Archives for October 2010

1. Anesthesiologist: These doctors play an integral role in keeping patients alive — and asleep — during surgery — no matter how long it may take. Their handsome paychecks reflect the responsibility and risk involved in their jobs.

2. General Surgeon: These surgeons are highly specialized and in high demand, performing surgery on the digestive tract, skin, breasts and hernias. Sub-specialties include trauma surgery, laproscopic surgery and vascular surgery.

3. Emergency Room Physician: Emergency room physicians are on the front lines in a crisis, caring for everyone from trauma victims to sick kids. An ability to think quickly and care for a wide variety of patients makes them valuable assets at every hospital. It also brings some perks.

4. Obstetrician / Gynecologist: With long hours, heavy malpractice insurance costs and extensive training, obstetricians and gynecologists invest a lot in becoming doctors. But the rewards — caring for women through their pregnancies and delivering newborns — are worth it, they say.

5. Psychiatrist: Unlike many mental health professionals, psychiatrists can prescribe medications to help treat patients with mental illnesses. Their specialized knowledge and medical degrees make them some of the highest paid in the mental health field.

6. Primary Care Physician: Primary care doctors take care of you when you have a cold, give you your flu shot and can refer you to a specialist when you come in with a trickier problem. Caring for patients from cradle to grave can come with high financial rewards.

7. Nurse Anesthetist: These nurses help anesthesiologists administer anesthesia during surgery. Because of the extensive training required and demanding nature of the job, they are the highest paid in the nursing field.

8. Product Management Director: Every new widget and gizmo that you see on a website was birthed by a product manager. They help meld business requirements, creative visions and technical constraints to make projects happen.

9. Software Engineering / Development Director: Software engineering directors are in charge of creating new products and helping expand what’s possible with software products.

10. Sales Director: Sales directors are in charge of setting — and meeting — sales goals for their teams, generating new business and serving as mentors for new staff. In tough economic times, sales directors who bring in business are worth their weight in gold.

11. Dentist: Nobody likes to go to the dentist, but everyone has to (twice a year!). That means those who put in the time to become a dentist can often bring in handsome salaries, especially if they specialize in fields like oral surgery.

12. Actuary: Responsible for weighing a company’s financial risk and uncertainty, actuaries assess financial instruments, such as pricing products or securing cash reserves. The combination of education required and responsibility make it one of the country’s most lucrative professions.

13. Senior Sales Executive: Senior sales executives need to be both customer-savvy and willing to put in a lot of time traveling to meet clients. They must also always be sure their staff is representing the product and company in the best way to make the sale.

14. Software Architect: A software architect helped design the software on which you’re reading this article right now. In fact, they have a hand in the creation of everyday products from word processors to computer games. High demand for their skills let software architects demand hefty paychecks.

15. Attorney / Lawyer: While public-interest lawyers may not rake in the big bucks, corporate litigators are still making six-figure salaries, even as the economic downturn has made competition for spots at prestigious firms more intense.

16. Management Consultant: Companies hire management consultants to become more profitable and efficient, trusting them to find unseen solutions to their problems. High salaries help compensate for long hours spent at work and on the road.

17. Research & Development Manager: Companies spend millions creating new products, from software to potato chips. Research and development managers are in charge of taking new ideas and making them a reality.

18. Computer and Information Scientist: These techies research computer science issues as either theorists, designers or inventors, creating new products and solving hardware and software problems.

19. Accounting Director: Accounting directors keep track of the money going in and out of a company and manage the accounting staff. It’s a big job that often comes with hefty paychecks.

20. Optometrist: Optometrists care for our eyes — diagnosing vision problems, measuring color perception and testing our ability to focus. These doctors spend as much time in school as M.D.s — and their specialized knowledge allows them to charge high fees for their services. But the rewards are more than just monetary.

Courtesy: PayScale.com

Feeling overworked and overwhelmed? Maybe it’s time for a career change to one of these 10 fields.

1. Biomedical Engineer: One would think developing products to detect cancer might make for a stressful environment, but many biomedical engineers embrace the fact that the tools they’re creating could save a life. Although busy, these pros also enjoy a lot of downtime while bacteria incubates or enzymes react, giving them flexible schedules and the chance to focus on other responsibilities.

70% of those job holders said their job is low-stress

2. Transportation Engineer: These workers get to deal with something many engineers avoid: people. Transportation engineers love what they do because they often interact with the folks that use the crosswalks or traffic systems that they develop. Plus, it helps that cities always tend to have more transportation projects on the docket, keeping down the stress of job loss.

69% of those job holders said their job is low-stress

3. Statistician: The nice balance between individual thought and group collaboration helps the day go by quickly for statisticians. But the opportunity to work in a variety of environments, while also developing solutions to complex problems, creates truly contented workers. Of course, a nice paycheck and job security doesn’t hurt either.

64% of those job holders said their job is low-stress

4. Web Developer: These professionals might work hard, but the job also offers fun and freedom. With deadlines weeks or months away, web developers often set their own schedule, only spending as much time as needed in the office. While this can include 50 to 60 hour weeks, companies tend to reward the website creators with parties and other freebies.

58% of those job holders said their job is low-stress

5. Geographic Information Systems Analyst: In emergencies, geographical analysts can experience a lot of stress. After all, tracking where an oil spill will spread could be one of their responsibilities. But that’s out of the ordinary. A more typical — and lower-stress — assignment might be suggesting ideal locations for stores or forecasting flood zones. The challenging environment allows for creative release, plus there’s decent job security.

55.6% of those job holders said their job is low-stress

6. Technical Writer: Technical writers have what many crave: autonomy. They often work as their own project manager while writing guidelines and instructions for new tools. Sometimes they even get to interact with the product during the development stages, assuring the instructions are easy to understand for the less tech-savvy. And with projects often started months out, the fear of a tight deadline is minimized.

55% of those job holders said their job is low-stress

7. Test Software Development Engineer: It’s easier to relax at your desk when your job mirrors what you would normally do for fun. For many software developers, that’s the case. Whether it’s coding new commands or testing for software bugs, the fact that engineers tend to enjoy those tasks makes pulling the occasional all-nighter nothing to get uptight about.

54% of those job holders said their job is low-stress

8. Marketing Consultant: As a consultant, these professionals enjoy independence and the flexibility to set their own schedule and even work from home. Sure, the need to line up jobs can be stressful. But that’s balanced by the chance to work with company leaders and dive into new businesses. That keeps things interesting.

53.5% of those job holders said their job is low-stress

9. Civil Engineer: Similar to traffic engineers, civil engineers help design infrastructure. And they say there’s no better feeling than seeing something you thought of — like a bridge or a highway — working just as you planned. What’s more, the chance to work anywhere — be it in government, private sector, or academia — and in any city of their choosing allows these engineers to handpick their assignments.

53.3% of those job holders said their job is low-stress

10. Optometrist: Options, that’s what optometrists have. If they want to work in a group setting, they can join an organization. If they want to set their own hours, they can open a solo practice. Plus, they have the opportunity teach, research or work as a consultant. And don’t forget the sense of accomplishment that comes from curing someone’s troubled eyesight.

53.1% of those job holders said their job is low-stress

Courtesy: PayScale.com

Scores of books have been written on the consumer behavior theory. Whether it’s the conventional wisdom of marketing or modern views of contemporary economists, the evolving consumer behavior has been researched to establish the science behind consumer psychology and deconstruct the triggers that lead to consumers buying a product when they needed it the least.

Why does a consumer buy things that he needs the least?

Geoffrey Miller, the author of the famous best-seller, “Must-Have”, describes the virtually incurable popular propensity towards buying things as a tool of flaunting one’s sense of pride before the people within one’s social circle. Miller digs deeper into the buyers’ psychology to serve you up with the most disturbing answer – the enslavement of materialistic consumerism.

In simple terms, today, most of us have become the slaves of crass consumerism, an effective marketing tool deliberately designed by the market capitalists. Need is a very subjective term; the pleasures of acquisitions are usually short-lived at best. Yet, our propensity towards buying things is getting gradually revitalized, thanks to the skillful craftsmanship of the modern advertisement companies who have us believe that every damn thing they manufacture categorically contributes to our happiness and emotional well-being.

The potential impact of these misleading advertisements has already grappled millions of buyers around the world, more so in the third-world countries. Today, many of us enslaved consumers ungrudgingly shell out our hard-earned money (made of unethical means) to buy things we need the least, and purely to flaunt our sense of pride. Why do luxury manufacturers such as BMW spend money advertising in mass media whose typical readership most likely won’t ever be able to afford their products? And just why is the iPod so important?

Marketing is no longer a method of selling product; it has evolved as a potential tool to imprison unsuspecting consumers into the habit of buying products they need the least. It’s also a subject that used to barely exist, but has rapidly progressed from a crude advert or slogan to a highly complex and expensive industry that rather disturbingly offers quite an elusive return on investment and successfully generates a vague sense of pride in the psyche of the consumers.

From bottled water to hybrid cars, credit cards to designer apparels, market capitalists have successfully created the ‘need’ for the modern consumers who have, quite unknowingly, succumbed to their baser instincts, thereby allowed themselves to be waylaid into the sphere of materialism.

While market capitalists have been ruthlessly taking advantage of this incurable mental make-up of the modern consumers; people, on the other hand, have started measuring up their happiness with regards to their material possessions, trying hard to search their peace of mind where it is most unlikely to be found.

In the chaos and confusion of this marketing razzmatazz, the modern consumer is devoid of his real “needs” and is out on the market to buy a car to not travel any distance, but ride on an ego trip which has a terrible destination.

As the festive seasons in India is just about to begin followed by the Christmas, the modern consumers must ask this question to themselves before they pick an unwanted item off the shelves, “Do I really need this product?”