is there to provide pain-decreasing techniques from breathing techniques to different positions, from massage to aromatherapy. Doulas also provide much needed emotional support and advice for moms (and dads?) before, during, and sometimes after the birth. Some evidence suggests that doula-assisted births result in shorter labor, fewer Caesarean and forceps births, and less need for pain medications. Doulas of North America has seen membership grow from 85 in 1992 to 6,000 today. Doulas of North America: www.dona.com.

Literary, Artist’s, or Performer’s Agent. Most artistic types aren’t entrepreneurial. Left to their own devices, they’d hang out, practice their craft, and the checks would somehow arrive in the mail. The agent’s job is to make that happen. Agents help polish the sample product, pitch it to prospective buyers, and negotiate the deal for 10 to 15 percent of the take. Why is being an agent a cool career? You get to pick out and then champion the talented people you want to represent, work closely with them to ensure their product is well packaged, and help them reach as large an audience as possible. Plus, being an agent requires no formal credentials. Most agents learn the business as an agent’s assistant or as a talent buyer — acquisitions editor for a publishing company, for example. North American Performing Arts Managers and Agents: www.napama.org. Association of Authors Representatives: www.aar-online.org. Tony Martinez’s book: An Agent Tells All.

Social Worker. Many people and families just can’t make it without help. A child is abused; an older adult has Alzheimer’s disease; a single parent with eight children, on top of it all, gets AIDS. Few jobs are more intimate and human than the social worker’s. Despite the frustrations and low pay, most social workers who make it past the first two years like their jobs. After all, part of their job is to give away cash, rent subsidies, child-care, food stamps, health services, job training, and other resources, compliments of taxpayers. And pay isn’t as bad as it used to be, averaging about $50,000. Social work remains one of the last professions with excellent job security: More than half of social workers work for the government, it’s not a job that can be sent offshore, and it’s hard to foresee the need for social workers declining. Many social workers are, however, employed by HMOs or private agencies such as the Red Cross, or are in private practice. This is one of the many careers in which the training requirements have been ratcheted up: Now, a master’s degree is usually required. National Association of Social Workers: www.socialworkers.org. The New Social Worker Online: www.socialworker.com. Linda May Grobman’s book: Days in the Lives of Social Workers.

Employee Assistance Professional. Workers show up with problems: drug abuse, prone to violence, in financial disarray, or with eldercare needs. Employee assistance professionals coordinate programs to help. On the prevention side, EAPs may establish physical fitness programs, sponsor workshops on time management or career planning, and even arrange carpools. Employee Assistance Professional Association: www.eap-association.com. Mark Attridge’s book: The Integration of Employee Assistance, Work/Life, and Wellness Services.

Victim Assistant. Imagine that you’ve just been assaulted. Upon reporting the crime — if you’re fortunate — you’re introduced to a victim assistant. This person provides you with emotional and practical support all the way through trial and is your liaison with the district attorney. Victim assistants work for social service agencies, courts, or in private practice. Victim-Assistance Online: www.vaonline.org. National Association for Victim Assistance: www.try-nova.org.

Bail Bond Investigator (Bounty Hunter). Few tasks are riskier than going after criminals on the run. Believe it or not, the police are often too busy to find them. That’s where bail bond investigators come in. First, you must track down leads. Computers help, but the ability to find snitches is key. (One woman bailed her grandson out of jail by posting her house as a bond, but he skipped town, and guess who turned him in? Dear ol’ grandma.) An unsurpassed adrenaline rush comes in the actual chase and takedown — many people who skip bail won’t go back to jail without a fight. So, it’s not surprising that successful bail bond investigators can earn a six-figure income. (I wouldn’t do it for seven figures.) Premiere Bounty Hunter School and Training Center: www.beabountyhunter.com.

Child Life Specialist. Imagine that your child is told she has a serious illness and must suddenly move from home into a hospital for a long stay filled with painful treatments. The child life specialist’s job is to help children adapt to living without their parents and to psychologically prepare them for scary medical encounters. Child life specialists also help ensure that these kids get an education and a bit of fun in their lives. Child Life Council: www.childlife.org. Richard Thompson’s book: Child Life in Hospitals.

School Guidance Counselor. The modern version of this job is much more complicated than dealing with kids kicked out of class for chewing gum. School counselors may coordinate sex education, health awareness, career counseling, gang violence prevention, and on-site social work services. And yes, counselors still spend a lot of time telling Johnny that he better shape up or else. The quality of these jobs varies. Some end up being more clerk than counselor. American School Counselor Association: www.schoolcounselor.org. John Schmidt’s book: A Survival Guide for the Elementary/Middle School Counselor.

Nanny. The training is short; the task is doable, often pleasurable; and you may get to work in an environment most people only dream about: a wealthy person’s home. That’s not a bad combination, even if the pay is low. If you’re good with kids, you won’t have trouble finding a job. With the increase in single parents, and with two-parent families working full time, even many middle-class people find that a nanny is a must. The key to enjoying nannyhood is to get hooked up with a great family. Attending nanny school maximizes your chances. Why? Because many desirable families search for their nannies by contacting nanny schools. International Nanny Association: www.nanny.org. Jo Frost’s book: Supernanny: How to Get the Best from Your Children.

Child-Care Center Owner. As the number of single parents and families with two working parents grows, so does the need for child-care centers. To succeed, worry less about creating a fancy facility or even having lots of toys and equipment. What’s key is to be or hire a child-care provider(s) with that ineffable ability to make children love them. Of course, child-care providers must also be responsible and have an ever-watchful eye — young children can do all sorts of dangerous things. My mother told me that as a toddler, I had a habit of eating carpet fuzz. National Child Care Information Center: www.nccic.org. National Association of Child Care Professionals: www.naccp.org.

Personal Assistant. According to the New York Post, a typical day in the life of Olympia Dukakis’s personal assistant consists of rendering a second opinion on a movie contract, dropping off her dry cleaning, picking up her dog’s gourmet dog food, and suggesting ideas for marketing Dukakis’s salad dressing. Salaries range from $30,000 to $100,000, plus perks like concert tickets and traveling first class. Of course, not just celebrities need assistants. These days, just about any busy person could use one. Niches: executives, college presidents, wealthy widows, and your run-of-the-mill busy middle incomer. Sometimes, the job may be more like an office assistant — word-processing a report, coordinating a project, and handling the bookkeeping — but Beth Berg made a good living with none of that. She started “Dial a Wife.” She plans the meal, waits for the plumber, takes Junior (and his friends) to soccer, perhaps plants your herb garden, and even does the initial house hunting. Sounds like a traditional wife, but she gets paid $50 an hour. Berg’s first ad simply said, “Buy time.” Dionne Muhammad’s book: Beyond The Red Carpet: Keys To Becoming a Successful Personal Assistant.

(Neat Niche) Virtual Assistant. This is an option for someone who wants to, at home, use administrative skills, such as word-processing, database management, Internet searching, travel arranging, and bookkeeping. Of course, virtual assisting is especially appealing if you have a disability, you want a portable business because your spouse’s career requires frequent moving, or simply because you love the idea of being able to play in your garden during the day.There’s no commute and no office politics. A Newsweek article describes this career as an administrative assistant without a boss looking over your shoulder. International Virtual Assistants Association: www.ivaa.org. Training: www.assistu.com.

Concierge. Marcia’s concierge service, operating in the lobbies of residential and office buildings, helps inhabitants with life’s mundane tasks, such as picking up dry cleaning, returning videos, and taking cars in for oil changes. Marcia can often get employers to pay for her services because they know that many employees sneak time off work to take care of life’s necessities. In hiring Marcia, the boss gets full use of the employees and grateful workers as a bonus. Wikipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/concierge. Article, How to Be a Personal Concierge: www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/businessideas/startupkits/article37930.html. You’re a What? Corporate Concierge: www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2002/spring/yawhat.htm.

Bringing people together

Personnel Recruiter. Forget about the image of the recruiter coming onto campus to recruit applicants. Today’s recruiter starts before jobs are even advertised. He develops ongoing relationships with the sorts of people the employer is likely to hire. For example, a company that uses Java programmers may routinely post tips and tricks on online Java discussion groups to elicit positive feelings toward the recruiter. When a job opens, the recruiter posts it on the Web and sets up software to screen applicants. Increasingly, he conducts interviews by phone, online, or even webcam.Job growth is fastest in temp agencies. Wikipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/recruiter. Michael Foster’s book: Recruiting on the Web.

(Neat Niche) Employment Interviewer. You’ve been on the other side of the table: “Mr. Job Applicant, why do you want to work for this company?” You think, “Because I’m desperate. I’ll work anywhere.” You answer, “Because I’m impressed with your fine line of products.” How’d you like a career in which you’re the interviewer? Employment agencies hire interviewers to screen applicants, prep them for interviews, and then pitch them to prospective employers. Don’t like the selling part? Work for a company or the government. Your job is simply to match applicants with the available openings. Pierre Mornell’s book: 45 Effective Ways for Hiring Smart.

(Neat Niche) Executive Recruiter (Headhunter). This is one of the few jobs that requires no formal education yet can yield a six-figure income. You work for a private agency engaged by companies to lure top execs from other firms. What makes this a neat niche is that you get to work with accomplished people, and you can earn big money if you can persuade enough HR managers to let you conduct their employee searches. You must also be able to sniff out top-flight execs, determine whether they’re compatible with the client company’s culture, and if so, convince them to take a job with another company. Keith Kulper’s article: www.kulpercompany.com/newsletters/executive_search_consulting_demy.html.

School-to-Work Coordinator. Some schools are finally realizing that they graduate too many students ill equipped for real-world jobs. So high schools are hiring school-to-work coordinators. A coordinator may arrange for teachers to visit local workplaces. Some teachers, on seeing what it takes to succeed in today’s workplace, change what they do in the classroom. School-to-work coordinators may also help students in career planning by bringing community members to schools to talk about their jobs, and arranging student job shadowing and internships. National Tech-Prep Network: www.cord.org/ntpn.

Casting Director. Would you find it fun to cast a sitcom? An epic motion picture? A feminine hygiene commercial? Casting director is one of those little-known but fun Hollywood careers. Here’s how casting works: You write a breakdown (a list of all the needed characters), e-mail it to agents, and wait for submissions (photos and resumes). Then you pick people to audition. Casting Director Lisa Pirriolli says, “Casting is perfect for people who were unpopular in high school and this is their way of getting back at all the people who didn’t ask them out.” The bad news: You usually have to start as a volunteer. Casting Society of America: www.castingsociety.com. Janet Hirshenson and Jane Jenkins’s book: A Star Is Found.

Sales-oriented work