At a time when information is driving the workforce, it is hard to imagine anyone not paying attention to the trends. But we are creatures of habit and therefore our daily lives get set in routine and unless an effort is made to allocate time to educate ourselves or allow someone else to provide that resource, we plod along in an undefined direction and “life happens.”
I can remember being a classroom teacher and getting the first computer station. That was thirty years ago. Then along came the day when I got six computers and a curriculum for integrating the stations into my classroom schedule. That was 1987, the computers were dependent on the mainframe with a set curriculum and the Internet was a “buzz word” we had just learned and had no idea of what was to come. The trend was technology.
Fast forward to today, 2011, the “buzz word” is Social Media and a Google search of key words, “jobs in social media” indicates 163,000,000 results. There is a trend in this age of information and it is important to pay attention. Ten years ago we didn’t read articles or see job postings for social media marketing, social media headhunters, human resource management of social media, or social media litigation. While millions of jobs have been lost in the economic disaster of the last few years, the opportunities that are developing require that individuals be prepared and that thinking about careers cannot be the traditional thoughts that the general population has had over the last decade. The evolution of the job market deserves our attention. That which we can imagine today will be surpassed tomorrow. Will you be prepared? Want to know how?