In this post, we’ll take a look ar what jobs are in demand in San Diego. The sectors that have the most sought-after jobs here are in the fields of healthcare, education, advanced manufacturing, administration, life sciences, renewable energy, and information technology.
Many companies in all industries rely on IT specialists to keep them running smoothly and efficiently. Many employers are looking to hire candidates that have relevant professional experience but most are also open to candidates that are experienced in related fields.
Practically all jobs listed here require some sort of post-secondary education such as an associate’s, bachelor’s, or master’s degree but that certainly doesn’t count for all popular options. Some of the following options may come as a bit of surprise to you.
Certified Nursing Assistant
If you’re seriously considering a job in nursing, becoming a certified nursing assistant (CNA) could well be the first step you need to take to achieve this goal. Make sure that the CNA certification class that you choose has been approved by the state of California to provide nursing assistant coursework.
These state-approved CNA programs meet all the national standards set forth by the government for CNA training. These CNA certification programs are designed to get you prepared to work in hospitals, health care facilities, nursing homes, and long-term care facilities in the San Diego area.
Nursing jobs are increasingly popular and in higher demand than ever before in our booming economy and online nursing programs will make you fully certified ina relatively short period of time though self-discipline skills are required to be successful.
Top-level CNA certification classes will allow you to gain knowledge of how to become a certified nursing assistant through a rigorous regimen of classroom coursework along with hands-on clinical experience in the field.
CNA certification class will include infection control methods, basic nutritional guidelines, human anatomy, safety, emergency procedures, and the role of the nursing assistant in these situations. Your laboratory/clinical part of the training will most likely take place in a local hospital or nursing home where direct care is being offered to patients on a daily basis.
Both aspects of your training will be a prerequisite to you taking your CNA certification exam. This exam is a National requirement that each state is required to oversee. Basically, you will not be allowed to be placed on your state’s nurse’s aide registry until you have completed your CNA certification exam successfully. Sometimes you will find that your exam will be conducted at the CNA certification school you attend but other times you will be required to take the exam at a specific state facility.
Your CNA certification exam is a two-part exam. First is the written exam that usually will consist of about 70 or so multiple-choice questions on what you’ve learned in the classroom setting. Next will be the hands-on skills portion where you will be required to demonstrate in real-time basic nurse’s assistant skills.
Culinary Chef
Do you want to learn to prepare food as world-class chefs do? Do you want to be trained by experienced chefs in the San Diego area? Do you want to have a career in culinary arts? Do you have the right learning style to complete your culinary education?
Culinary arts schools offer a one of a kind career-focused training in the field of culinary arts to students who are really interested. Culinary arts schools have the same commercial-grade equipment and tools that they will use once they have graduated in professional settings.
Many vocational training schools, technical trade schools, community colleges, and culinary arts institutes in the San Diego area offer culinary arts degree courses, classes, culinary arts training program, and culinary arts certification. The culinary arts institutes provide comprehensive culinary arts training programs and courses to interested individuals who want to pursue a career in this field.
Culinary arts schools prepare students to become an excellent master chef, master baker, executive chef, pastry chef, or sous chef. Culinary arts schools provide hands-on culinary arts training that includes laboratory sessions and academic preparation. Students acquire professional knowledge of food, its preparation and handling, and cooking from basic to advanced.
A good place to start is the San Diego Culinary Institute in La Mesa (8024 La Mesa Blvd, La Mesa, CA 91941, Phone: 619-644-2100) where a Professionnel Commis de Cuisine Diploma is offered. San Diego Mesa College (7250 Mesa College Drive, San Diego, CA 92111, Phone: 619-388-2604) is another great option to get started.
Licensed Practical Nurse
LPN programs are designed to provide you with the knowledge, skills, and experience needed to become a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN). The healthcare industry is booming and there are many lucrative employment options in all kinds of different health care settings, not just in hospitals.
The average LPN program in California is appropriately 12-18 months in length. At the end of the program, you will take the state licensing test. It is worth noting that in California the term preferred these days is Licensed Vocational Nurse or LVN so it is that acronym you are likely to be hearing more often but LPN and LVN mean the same thing.
Some LPN programs in California also offer students the chance to apply for various nursing scholarships that help pay for your nursing education. If you are considering enrolling in LPN programs in California you should ask whether or not such scholarships are available to you.
The costs associated with LPN programs are more than just paying for the courses themselves. A student also needs to purchase their own scrubs and basic media cal tools like a stethoscope. Very few LPN programs in California provide these things so that extra expense has to be figured into the total cost of attending such programs.
After graduating from LPN programs in California and passing the licensing exam, an LPN – or LVN – can work in one of any number of healthcare settings. That LPNs/LVNs are in demand in hospitals all over the state is not surprising but hospital-based nursing is not the only option available to new graduates.
The number of urgent care facilities that exist all over the county, and also in the San Diego area, is still increasing all the time. Urgent cares are designed to deal with smaller emergencies – cuts, bumps, bruises, flu – to free up ERs for more serious problems and to save patients from having to wait for hours in the emergency room. These facilities employ LPN/LVNs perhaps more than any other type of nurse.
Doctors’ offices also tend to be big employers of graduates of LPN programs in California. Often a doctor’s office does not need the extra skill of an RN and tends to prefer to staff their office with LPNs, sometimes supervised by a single RN, instead.
Residential Interior Designer
Professional residential interior designers shape the way people live by creating functional and quality interior environments. As a residential interior design school student, you’ll be studying problem-solving techniques, computer-supported drafting & design, 3D design, space planning, and aspects of the history of architecture in general and residential interior design in particular.
To be able to work as an interior designer, you need to complete design school and get certified. Coursework also includes topics such as specialty design and how to use the latest software tools to model and prototype residential interior design environments using visual media.
Students with residential interior design degrees are prepared for jobs in the construction and architecture industries. Residential interior designers need to be an expert at understanding space planning and how to accomplish the functional goals of a space in a visually pleasing manner.
Residential interior designers must keep their client’s tastes and budget in mind as they prepare drawings and specifications for interior construction, furnishings, lighting, and fixtures. Residential interior designers also design architectural details and must design space to conform to local, state, and federal regulations, including building codes.
Residential interior design school graduates are also prepared to sit for the National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ) exam – which will provide them with industry-recognized credentials as a residential interior designer.
Nutritionist
Since so many facets of a person’s physical and even mental health are influenced and impacted by the way they eat the term nutritionist is really an umbrella title.
It covers individuals who work in many different branches of the profession from those who work with obese patients to help them lose weight safely to those who work for one of several government agencies helping to ensure that all kinds of processed foods are safe and reasonably healthy for human consumption.
There are a number of ways to earn a nutrition degree and a number of different levels of education that can be attained. You may choose to stop after earning a bachelor’s degree and enter the working world immediately or continue their education and chose to pursue a master’s degree in nutrition.
Pursuing a master’s degree in nutrition takes longer of course but it does open the door to higher-paying positions and those who are hoping to secure a position with a government agency must have at least a master’s degree in order to do so.
As more and more people become conscious about what they eat the demand for qualified nutritionists is increasing so, therefore, the number of schools offering a master’s degree in nutrition is too.
The professional nutrition field is a very diverse one and the employment opportunities are very varied. You can find clinical nutritionists working in hospitals all across the San Diego area and in all sorts of other medical facilities. Others can be found working in commercial kitchen settings wearing aprons.
Paralegal
A paralegal diploma program is often completed in less than one calendar year, though some programs are paced slower and can be completed in roughly two years. The prerequisites for becoming a paralegal differ depending on the university or paralegal diploma program you enroll with.
Some universities require applicants to have an undergraduate degree from an accredited university, while other schools require a certain number of undergraduate credits for admission, though most strongly prefer a bachelor’s degree.
Usually, paralegal diploma programs consist of a specific number of classroom hours of education, spread over an intensive two-semester period. They may consist of two distinct courses, Basic Concepts in Paralegal Studies and Advanced Concepts in Paralegal Studies.
You will learn a broad background in the basic concepts of legal research; civil practice; torts; matrimonial (family law); criminal law; contracts; ethics; debtor-creditor relations; business organization; trusts and estates; and real property.
What this means in practical terms is that you get a broad swath of the entire legal industry and you will become well acquainted with many of the probable work topics you’ll be dealing with for the next stage of your career.
The American Bar Association, one of the most respected professional organizations in the United States, keeps a list of updated accredited paralegal programs. Consult this list for law schools and paralegal programs in the San Diego area and request information from each of those schools. You can even schedule campus visits to meet the faculty and see the classrooms and other facilities.
Contact one of the three national paralegal associations for advice and guidance. They are the National Federation of Paralegal Associations (NFPA), the American Alliance of Paralegals, Inc. (AAPI) and the National Association of Legal Assistants (NALA). You may also take a free career aptitude test to see is earning a paralegal diploma is perfect for you.
Industrial Engineer
An industrial engineer is engaged in the process of finding the best ways to eliminate all sorts of waste in manufacturing and production processes. Closely related is the world of Physics Engineering that deals with the dynamics of electricity, statics, magnetism, material durability, fluid dynamics, and thermodynamics.d fluid dynamics. It is used in space science, nuclear engineering, superconductivity, and optical materials.
These professionals create and develop the most efficient methods to use materials, machines, energy, information, and human resources within a production process to provide better service, or to make a better product efficiently. Industrial engineers can be found working not only in offices but also in the location or setting that they want to improve.
They may, for example, be watching workers who assemble parts on the factory floor or monitoring medical staff working in a hospital. When they are solving certain problems, these professionals may often be found working in their offices at a computer while examining and reviewing all relevant data they or their colleagues collected.
Industrial engineers must hold a high school or GED (also a GED allows for a college education), followed by at least a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering or a closely related field such as mechanical engineering, manufacturing engineering, general engineering, or industrial engineering technology. The demand for industrial engineers is expected to grow slightly over the coming decade, a little less than the national average.
Manufacturing Engineer
As the demands of a competitive society increase daily, manufactures from every division of industry continue to rely more heavily on science as a means of creating the best product for the cheapest price.
Since the first factories of the Industrial Revolution, when engineering jobs were already in high demand, powered primarily by simple inventions such as the steam engine, manufacturing engineering has developed into a process much more complex than simple production.
In fact, Henry Ford’s revolutionary method of mass production through assembly lines is often considered to have developed from early engineering ideology first cemented by the industrious labors of the early 19th century.
These concepts have led to current working conditions, in which manufacturing is no longer relegated to sweatshops and laborious work by masses of poorly qualified individuals. The world of manufacturing and engineering has gone high tech!
Although material goods are usually the first things that come to mind when discussing the field of manufacturing engineering, it actually encompasses a much broader scope of production, including the creation and/or improvement of anything beneficial to man, plants, and animals.
In addition, manufacturing can also include any machines, tools, or processes necessary for the engineering and creation of a final product. It is important to remember that the creation of a product involves many different processes and necessitates the effort of multiple individuals along the way to completion.
Usually, Manufacturing engineers are required to hold an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in mechanical or manufacturing engineering from a vocational school or community college. For advanced positions, employers are generally looking for experienced candidates with master’s degrees.
Accounts Clerk-Secretary
If a good administration is what has your attention, maybe one of the following jobs could be suited for you. All businesses need administrative specialists and in San Diego, there are numerous positions open to motivated and experienced accounts clerks.
Accounts clerks keep financial records and help to prepare accounts in all types of business. Accountants Clerks must hold certificates in bookkeeping as well as certificates in accounting. The job duties of an Accounts Clerk include tasks such as helping to prepare final accounts, such as profit and loss accounts and balance sheets; preparing wages and processing expenses claims; checking that accounts are accurate; completing VAT returns.
These professionals are using computerized accounting systems that help them prepare statements showing the company or department’s income and outgoings. They also process sales invoices, receipts, and payments, and balance accounts (often known as ‘double-entry book-keeping’)
Some account clerks go on to become company secretaries. The job title of a company secretary is rather confusing because a company secretary has got nothing to do with the usual secretarial work. Their work is more of a legal and/or fiscal adviser in a corporate industry setting. A company secretary forms an indispensable part of a corporate house.
A company secretary handles the legal and/or fiscal part of the administration and is responsible for keeping track of the financial accounts of the company. He manages the public matters of a company in case it goes public, and is required to manage all the inter-corporate investments and matters related to loans.
Company secretaries are supposed to look after all the meetings which are related to the board of directors of the company, and they are responsible for handling the matters related to sales tax, labor laws, excise laws, or corporate laws. The role and responsibilities of a company secretary depend largely on the size of the company that he or she is associated with, and a company secretary is often given the title of Principal Officer.
A company secretary looks into the specifications of the applications for appointments or remuneration and helps projects, licenses, or permits in getting approved. To become an account clerk or secretary, you must be good in communication skills, both written and verbal.
Medical Transcriptionist
Medical Transcriptionists are well-trained and educated to listen to recordings made by doctors, and other medical professionals, and then convert them to a written record.
These records are then incorporated in patients’ records, get incorporated in medical reports, and used in correspondence. Courses in Medical Transcription prepare you to be successful in this interesting line of work through academic coursework in anatomy, medical terminology, medical-legal issues, grammar, and English.
The profession required applicants to complete a highly-specialized bachelor’s degree program. The shortage of medical transcriptions and other medical personnel is well known, and also in the San Diego area, people with medical transcription certification are in high demand.
Medical transcriptions are expected to grow faster than the average over the next decade. Medical stenographers primarily find jobs in hospitals and clinics. Jobs are also found in labs, colleges, universities, and transcription services.
Other jobs are found with temporary help agencies. To be successful, a medical transcriptionist, you must be able to accurately convert recordings into written material, and spot errors and inconsistencies in a medical report. Then you work with the person who dictated the report to resolve those inconsistencies.