Career Confidence

13There Are All Kinds of Jobs

In the United States, there are thousands upon thousands of job titles. There are also many, many types of job classifications.

Most of us think of a job as a 9 to 5, Monday through Friday type of situation, but in fact, there is more than one way to earn a living.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics categorizes over 800 occupations or types of occupations. They include the following:

• Management
• Business and financial operations
• Computer and mathematical
• Architecture and engineering
• Life, physical, and social science
• Community and social service
• Legal
• Educational
• Library
• Arts
• Design
• Entertainment
• Sports
• Media
• Healthcare
• Technical
• Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance
• Farming
• Fishing
• Forestry

… and the list goes on and on and on.

If you took a “what do I want to be when I grow up” test in high school or college, it seems like it was a much narrower window. Most of the test results included things like teacher, accountant, nurse, scientist, librarian, or customer service representative. Or my personal favorite: marine biologist. I saw marine biologist on every single test I took. I grew up thinking there were way more opportunities to be a marine biologist than there actually are.

***Just a funny little story about marine biologists. As I was finishing this book, my daughter and I took the ferry from New Jersey into New York City for the famous San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we enjoyed our time ...