If one of your top 2 or 3 Holland personality types is Realistic, then you might be a little depressed by some of the job growth trends over the last 20 years. Many typically “Realistic” industries and occupations have suffered big losses: manufacturing and production of all kinds, farming and fishing, and even construction in the recent recession. The automotive industries and their suppliers have particularly been hard hit.

But there are many other Realistic careers with positive job outlook. And even within battered industries there are some bright spots.

Things to consider:

• Look at the Realistic occupations related to high growth industries like health care, social services (childcare and elder care), retail and restaurant, science and technology, and computer systems. Technicians and mechanics that fix medical equipment. High-skilled manufacturing like pharmaceuticals or green technology. Think outside the box. Are there any companies near you in these industries? What types of Realistic jobs do they have?
• With any career requiring a significant physical activity (as many Realistic occupations do), consider long-term consequences and your own abilities. Will you be able to hang windows when you are 60 years old? Can you plan a transition from an entry level, intensely physical job, to a less physical one that matches your interests? Again, talk with people working in the field. What are the common injuries? Physical demands?
• Location, location, location. If you really are interested in a particular career, regardless of what the government or “conventional wisdom” says about job outlook, talk with local people working in that career to get the real story. Maybe your area is the exception to a nationwide trend.

To get started, look at the jobs that match your interests using the Career Key test. Then check the job outlook for each career that interests you.

From the Career Key test and website, you’ll find direct links to the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) from each career you choose to explore. Each OOH description of a career includes a job outlook section that links to state specific labor market information. Career Key Canada provides similar links to the Canadian government’s Job Futures with employment prospect information.

Top Realistic Career Key (CK) work groups* for promising job prospects:

1.02 Safety and Law Enforcement
1.03 Engineering
1.05 Construction Crafts & Support
1.06 Crafts – Mechanical
1.07 Crafts – Electrical-Electronic
* The Career Key organizes matching careers in unique, easy to use work groups based on interests, skills, and abilities. To learn more, click here.

The Realistic occupations predicted to have the most new U.S. jobs through 2016 (listed with Career Key work group number) are:

Automotive service technician (1.06)
Carpenters (1.05)
Cooks, restaurant (1.09), and
Police officers and sheriffs (1.02)

The fastest growing is:
Audio and video equipment technician (1.03)

In Canada, please see this list of the best Canadian job prospects in 2009:
For Realistic occupations, see (with the CK work group number)
Paramedics (1.02)
Civil engineering technicians (1.03)
Mechanical engineers (1.03)
Medical radiation technologist (1.03)
Technical occupations in dental health care (1.12), and
Underground miners, oil and gas drillers, and related workers (1.11).

A word about the other CK work groups…

1.01 Agriculture & Natural Resources
Farming and fishing have taken significant hits to jobs. Support positions in forestry, mining, and farming are slowly growing, but overall technology and overseas competition makes this a stagnant or declining area – except mining, oil and gas in Canada. Small “boutique” farmers with specialty seeds and crops are making a positive go of it – but you have to find your niche to make it work.

1.04 Transportation & Distribution
While there is an overall increase in transportation operator jobs (mostly in trucking), these occupations have overall seen a jobs decline. The number and quality of the airline pilot opportunities are much different now than they were 20 years ago.

1.11 Equipment Operation
Construction is rebounding is some places as the residential and commercial real estate markets loosen up. Opportunities to drive heavy construction equipment will follow a similar path.

1.12 Manufacturing & Production
Health science related jobs like dental or ophthalmic laboratory technician can be a bright spot in an otherwise dim outlook for manufacturing and production.

Next post: Job Outlook for the Investigative Personality Type. (in progress) Want to see the previous post in this series? Start with my introductory post in your Career Options Cheat Sheet: Job Prospects by Personality Type. It also has my recommendations for best Internet links for labor market information.

Source for U.S. Job Outlook: Tomorrow’s Jobs, 2006-16, U.S. Department of Labor
Sources for Canadian Job Outlook: Job Futures, 2009; Human Resources and Skills Development Canada

This blog post was graciously submitted to BizzyWomen by The Career Key Blog, run by Juliet Wehr Jones, J.D.  The Career Key™ gives you expert help with your career search and career choices  career change, career planning, job skills, and choosing a college major. Our career assessment helps you find a career by matching your personality with careers and providing you complete and accurate information about each career you choose to explore.

There’s buzz in the media that Generation Y is finally being put in our place. The recession won’t play favorites and Gen Y will see just what Gen X and the Boomers have been talking about. Besides this being ridiculously sad – honestly, are we really a society that beats down optimism? – it’s also completely erroneous.

The Economist reports that “the touchy-feely management fads that always spring up in years of plenty (remember the guff about ‘the search for meaning’ and ‘the importance of brand me’) are being ditched in favor of more brutal command-and-control methods.” (h/t The Schiff Report)

Except companies that operate according to the latest trend and resort to command-and-control methods are neither Gen Y-friendly, nor anyone-friendly. You cannot have one set of values one month and a different set the next, because what makes individuals productive in one economy does not change in another.

If you value an open, collaborative approach, that shouldn’t change when times get tough. Especially when Gen Y values are so beneficial to everyone.

The Economist goes on to say that Gen Yers “have labored under the illusion that the world owed them a living. But hopping between jobs to find one that meets your inner spiritual needs is not so easy when there are no jobs to hop to.”

Except that those who can perform will always be able to find a new, exciting position. And Gen Y knows how to perform, especially under pressure. We’ve been multitasking since we could make a to-do list and we readily embrace change. We came of age during 9/11 and as Nadira Hira argues, “corporate America often appears just as scary and unstable (and untrustworthy) as the world at large, if not more so.”

Just because we’re experiencing an economic meltdown for the first time does not mean that we’re going to hide in the corner. We’re not going to settle. Really, we’re not surprised. We saw all this growing up– lay-offs, bankruptcy, politicking – and it’s exactly why we wanted to change the workplace in the first place.

As the Financial Times reports, “today’s younger generation are better prepared for economic hard times than their parents or grandparents: they were not expecting jobs for life… switching jobs and reconsidering careers are second nature to them.”

So, stop listening to those who say Gen Y won’t survive the recession. Here are four ways to really feel secure in today’s economy –

1) Turn down job offers. My mother was horrified and I was elated when I turned down a job offer a couple months ago. But it is one of the most empowering career moves you can make because you get to practice negotiating, you get feedback, you’re in control and you have the option of using it as a bargaining position later.

2) Get paid what you’re worth. I’ve increased my salary 60% since my first position out of college. If you’re keeping track, that’s a 20% raise each year. Silvana Avinami, a self-proclaimed strategic job-hopper reports on Brazen Careerist that she does even better than that, averaging a 30% raise with each hop (see comments).

You simply cannot do this by staying at the same job unless you’re there for a very long time. You just can’t. “Loyalty is about delivery,” and when you deliver, you should be rewarded accordingly.

3) Over-perform. You probably don’t love what you do. And if you don’t like your job, even a little, you’ll start performing badly. That’s bad because high performance is the key to a successful career.

“It makes sense,” Penelope Trunk argues. “If you don’t need to get another job anytime soon, then you don’t need to perform well in the next six months. You can coast. Job hoppers don’t coast or their resume will look bad.” Job-hopping allows you to find out what you like and figure out your strengths by forcing you to make an impact quickly.

4) Risk everything. Because safe is boring and maybe that’s good when times are easier, but they’re not. Safety doesn’t create innovation. But innovation does create new jobs and new opportunities. Innovation creates new markets and cures for illnesses and ideas that make us excited to get up in the morning.

You really want to help the economy? Put yourself out there. Risk everything. Do it for you, your family, your friends. We’ll all thank you.

Recession proof.