""This is the profession of the future": Sounds good but earns bad • So how to choose a profession?

There have been a lot of new professions in the area lately. Such beautiful professions, with cool, appealing names. You'll admit that organizational consultant sounds much more promising than accountant. Even I'm impressed.

"I want to study economics and management," one energetic young woman tells me. "It sounds like such an interesting profession, and they say you can make great money in it.".

- And what will you do as an economist? I ask.

What economists do. Reports, meetings, I think. No? At most I'll use the second part of the degree, management. I know how to manage very well.

Ambiguity about a profession is a great tool, especially for the educational institutions that market it. There are all sorts of university tracks with bombastic names (what is neurocognition? A valuable prize for solvers) that turn out to be career graveyards.

Sometimes it's a public relations exercise – take a class that's in low demand, rebrand it as the next hot thing, incorporate a lot of long words into the syllabus and you have a waiting list. In high-tech, by the way, they're masters at this.

So some students do some preparatory work, and before they start studying, they carefully examine what exactly is hidden behind the title on the poster. What exactly does the curriculum offer, what is the value of the degree or certificate in the market, and most importantly, what can be done with it later. Faculty members, internal student forums, family members who work in a similar profession – all can help to understand the picture in a balanced way.

Haredim tend to fall for this more. Both because they don't have access to the aforementioned testing network, and also because although I have yet to meet a Haredi who respects himself and doesn't know everything about everything, and despite the generic suspicion towards anything new, many people simply go to study a profession just because it sounds 'interesting' to them.

So to be less interesting, but more worthwhile, here are a few rules of thumb:

1. Treat the information you received from your school as factual only. Yes, even if they show you emotional thank-you letters from the CEO of Google who graduated from them last year.
2. Look for information in neutral places – from students who have graduated, from owners of companies that are supposed to absorb professional graduates, and from placement and human resources managers (hint – if they don't know what it's about – stay away).
3. Don't be tempted by promises like 'this is the profession of the future.' Future is a very general word, and it could come in seventy years.
4. Check out the possibilities for promotion and development in the profession. A business administration graduate can work in many fields, a veterinarian less so.
5. And if you haven't reached reliable and authoritative sources of information, seek professional advice.

 The writer is a graduate of career counseling studies at Tel Aviv University, and the owner of the Matzpen Institute - an institute for academic counseling, vocational guidance, and career counseling.

050-8455010, , [email protected]

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