Career Suggestions for Gen Z – Part 2 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #745

Career Suggestions for Gen Z – Part 2 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #745

Dear Colleagues!  This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #745 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on  WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here.

Photo Credit: Ivan Samkov

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Generation Z are the people who are borne between 1997 and 2012, give or take couple of years. This is the most tech savvy generation because they grew up in the age of technology. They are very familiar and comfortable with gadgets and love to use these. Some of the Gen Z have already come into workforce and others are at stages of education where they need to decide about their career choices. 

We continue with career options for Gen Z.

Applications Development is big business. Global mobile application business was valued at 213 billion USD in 2022. It is expected to rise to $452 billion by 2028.

All major businesses now offer Apps also, beside websites, where customers can place and track orders. Basically, the e-commerce has gone beyond website and the same or even better features are offered on Apps. Secondly, Apps are mostly used on mobile phone thereby making them easy to use while on the go. Thousands of Apps are developed worldwide and submitted to Google Play Store and Apple. Many of them are accepted and included in their respective App stores. It is a sort of trial-and-error system because specific guidance may not be always available. 

UX – User Experience, and UI – User Interface, are short programs to test the performance of an App or a software, or a service. These are also designed by developers and are among core technology jobs.

QA – Quality Assurance guys are technical people who test the integrity of the program/App before launching and then keep track of its performance along the way. QA people are critical to performance and are in high demand in technology segment.

Lastly, technical writers have also become integral to tech business. These are people who write only about technology; they review softwares, Apps, gadgets and all that relates to technology. 

Finance

The world has gone beyond accounting done by B.Com/M.Com/ACMA; even CA is not an international degree. ACCA gets more recognition in the UK than anywhere else. The US is more into CPA – Certified Public Accountant. Lately, demand for Financial Analysts has grown rapidly because financial performance has become the key to understanding business. EBIT – Earnings Before Interest & Taxes and EBITDA – Earning Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization are terms which have been invented by the finance people to gauge the performance of a company. CFA – Certified Financial Analyst is an important position that has come up.

It should be understood that Accounts and Finance are now completely separated. Accounting is keeping record of financial transactions while finance looks forward, analyzes, and finds ways to manage money. These are challenging and interesting positions which include lot of data handling. Gen Z would love to be here.

Green Energy

The world has come to a stage where green, renewable resources have become an emergency. ‘Fridays for Future’ was started by the teenager Greta Thunberg of Sweden, which became a worldwide movement of importance. Greenpeace movement has already been running to preserve ecosystem. Young people are more committed, more determined, and are being listened to. Gen Z would love to contribute here.

Arts and Crafts

Arts is an ancient craft. However, in today’s world, digital media has changed the working of art. Softwares such as Adobe Photoshop have opened huge possibilities for creating arts, though it needs learning and training. But CANVA has made art much more easy and anyone can do it. The digital media has opened new avenues for creativity in arts, design, music, film making and much more. Based on aptitude, Gen Z may consider going in this direction.

Healthcare

Becoming a doctor is only one part of healthcare; there are many more areas of healthcare and much of it is now related to technology. Biomedical engineering is already established and fast-growing profession because of newer technologies being introduced. Hospital Management Systems, Digitization of patient records, state-of-the-art therapies, advanced diagnostics are areas which are good to work in.

Drug discovery and research is another important area. Gone are the days when medicines were discovered by chance, or trial; drugs are now designed. With the help of disease data, and understanding of mechanism of disease development, the drugs are designed first with the help of elaborate computer models. Then these drugs are synthesized in the labs and then the rest of the procedure till commercialization.

Biotechnology is a huge new field where wonder drugs are being developed, from targeted therapies to gene therapies. Biotechnology is the future of drug treatment, and some people claim that conventional drugs shall be soon discarded. Whether or not it happens, biotech-based treatment shall gain great popularity. Between 2019 and 2021, venture capitalist pumped $35 billion in biotech companies. Several products are already having multibillion dollar sales and the future looks very promising.

Entrepreneurship

Research shows that Gen Z is more inclined towards entrepreneurship, rather than doing a job. It is good news, however, choosing an area to work on, and working on it relentlessly are critical. Considering that 90% startups fail within the first year of launch, the idea of entrepreneurship must be analyzed carefully.

Research also shows that millennials and Gen Z do not wish to do the same job for long; the longest would be five years. It is in contrast with the previous generations who would spend a lifetime or many years at the same job. Entrepreneurship is therefore suitable for Gen Z, provided it is done rightly.

Gen Z has the potential and capability of changing the world significantly. Their potential should be understood, acknowledged, appreciated, and put to good use.

Concluded.

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