What If Your Dream Job Doesn't Exist Anymore? - Shelly Palmer Report

I was talking to an experienced but notyetdiscovered oncamera newstalk person at one of my Social Media Networking Parties She was asking if I could give her some advice about getting in front of the quotrightquot people in New York Not a problem I39ve got a couple of friends in the biz so I asked her quotWhat are you looking forquot She said quotI want to host a talk show anchor a news broadcast or be a field reporter for a local news station in NYCquotSomewhat stunned I asked her to explain And she replied quotIt39s my dream job I want to be a famous talk show host or anchor and make a lot of moneyquot Thankfully at that very moment several people joined the conversation and I was able to make a stealthy getawayI thought to myself what made her think that any of the jobs she is dreaming about actually exist As a practical matter they don39t You can39t go from 34 yearold female thirdstring foreign language cable news reporter to NYCbased talk show host In fact you probably can39t get there at all Not because of personal talent but because the job doesn39t exist There is no locally produced talk show that is looking to hire a host That39s not how talk shows workOver the next several weeks this conversation was replayed several times with several different individuals Each person was asking me about a job that either no longer existed or worse never existed at all Then it dawned on me if you ask the wrong question you are guaranteed to get the wrong answerWhile all of this was going on WNBCTV announced that Len Berman the venerable sportscaster was being let go because of budget constraints But wait Len is a fixture in NYC he39s a sports brand he39s one of the main reasons people tune in to Channel 4 um nope he39s a very big budget item that could easily be cut to make room for a bunch of high quality low cost good looking young people who can read write and speak on cameraDo you think they made a good decision Go ahead name all the quotbrandedquot sportscasters in the New York DMA You can39t Neither can anyone else The job of quotvenerablequot caster at a local TV station no longer exists everyone can be replaced with younger fresher cheaper talentWell that39s pretty depressing Yeah I think so too But that39s not where it ends How many people are now looking for jobs that no longer exist If you used to be a computer photo typesetter you were replaced in the 198039s with desktop publishing Now if you had that skill set you probably could have opened a boutique desktopbased print preproduction house and done fine Or you could have looked for work in the transportation or food services industry They are all about as relatedPerhaps you39d like to be a theme music composer for television or a graphic designer for the broadcast industry How about a gig as a professional studio trombone player or a cameraperson on a remote threeperson news crewAll of these jobs still exist in some form but they are far from dream jobs In fact these production skills have been commoditized and practitioners can look forward to making about the same kind of money as they would waiting tables in a good restaurantI started asking some of my more seasoned friends about what jobs actually exist in their industries now as opposed to the jobs that people think exist The answers were truly stunningLast week I had the honor of lecturing to a classroom full of graduate students at the Columbia Business School and then later in the week I had an opportunity to address a similar group of graduate students via Skype at the Newhouse School As I do during every lecture I gave the students my email address and invited them to contact me with questions or comments Just for fun I asked about a dozen of them what they hoped to be when they entered the work force The answers were a total surprise To a person they are aspiring to jobs that have devolved into commoditized low wage work that they still perceive to be high profile high paying careersWe hear so much these days about workforce development and career guidance But I wonder who is educating the educators Who is communicating reality to the job counselors Does it make sense to go to school to become a studio musician in 2009 The short answer is no You can certainly go to music school that is a privilege and a joy But there is no job called quotstudio musicianquot any more In 1980 being good at that job guaranteed a sixfigure income Today you39d be lucky to make 50k per year in a big city and away from the three major production centers beer money Do you know how many students are in music school thinking that there39s a commercial production business to go into Now substitute camera operator editor graphic artist set designer copywriter news giver spokesperson modelactress script supervisor the list just keeps on going And it39s not just the production side the same holds true for the business side the promotion side all of itWhat would you do differently if you had the ability to accurately assess the total potential of your dream job and found out that it was no longer possible for it to provide the living you dreamed accompanying it There39s only one answer you39d look for a different line of workThe pace of change being what it is it is truly surprising how many people still laud and revere certain jobs in our profession Jobs that in reality bear little resemblance to what they used to beShelly Palmer is the host of MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer a daily show featuring news you can use about technology media ampamp entertainment He is the author of Television Disrupted The Transition from Network to Networked TV 2008 New York House Press and the upcoming Get Digital Reinventing Yourself and Your Career for the 21st Century Economy 2009 Lake House Press Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts ampamp Sciences NY the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy Awards For information about Get Digital Classes visit httpwwwshellypalmercomseminars

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What If Your Dream Job Doesn't Exist Anymore? - Shelly Palmer Report

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