Restless? Here's what your peers in 10 job fields are preparing to do

For millions of Americans, a successful 2021 means more than just leaving the pandemic-era difficulties behind. Even though much of the U.S. is playing it safe and “sheltering in job,” a more restless group is already hunting for better work.

“People are trying to find their why,” says Michigan career counselor Chelsea Jay. “They’re looking to make a bigger impact. They tell me: ‘I want to be at the forefront of change.” Her role is to help job-seeking clients untangle what’s bothering them and then create a path forward.

A detailed sense of job seekers’ perspectives emerges from the latest edition of LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index. The results show wide differences in people’s outlooks across fields ranging from education to sales. Data is drawn from surveys of 10,579 LinkedIn members from Jan. 16 to Feb. 12.

As the chart above shows, business development specialists are likely to be the happiest. That job function has the highest percentage (56%) of people saying they truly enjoy the nature of the work they do. It’s also the field where people are least inclined (36%) to consider switching functions to find something better.

“There’s a lot of opportunity in business development,” career counselor Jay says. Last year, she points out, “a lot of companies weren’t able to do as much as they wanted to build business relationships.” Video calls only go so far. As pandemic restrictions ease up, there’s more prospect of getting out on the road again -- and striking up new deals, partnerships, etc.

In some cases, Jay says, business-development specialists may want to switch industries -- but keep doing the same type of work. She’s seeing clients interested in leaving the corporate setting, for example, in favor of taking their deal-development skills to a nonprofit in an area that they’re passionate about.

Caught in the middle are job hunters whose skills -- and livelihood -- center on arts or design. They’re among the most likely (55%) to be finding joy in their work. Yet a surprisingly high 45% are considering a career pivot. 

As this survey of the Pittsburgh music scene attests, some musicians already have reluctantly put down their instruments in favor of better paying opportunities as podcasters or fitness instructors. “I miss jamming with humans,” says musician Dave Wheeler. But with pandemic restrictions making it nearly impossible to book paying gigs, many artists feel forced to look elsewhere to earn a living.

At the other end of the spectrum, people working in support functions -- such as executive assistants or help-desk specialists -- are the least likely to be finding joy in their work (31%) and the most inclined (57%) to be considering a switch to something quite different.

Richard Wang, chief executive of Coding Dojo, says many of the people signing up for his four- to six-month programs are stuck in “dead-end jobs” and looking for a chance to earn more money. Coding Dojo trained more than 1,000 people in software coding last year, a big uptick from 2019’s pace. Many of them were either unemployed or underemployed in fields such as ride-share driving, package delivery and various support functions, he says.

A lot of people working in support roles underestimate their own skills and career potential, says Jerry Lee, co-founder of Wonsulting, a career-services company that helps job seekers find roles in tech-related functions such as software engineering, product management and data science. “They just need confidence,” Lee says. “Then they can take their job search into their own hands.” 

Two job functions that are famous for their mission-driven nature -- education and health care -- both earn high marks for the work itself, with more than 50% of those respondents saying they truly enjoy their work. Still there’s a strong undercurrent of restlessness right now in both fields, with 45% of job seekers in education and 41% of those in health care saying they might want to pivot to something else.

Given how much the COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions rocked both education and healthcare in 2020, it’s no wonder that some people in those functions are looking for a change. And if conventional employers don't have the right jobs at the moment, these seekers know they have other options, too.

Dorothy Richardson, a career counselor in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., says she’s seeing an upturn in people interested in starting their own business. “It might start as a hobby,” she says. But with work-from-home options becoming more common and mainstream, last year’s side project is increasingly likely to get consideration as the coming year’s full-time job.

Workforce Confidence Index methodology

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey distributed to members via email every two weeks. Roughly 5,000 U.S.-based members respond each wave. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate. Students, stay-at-home partners and retirees are excluded from analysis so we can get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy. Data is weighted by engagement level, to ensure fair representation of various activity levels on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership & overall market population are not accounted for.

Alex Gunther from LinkedIn Market Research contributed to this article.