By Kevin M

One of the driving purposes of OutOfYourRut.com is the identification of career and business opportunities, primarily for people engaged in one line of work but seeking entry into another.

In that vein, a noteworthy article appeared on Yahoo! Finance yesterday, 10 Jobs With High Pay and Minimal Schooling Required! written by Michael King. The article lists 10 careers that don’t require a bachelor’s degree for entry, but pay wages which are generally above average.

There are several articles with this same theme here on OutOfYourRut.com, either as full reprints or by excerpt, but in this time of career transition for so many people, it’s one worth revisiting often. The jobs appearing on each list tend to be at least somewhat different from one list to another, either because of the time of compilation, or the orientation of the source.

The List

Depending on your current education and career experience, one or more of these careers might be worth investigating further. As listed by the original article, the ten careers, including median incomes (for 2006 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) and general training requirements for entry include:

1. Air Traffic Controllers. Median income: $117,000; training: “Typically, two to four years of training are needed in order to become fully certified, although previous military experience can cut that time down significantly.” Bonus: air traffic controllers can retire after just 25 years of service at any age.

2. Industrial Production Managers. Median income: $77,670; training: “A college degree is preferred, but not necessarily mandatory.”

3. First-Line police and detective supervisors. Median income: $69,300; training: “Police officers can advance through the ranks to become supervisors by passing exams and achieving good performance reviews, and advanced training can help win promotions.”

4. Funeral Director. Median income: $49,620; training: “College programs in mortuary science usually last from two to four years. You typically must also serve a one-year apprenticeship, pass an exam and obtain a state license.”

5. Police and Sheriff Patrol Officers. Median income: $47,460; training: “Applicants usually must have at least a high school education, and some departments require a year or two of college or even a degree. Rookies are trained at police academies.”

6. Advertising Sales Agents. Median income: $42,750; training: “20% have a high school degree or less, and 10% have an Associate’s degree.”

7. Real Estate Brokers and Sales Agents. Median income: $39,760; training: “While advanced coursework is not necessarily required, new entrants must pass an exam and get a state license. Connections in the community and a willingness to work hard are what really count, but experience and a good housing market also help.”

8. Occupational Therapist Assistants. Median income: $42,060; training: “These workers usually need an associate degree or a certificate…(but)…Job prospects are good in the growing health care field, especially for those with some post-secondary education.”

9. Occupational Therapist Aides. Median income: $25,000; training: “These employees receive most training on the job…Competition for jobs is tougher for those with only a high school diploma.”

10. Physical Therapist Assistants. Median income: $41,360; training: “typically need an associate’s degree.”

(The list above is greatly excerpted from the original article, so it’s recommended that you visit the original for greater detail.)

Some Caveats…

While none of the careers on the list require a bachelors degree (or higher) for entry, it is clear that having one would be advantageous for many, especially for future promotion. If you already have a degree in an unrelated field, you may have an inside track.

There are some challenges on this list. Not everyone is emotionally cut out to be a funeral director, police officer or air traffic controller, so personality has to be factored into the mix. As well, advertising sales agents and real estate brokers and sales agents all involve SALES! If you have been successful in sales in the past, these fields may hold promise, but if you’ve never done anything similar, selling is a vastly different way to make a living than being on a steady paycheck. Consider also that sales are usually an uphill climb in recessions as consumers and businesses are more reluctant to make purchases. In particular, real estate sales are in an especially difficult period of time as has been well documented in the media.

Finally, industrial production managers may be a limited field, despite the high earnings potential. Jobs in the field are in manufacturing, a sector which has been hit harder than most by globalization and advancing technology. I’m no expert in the field, but competition for what positions are available is likely to be fierce against such a backdrop, and it must also be considered that much of the troubles in manufacturing have been happening for considerably longer than the recent recession.

But again, if you have parallel skills to any of the fields on the list, and have considered trying your hand at one in the past, now might be an outstanding time to take the plunge, especially if you’re unemployed or working in a dead end job. The key is to find a field that most closely matches the skill set you do have so that the jump won’t be so great.

Good luck!

Kevin M

With the job market tightening up in so many fields, and many jobs perhaps gone forever, the time has come to look into opportunities in skilled blue collar occupations.

An article appeared this morning on Yahoo HotJobs called America’s Best Paying Blue Collar Jobs discusses the highest paying jobs in the skilled trades.

Most of these jobs involve installing, servicing and repairing existing systems and technologies of the sort that are required by modern civilization, and are not likely to be eliminated through advancing technologies or even globalization. For that reason alone they merit investigation.

It’s doubtless that some of these occupations came to be precisely because of technology, since all complex systems need to be serviced and repaired on an ongoing basis. As well, the trend of young people, particularly from the middle class, to enter college norm occupations has reduced the number of applicants for these well paying jobs.

Some are very limited fields with only a small number of employees, like locomotive firers (970 employees in the entire field), while others, such as plumbers and electricians, employ several hundred thousand workers.

Certain fields have geographic restrictions. For example, oil and gas rotary drillers jobs will only be available in areas where oil and gas are produced, while aircraft mechanics and service technicians will be at airports, with the best opportunities in cities with larger airports.

Compensation
Herewith, the Top 20 from the article, including average annual salary (source: Forbes):

1) Elevator Installers & Repairers, $67,750

2) Powerhouse Substation & Relay Repairers, $60,700

3) Transportation Inspectors, $59,200

4) Commercial Divers (not DRivers), $54,940

5) Oil & Gas Rotary Drill Operators, $54,370

6) Power Line Installers & Repairers, $54,300

7) Locomotive Engineers, $53,470

8 Boilermakers, $53,100

9) Locomotive Firers, $52,950

10) Telecommunications Equipment Installers & Repairers, $52,650

11) Aircraft Mechanics & Service Technicians, $51,650

12) Pile Driver Operators, $51,640

13) Precision Instrument & Equipment Repairers, $50,400

14) Millwrights, $50,030

15) Electricians, $49,890

16) Railroad Brake, Signal & Switch Operators, $49,400

17) Subway & Street Car Operators, $49,330

18) Commercial & Industrial Electrical & Electronics Repairers, $49,260

19) Plumbers, Pipe Fitters & Steam Fitters, $49,200

20) Signal & Track Switch Repairers, $49,060

Compare the average annual salaries listed for each career with the national average of all salaries of $42,270, as quoted by the article. Also, though the article doesn’t mention this, benefit packages in skilled fields can be more lucrative than what is available in many white collar occupations. This is because either the jobs themselves are in high demand or because they’re concentrated in old line, union type organizations more representative of employer compensation packages of a few decades ago.

Qualifications

As the article states so brilliantly,

“A high school diploma and four or five years of training may sound like a lot, but remember, that’s usually on-the-job training, which can help keep a roof over your head while you work your way up — rather than get you tens of thousands of dollars in debt, as going to college does for so many.”

Earn while you learn; it’s a dated concept now, but it’s the way people learned their livelihoods for centuries prior to the post World War II era, and as the article states, it provides the employee with the ability to earn a real living while perfecting his craft.

For young people searching for a career idea, and for the over 30 crowd looking but not finding that next solid opportunity, the skilled trades may be place to concentrate the search.

The post below is a reprint from Bob Lotich of Christianpf.com.

After recently writing about the debate of whether a college degree was still worth it or not, I have been doing a little bit more research on the topic. I found out about the growing FauxPloma industry and I recently stumbled on an article that talks about the top paying 25 jobs that you can get without a degree.

In the article, the author makes a couple encouraging statements for those without a college degree…

“The belief that you need a college education to have a well-paying and rewarding job is quickly fading. A four-year degree definitely has its benefits in the business world, but it’s not the only path to a successful career.”

and…

“…according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), eight of the 10 fastest-growing occupations through 2014 don’t require a bachelor’s degree. And these jobs, which include health technology, plumbing, firefighting and automotive repair, are less vulnerable to outsourcing. After all, if a fire breaks out, you need the fire department to be a few blocks away, not halfway around the world.”

As I mentioned in the previous posts I wrote about college degrees, regardless of whether or not you get a college degree, you have to be a learner. Success comes from learning. If you don’t have a college degree, but you are a lifelong learner devoted to developing yourself and learning new and relevant skills you will be successful. If you are under the assumption (that I was at an earlier point in my life) that you can get a degree, quit learning and coast through life, you are likely to be disappointed.

The mind of the prudent acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.–Proverbs 18:15

25 top paying jobs that you can get without a degree

Here are 25 of the top-paying jobs that don’t require a four-year degree and their average salaries, based on data from the BLS and CBSalary.com.

1. Air traffic controller: $102,030

2. Funeral director: $79,517

3. Operations manager: $77,839

4. Industrial production manager: $73,000

5. Transportation manager: $72,662

6. Storage and distribution manager: $69,898

7. Computer technical support specialist: $67,689

8. Gaming manager: $64,880

9. First-line supervisor/manager of police and detective: $64,430

10. Nuclear power reactor operator: $64,090

11. Computer specialist: $59,480

12. First-line, non-retail supervisors/manager: $59,300

13. Nuclear technician: $59,200

14. First-line supervisor/manager of fire fighting and prevention worker: $58,920

15. Real estate broker: $58,720

16. Elevator installer and repairer: $58,710

17. Sales representative, wholesale and manufacturing, technical and scientific products: $58,580

18. Dental hygienist: $59,790

19. Radiation therapist: $57,700

20. Nuclear medicine technologist: $56,450

21. Power plant distributor and dispatcher: $57,330

22. Fashion designer: $55,840

23. Ship engineer: $54,950

24. Detective and criminal investigator: $53,990

25. Commercial pilot: $53,870

The author then goes on to make a couple more points worth mentioning…

“The thing to keep in mind is that there are something like 50 million jobs out there that don’t require a bachelor’s degree and pay upwards of $40,000 a year,” says Harlow Unger, author of “But What If I Don’t Want to Go to College? A Guide to Success Through Alternative Education.”

He goes on to say that according to the U.S. Department of Labor, by 2010, almost two-thirds of all projected job openings will require only on-the-job training.

So while a college degree was de rigueur for the Baby Boom generation, that’s not necessarily the case now. In today’s highly technical and service-related market, workers are judged more on their skills than their sheepskins.”

The above post is a reprint from Bob Lotich of Christianpf.com.