20-Year Prospect

20-Year Prospect

Money, money, money: Our lives revolve around the almighty dollar. So long as a zombie apocalypse doesn't fling us back into the Middle Ages, where we're more concerned with survival than our stock portfolios, you'll have a job.

But is it a job you really want? Sure, you can make a good living, but – until recently – financial analysts worked all the time. Seriously, we're talking 24/7/365. It took some poor analyst dropping dead of seizures and possibly overwork for other analysts to get a couple of weekend days off every month.

Also, the global economy can crash and burn on your predictions...or ignore what you have to say and crash and burn as a consequence. In 2006, financial analyst Peter Schiff (okay, he was a bit more than a lowly financial analyst, but still) predicted that the economy would tank in the near future. People ignored him; people laughed at him; and the economy took a swan dive.

Then, too, there's always a chance that technology will make you obsolete someday. Take Thinkum, a financial analysis platform that makes the modeling at the core of every analyst's job a whole lot easier. The problem is, Thinkum isn't just for financial analysts; it can also be used by Billy Bob the farmer in his quest to understand exactly how his cotton or millet or whatever will fare on the global market.

But, even with products like Thinkum out there, the Bureau of Labor Statistics still claims the financial analyst career field is slated to expand by sixteen percent between now and 2022. Looks like your job is safe...at least until the zombies arrive.