Job or passion? Enjoy both as new career avenues open up

There was a time when work and passion were two different things. However, with advances in the digital and electronic world and changes in business practices, that demarcation line is getting blurred and new careers are emerging.

If you are hooked to the social media, you can become an expert on it; if your friends seek your advice on their shopping trips, you can be an image consultant, and so on. The story of today’s exciting, emerging careers is — to use a cliched tagline of a sportswear brand — impossible is nothing.

“You can make a career out of what you passionately enjoy doing,” says Abha Matthew, a school career counsellor. “A career is more than just a job. You dedicate your entire day, maybe a part of the night too, to it and if it is something you don’t enjoy doing, the monotony starts showing in your work. This is why you hear of so many people making a career shift in their 30s and 40s.”

Career counsellor Usha Albuquerque adds that as the world becomes more interconnected, new jobs opportunities are opening up.

Social media is one of the most exciting, new avenues that has opened up, career-wise. Its power, as a tool to influence people’s opinion, is felt like never before. Therefore, a growing number of companies are hiring social media experts whose job is to build their online reputation and offer a platform for instant feedback from consumers.

While these young employees are happy being always available on Facebook, posting updates on the company’s news, and tweeting and retweeting information, their job also entails reviewing traffic volume, bounce rates and other relevant metrics, developing social media components for new campaigns, helping with blogger outreach and creating long-term solutions for clientele.

“Businesses depend on reputation, and online reputation is very important today, which social media managers help in achieving by constant monitoring,” says Shrenik Gandhi, business head of White Rivers Digital which is into social media management and designing websites.

Sensing the demand in the market, a number of B-schools are now designing courses in social media management. For instance, NIIT Imperia has an advanced course in social media marketing.

For those who are hooked to mobile phone applications and love downloading them, have you ever thought of developing such apps and pursuing a career as a mobile application programmer?

“With 110 million mobile phone users in the country, a mobile application programmer is an upcoming and promising career that has huge scope to be creative,” Albuquerque says.

Apart from developing the apps, the job profile may require combating security and compatibility issues. Knowledge of interface design, network communications, web services, SQLite databases, GSP framework and location-based services is recommended for such professionals.

As India juggles to achieve a balance between pushing up its GDP, ensuring inclusive growth and attempting to address issues ranging from education to climate change, another career option that is expected to be the next big thing is to be a social entrepreneur.

“Social entrepreneurs are those people who have the ability to recognise a pressing social problem, and then using innovative ideas manage a venture to address that problem. Unlike business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs don’t measure performance by profit and loss, and are mostly associated with voluntary organisations,” Matthew said.

So, if working for a cause that you truly believe in is your calling, then this is the career for you. And if you are one of those who believes in the adage, ‘First impression is the last impression’, maybe you can choose a career in image consultancy.

“An image consultant guides people to optimally use their clothing, grooming and body language to create a powerful impression. They also provide other services like styling services to fashion brands, uniform design, image management policy designs and the like. The power of personal appearance goes a long way in personal, professional and social life,” said Rachna Prasad, an image consultant.