‘What do you want to be when you’re older?’ is one of the most aggravating questions any adult can ask a child or teenager. Typically the answer is ‘I don’t know’ and even when they do know, chances are it isn’t what they end up doing.
Figuring out what career to undertake can be a daunting task, but it’s one everyone must do. I’ve compiled a list of the 5 best careers for young people based off of these factors: job satisfaction, stress factor, salary, and levels of unemployment. These factors – to me – are the most important for young people to consider before heading off to university.
Dentist
It’s like being a doctor but without the risk of accidentally killing your patients. Career Profiles actually listed being a dentist as their top career (based on similar factors to me). With an average annual salary of $143,000 and nine to five work days, it’s a dream job. You need to know your stuff, but seeing as everyone has to go to the dentist, you’re never going to be out of work; in fact dentists only have a 0.7% unemployment rate which is incredible when compared with other jobs. For example, plumbers have a 15.1% unemployment rate. Being a dentist is also not exactly stressful as you sit in a white room and you have an assistant who handles a lot of it for you, you just need to drill the occasional hole and count teeth with that weird metal pick thing.
Registered Nurse
Again, like a doctor, but better, it’s very hard work, but you don’t have the stress of knowing you could kill someone at any moment. Nurses are on the frontlines of hospitals and don’t have plush offices to hide away in like doctors. Average salary is $66,000 and unemployment rate is 2.0%, which although not as good as a doctor is still very good. Nurses also have a lot of room for 
promotion and movement within their role especially if they do an RN to MSN program which would take you from a registered nurse to a Master of Science in Nursing. Once you’re a dentist, there’s no movement or change, unless you open up your own practice, but with a nurse you can keep moving up and increasing your salary and job security. Or you can try other options like working from home.
Veterinarian
Being a veterinarian can be really sad as you become a ‘vet’ because you love animals and you want to care for them and make them feel better, but you end up having to euthanize many, and if you’re not prepared for it, this can be too much for you. A way to combat this is to focus on all the suffering you are solely responsible for easing. Making an average of $83,000 a year and having an unemployment rate of 0.6% this is a great option for anyone who can survive the long years of veterinary medical school.
Computer Systems Analyst
Moving away from the medical professions now, this is a very in-demand job with a 2.5% unemployment rate. I’m not going to pretend to understand the minutiae of the role but it involves analyzing businesses and using IT, you design and implement better solutions. You’re like a business doctor and so you’ll know you’re helping hundreds of people keep their job by ensuring their employers don’t go bankrupt. Average salary of $79,000.
Web Developer
Another tech-based career now, web developers are an incredibly viable option for a young person moving into the world of work. With an average salary of $77,000 and unemployment rate of 4.7%, web developers are always needed somewhere in the world. Most web developers work for themselves and so it’s the perfect job for an independent person who doesn’t want to be at the beck and call of an employer.
