One of the biggest emerging fields in which to pursue a career in is the combined field of sports, recreation and fitness. Whereas some other careers and markets are shrinking, this career path is continuing to grow and expand to include more things, more opportunities and brighter and better people.

To succeed in potential careers in sports, recreation and fitness there are several different types of degrees that somebody can use to their advantage. While degrees in other areas can serve you well in this field, these are some of the best bets when looking to pursue some aspect of a recreation or sports career. While graduate school is usually not a prerequisite to get a job in these fields, it is an increasingly competitive area and therefore the more schooling you get the better prepared you will be to get hired and be successful.

Business Degrees (Bachelor's of Business or MBA)

In more sports and recreation businesses, companies and organizations are not solely looking for people with a sports background. So you don't have to be a former athlete or have a longstanding relationship in sports, fitness or recreation to succeed. More and more, sports and recreation businesses are looking for the smartest minds they can find; the people with a very strong business background and sense. Therefore, a business degree can be highly beneficial in this field. Careers within the field these degrees can lead you to: sports agent, general manager of a team, stadium or department, etc.

Sports Management Degrees

A sports management degree will give you some business knowledge while having it applied directly to the sports business world. You will learn about subjects such as sports marketing and apply business principles to expected real-world, sports or recreation settings. These include sports teams, recreational departments and of course much more. Careers that a sports management degree can help you obtain: anything in the world of sports business, from sports marketing and public relations, to running recreational groups or leagues, etc.

Exercise and Physiology Degrees

If you love sports and also love science, or merely have a passion for staying in shape this might be the right path for you to take. A degree in line with exercise and physiology will give you a heads up in many aspects of the fitness community; and may be required for certain positions. Careers you could expect to pursue with this background: personal trainer, team trainer or doctor, sports nutritionist, etc.

Here is a broad sampling of careers in sports, recreation and fitness that you may consider pursuing with any of the above degrees (or additional backgrounds, educations or interest bases):

1. Sports agent: When many people think of a career in sports the first thing they think about is being a sports agent. This is an extremely tough field, which is highly competitive and crowded. However, if you are successful as a sports agent you will find it to be extremely lucrative as you make a percentage of your clients' contracts.
2. General manager/management of teams, leagues and sports businesses: Having a strong business sense applied to sports and specific sports or situations can lead to what many people consider a dream job, being a general manager for a team. Of course it can also lead to managing events, stadiums, leagues, groups and departments. As these are top level positions, you can expect to earn anywhere from $75,000 to million dollar yearly salaries. Of course, in smaller situations such as minor league teams that salary would be significantly lower.
3. Team doctor, sports trainer, or nutritionist: If you are a doctor or have a fitness background there is a wide range of opportunities available here; from training individual clients to entire teams, rehabbing injured athletes or creating and implementing proper diets for them. Depending on your degree level and experience, you can make equal or greater money to what a typical doctor would.
4. Sports marketing, sponsorship and public relations: While this isn't what first comes to mind for many people, this is perhaps the largest field of potential careers and opportunities in recreation, sports and fitness. Athletes and teams need sponsorship and need to be marketed to the public. Additionally, some products need to be marketed specifically to a sports audience. This creates lots of jobs in these fields and your income can grow as you sell more sponsorship and market more clients successfully.

Labels: Careers in Sports and Fitness and Recreation

If you have an interest in tools, creating something out of nothing, or possess a knack for building - a career in the skills trades industry may suit your talents. A trade occupation involves specific skills that often require manual labor. In the United Stares and Canada, millions of skilled trade workers find employment in various areas, including auto repair, farming and ranching, hairstyling, plumbing, electrical work, printing, forestry, and landscaping. A sample of possible careers includes:

Pipefitter

The assembly and repair of pipe systems that come in an array of shapes, sizes, and pressures is the main duty of a pipefitter, who is also in charge of making sure pipes are properly aligned and situated as it pertains to a blueprint or other instructions. In order to begin this career path, a high school diploma or its equivalent is required. Zero to two years of experience within the field (or in a related area) is another requirement of this kind of job with a typical salary found between $28,484 and $53,042.

Brick and Stone Mason - Assistant

The preparation and laying down of concrete blocks, brick, title, marble, and other related materials becomes the responsibility of a brick and stone mason. One must become familiar with a variety of tools, including trowels, hammers, chisels, and other hand implements. A high school diploma or its equivalent is usually needed for consideration. Some may have to undergo an apprenticeship or receive formal training in a specialty. An employer generally likes an applicant to possess around two years experience within the field. Salaries for this position range between $16,377 and $36,751.

Structural Ironworker

In order to create the framework for a building, a structural ironworker is responsible for installing girders and columns. Some employees will also construct and assemble iron and steel material. Reading blueprints and following instructions are important skills to possess for this type of job, as you are in charge of ensuring proper placement and alignment. A high school diploma or its equivalent is required and one may need to complete an apprenticeship in this field. Salaries for this job are found between $34,017 and $48,785.

Railroad Worker

Usually, a worker within this field is required to complete specific trade school courses and acquire the necessary certifications that come with this job. A railroad worker spends most of his or her time throwing back track switches within yards of railroad that may or may not have a connection to an industrial plant, quarry, construction project, or any other location that needs someone to switch cars for loading or unloading of trains. They will also supervise the creation and disassembly of trains. This position usually pays an annual salary of $31,479 to $45,386.

Drywall Installer

Without a drywall installer - the walls of some homes would cease to exist. It is this career that oversees the planning, installation, and repair of drywalls, which covers walls, ceilings, soffits, and other parts of residential and commercial structures. A high school diploma or its equivalent is required for one to apply to this sort of job where completing an apprenticeship or undergoing formal training is considered a plus and sometimes a requirement. The ideal candidate for this position should have around two to four years of experience in the field. Drywall installers usually make between $27,014 and $56,178 a year.

Getting a Skilled Trade Education

The most common method of education is training and apprenticeship, which also ensures the best chances for securing a position that offers decent wages. An apprenticeship deals with on-the-job training and classroom instruction with programs easily located throughout the United States and Canada.

Skilled trade programs are also plentiful for high school students, who may have access to a wide range of youth apprenticeship programs that allows individuals to acquire a skill while still attending high school. Depending on the employer and career choice, an apprentice may receive pay while gaining work experience, but are sometimes expected to pay fees for various services along the way. It is also not uncommon to receive no pay for apprenticeship training.

Certain skilled trades require a Certification of Qualification, which states that an individual has passed a qualifying exam that proves they are equipped with the proper knowledge of a skilled trade. Community colleges also offer skilled trades training programs and apprenticeships for industrial occupations. Some programs consist of a single course while others could last for 15-week sessions to an entire year-round program. Automotive mechanics, machine repair, refrigeration and air conditioning, plumbing, welding, and some engineering are just some of the college courses a student may encounter.

Labels: Careers in Skill Trades

When most people think about science jobs, they think about someone trapped in a windowless lab, running endless experiments involving rats, beakers, and bunsen burners. This couldn't be further from the truth. Today's scientists work in pharmaceutical companies, with geological surveys, on long-haul sailing ships. Most astronauts must have a science background. Automobiles and nuclear power plants are designed by the same scientists working on futuristic green power technologies. There has never been a better time for young people to examine the field of science as a future career path.

Science Preparatory Courses to Take

In high school, the most important basic courses to focus on aren't science - rather, math is the foundation of every science field. Don't just take every math course you can; master them. Develop a relationship with your teacher, and find out what you can do to learn more on your own. While some career paths only need knowledge on paper, in science it is critical that you really understand the math, all the way to the bottom. In addition, take courses in computer science at every level, from basic programming to advanced database applications. Your most critical tool as a scientist will be the computer.

Go ahead and take a variety of science courses, whether you have decided which field to go into or not. All the science fields are related, and you'll be surprised at how many places biological sciences intersect with geological ones, or at how important physics can be to understand how your cells function.

Do not overlook your other subjects. Scientists write a lot, so English is important. Because science is a very creative field, a wide base of knowledge in the humanities - history, art, music, literature - will always help expand your possibilities.

Science Careers

In any of the science careers, you'll be able to find something to do that matches your activity level. Like to climb mountains and go caving? Geology, biology, and meteorology all need field scientists who love activity. Prefer to sit in a lab and crunch numbers? Every science field needs lab rats.

Here are a few ideas:

Artifact dating technician: this person can take a pottery shard and, using a variety of techniques from carbon dating to tree ring analysis to spectrography, determine when it was made and sometimes when it was discarded.

Automobile designer: this career uses the science fields of engineering, aerodynamics, physics, and mechanics to create vehicles to address many different needs, from construction to racing.

Volcanologist: One of the most demanding scientific fields, volcanologists place and read monitors to gauge volcanic activity. Their goals may be prediction, harnessing volcanic energy, or simply studying the causes and effects of volcanoes.

Geneticist: Genetics is one of the most wide-ranging and rapidly-growing fields of science careers today, with opportunities in cloning animals, curing cancer and other genetic diseases, creating bacteria that do things like eat oil slicks, or trace the history of human migration. In almost every field of human knowledge today, you'll find geneticists.

Wages in Science Fields

You'll find that your income will vary widely, and will depend heavily on the level of your education, the need for your chosen field, and where you want to work. Starting salaries for most technicians, who typically have a bachelor's degree, are in the mid-$30K range. Starting salaries for more educated scientists, even with postdoctorate degrees, aren't much higher. But there's a difference.

With more education, while you may start out making the same amount of money, you have much more potential for the very high-paying positions later. Technicians don't become science directors. People with PhDs do. In addition, good high-paying job for people with a PhD in science are easier to find in the government and in research institutions.

You can write your own ticket in the science fields if you just turn out consistently creative research in lucrative industries. For instance, if you're doing good, progressing research into oil-eating bacteria with self-destruct coding, you can make tons of money in oil clean up industries, which work not only with ocean oil spills but also with tens of thousands of environmentally problematic locations throughout the world, from old gas stations to places in East Asia contaminated with years of improperly disposed of petrochemicals.

Where To Work In Science Fields

The government and the military are two of the most significant employers of scientists today, but you can also find good positions for pure research work in many of the top universities throughout the world; it all depends on how good you are. In addition, most technology companies are always looking for good scientists. Pharmaceutical companies hire biologists and physicists as well as doctors.

For the best opportunities, start networking early. Scientists don't find jobs in the local paper. They find them through professional organizations and word-of-mouth. Participating in science organizations, doing what you can (without being taken advantage of) to help out your professors and teachers, and working to meet people in science industries is the best way to find great science jobs in the future.

Labels: Careers in Science

Do you enjoy talking on the phone? Are you a positive and upbeat person who doesn't take rejection personally but considers it as a motivation to keep on trying? Do you enjoy conversing with diverse people and encouraging them to try new products or services? If so, telemarketing might be the perfect position for you. Telemarketers, telephone solicitors, or sales representatives are people who ask for charitable donations, solicit information, and market or sell products or services by the phone. Their job duties include cold-calling prospective customers, delivering prepared sales talks, answering questions, recording contact information and much more.

The clients of telemarketers range from banks, schools, credit card or insurance companies, nonprofits, etc. Sound interesting? You bet it is! In this article, we'll discuss the outlook of telemarketing professionals, educational background and skills required, and much more. In essence, we'll provide you with a ton of information about this career so that you can decide whether telemarketing is right for you. So, without further adieu, let's discuss the career outlook for telemarketers.

Career Outlook

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 415,000 people worked as telemarketers in 2004-2007. Currently there are many state and federal government laws that have placed strict restrictions on the telemarketing industry. For instance, people can now sign up for the "Do-Not-Call Registry" and telemarketers are prevented from contacting these people to inquire about their interest in products or services. This has significantly impacted the telemarketing industry.

Although the majority of telemarketers work in offices, a few of them work on a freelance basis and can be found making calls at home or from their own office. The majority of telemarketers work within corporate telemarketing departments whereas others work as freelancers and contract out their services. The most common industry that hires telemarketers is the retail and advertising industry.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the typical salary of telemarketers is $23,520 a year and they typically work days, evenings and even weekends.

Educational Background and Required Skills

Although a background in sales is preferred, there is no real educational experience required. However, most employers prefer that telemarketers have at least a high school diploma and some sales training. In many instances, telemarketers will be trained on the job and have some sales experience. Lastly, foreign language fluency is often preferred.

In addition to the above, most employers look for telemarketers who have these skills:

-Enthusiastic, personable, easy-going, upbeat and friendly
-High self esteem and a great sense of humor
-Resistant to stress and able to work in a highly stressful environment

-Flexible and decisive
-Proven ability to think quickly and handle irate customers with respect and dignity
-Clear telephone speaking voice
-Excellent telephone personalities
-Able to engage customers on the phone
-Great organizational skills
-Verbal and written communication skills
-Able to work collaboratively or as an independent team members

Disadvantages and Advantages
Now that we understand the educational background and required skills, let's discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this position:

Advantages
-There is a high demand for this type of profession.
-Telemarketers may receive monetary compensation for exceeding sales quotas
-Those that work on a commission basis tend to get paid more.
-They are able to work effectively with diverse personalities
-Potential for advancement

Disadvantages
-High employee turnover and low pay for hourly workers
-Telemarketing can be grueling and frustrating work
-Telemarketers often work long hours, including weekends and evenings
-There may be under tremendous pressure to meet sales quotas
-Telemarketers may receive rejections from irate customers

In conclusion, telemarketing is a very lucrative and fulfilling career opportunity. Although there are no educational requirements, telemarketers are rewarded for outstanding sales and computer skills. It is a position that seems to be in great demand and allows employees to utilize their strong verbal and communication skills in an effective manner.

Labels: Careers in Sales - Telemarketing