Whilst employability isn’t the first thing on your mind when considering the type of degree, you should be doing, it’s important. Perhaps you’re stuck between 2 choices and this might just sway you into the right direction. Before we consider the degrees it’s important to consider what is happening around us. Right now, technology is in a boom with things like artificial intelligence, data analytics, virtual reality and so many other things becoming more and more mainstream. It’s becoming almost impossible to not be a technology person. Great, so with that clarified, let’s get to it.
- Security Engineering – with the world becoming more connected and the internet getting faster and more accessible, security becomes a big issue. In fact, this issue will only get more important in the coming year. It’s a specialised field of engineering that only focuses on dealing robustly with sources of disruption which could be natural or malicious cyber-attacks. This field is not only employable but will continue to be employable in the foreseeable future.
- Information Technology – If you have a look on job search platform right now and you look at IT jobs, you will see 6x as many jobs as you would for other average categories. It is a booming field especially since the internet transforms from a service to a utility that everyone needs. IT deals with computer systems the usage of computers, network systems and the internet itself. It is both a software and hardware role. If you decide to do IT in university you will get a mix of computers and commerce in your degree so it keeps you quite open in terms of prospects.
- Marketing – It may seem like all the roles are very technical and less about people but there’s where marketing comes in. Marketing is the art of selling to people you’ve never meant which could mean online, print or unorthodox ways of reaching out to people. When going into this degree, it is mainly about experience not so much about the academic. Whilst marketing is a prospering field and will have longevity, you will constantly need to learn and improve your skills. Many marketers in the workforce don’t have a marketing degree but degrees in other fields and transitioned later. (Like me!) Look for experience early and hone your skills outside of the traditional route to be successful in marketing.
- Data Science/Analytics – Another field that has been exponentially grown due to advances in the internet. Now we able to obtain vast amounts of information about people, processes, and systems. Every company and I mean every company is looking for people to analyse and make sense of their data. If you’re confused as to what this entails, you’ll basically be looking at obtaining data, analysing, visualising and making decisions based on it. Due to its broad nature, most companies would be hiring in this area.
- Healthcare – You’ve heard it before, Australia has an aging population. Which means trends show a constant growth in the healthcare and aged care industries going forward for at least the next 10 years. For our students who are looking into medicine, there is a whole spectrum of jobs in healthcare which you can also explore as backup options. All in all, those of you aiming high for medical/health related fields you should be okay in terms of job prospects for the foreseeable future.
For people interested in other fields, don’t be disheartened! It doesn’t mean there are no jobs there, this list is just the biggest current and possible future trends. Also, you can also be flexible, for example, those who want to become writers can look into copywriting as a form of content marketing to keep themselves relevant. Like this, there are many ways to be employable. Our final tip is to stay flexible and ready for sporadic opportunities. Hopefully, this helps a little bit with your subject selection. Good luck!