How to Grow Your Career in a Recession
by Clare Kaufman

The R-word doesn't need to spell trouble for your career. Education offers a powerful antidote to the whims of a recession-bound economy. With online career training, you can grow your career in any economic climate, rain or shine.
Strategy #1 - Outrun the Economy

Make yourself indispensable to an employer by enhancing your job skills. Online education can hone the advanced skills that see businesses through tough times: leadership, strategic planning, and innovation.

Here's how strategy #1 looks through the lens of accounting, business, design, and HR:
Accountant
Financial belt-tightening calls for a good accountant, doesn't it? Yes--but accounting is not the recession-proof career it once was, reports CFO.com. Outsourcing has taken a bite out of entry-level accounting jobs, a trend set to increase with the coming recession. Accounting clerks topped a March 2007 Wall Street Journal list of workers "most vulnerable" to offshoring. With decreasing margins, companies are prone to outsource collections, data analysis, financial reporting, and other basic accounting activities to offshore providers.

In other words, there has never been a better time to advance out of an accounting clerk position and into a secure Certified Public Accountant job. Online universities offer CPA courses, as well as bachelor's and master's degrees in accounting.


Business Operations Manager
When resources are tight, business needs to run as a well-oiled machine. Operations managers coordinate daily operations, formulating policies and procedures to ensure efficient use of all business resources--material, financial, and human.

Operations managers typically advance into the position with an MBA. Online MBA programs teach effective leadership and strategic thinking, the skills that differentiate a middle manager from an executive leader.
Graphic Designer
Graphic designers are also vulnerable to outsourcing, according to The Wall Street Journal. Their secret weapon in an economic downturn? Creative development. While entry-level graphic design jobs can be shipped anywhere, creative directors are irreplaceable.

Advance into creative responsibility with a college degree in graphic design. Building technical skills is important--but in the current business climate, a creative portfolio and industry contacts really set you apart. Graphic design school fosters creative development and encourages professional networking.
Human Resources Specialist
Human resources specialists are responsible for creating a streamlined workforce--essential in a declining economy. HR assistants recruit, place, and train employees into the positions best suited to their skill set. HR managers maintain a broader outlook on a company's human resources strategy, in consultation with senior executives.

Be part of the human resources solution by upgrading your education. An online degree in HR or an MBA with a concentration in human resources management will help you develop the leadership skills and long-range analytical thinking to address critical business problems.
Strategy #2 - Find a Recession Haven

For some workers, the answer to recession vulnerability is a lateral shift into a recession-proof industry. Health care and education are perennially in demand, even in tough economic times. Here's how to retrain for three in-demand careers:
Market Research Analyst
In a recession "you need to know more than ever how consumers are redefining value." Invest in market research: that's BusinessWeek's advice to companies planning their marketing budget for 2008 and 2009. Market research becomes all the more important in an economic downturn, as companies target their products or services to an increasingly discriminating consumer.

Get into this recession-proof niche of marketing with an online degree in marketing. Research analysts collect and analyze statistical data, creating consumer surveys and studies. Courses in quantitative research, social psychology, and communications are critical.
Health Information Manager
Health care jobs make up almost half of the thirty fastest growing occupations, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. One of the high demand fields is health information management. Health information managers maintain and ensure the security of patient records. Computer expertise and knowledge of legal requirements is critical.

IT professionals are especially well-positioned to transition into health information management. A degree in health information technology provides the necessary training in medical recordkeeping procedure and technology.
Corporate Trainer
Faced with job insecurity, workers have a powerful motivation to develop their job skills. That translates into increased demand for corporate and vocational trainers during a recession. Corporate trainers enjoy the best of both worlds: a secure, fulfilling teaching job at a private-sector salary. They typically consult with businesses to produce customized professional development courses.

An online bachelor's degree in Education lays the groundwork for a corporate training career. Many trainers go on to a master's degree in education or business with a concentration in corporate training.

A tough economy can spell opportunity for you--if you plan ahead. Become indispensable to an employer with an advanced skill set, or transition into a recession-proof career. Either way, strategic career training and education could be your ticket to job security.