In this post, we’ll look at a few professional tracks that may not come to your mind immediately when thinking about what jobs are in high demand in Arizona.
You won’t be surprised to hear that in Arizona, like all across America, the options in the healthcare sector are plentiful and that will stay that way as our population is aging and new technologies and better healthcare allow us to live longer.
In Arizona, we see many ‘snowbirds’ escaping the harsh northern wheater spending the winter months in the agreeable Arizona climate which brings great opportunities in the healthcare, leisure, and cosmetology industries. Another field that developing rapidly is the world of computing, gaming, and web design. Great opportunities lie ahead!
So let’s take a closer look at some positions that will enable you to work toward a fulfilling, rewarding, and financially interesting career in Arizona. For all positions, you will have to hold a high school or equivalent diploma, and usually, college education and/or training in a vocational or trade school will be required as well.
Certified Nursing Assistant
Many people in Arizona are choosing to become a certified nursing assistant (CNA) as it is a way to enter the nursing profession relatively quickly. A certified nursing assistant is a demanding, hands-on position that requires a great deal of personal patient contact.
As supervised by LPNs, RNs, and physicians, a certified nursing assistant provides patients with basic care (feeding, cleansing, a friendly face) and may also be the person responsible for taking basic vital signs and performing other lower-level medical tasks.
Certified nursing assistant programs are offered by numerous community colleges and vocational schools, and provide a way for students to get out into the working world earning a paycheck while still continuing their education to attain even higher levels of achievement on a part-time basis.
Although the other nurses rank higher, it is often their certified nursing assistant that patients become most used to as they generally are the ones they will see the most. You may also qualify for continuing education to become an RN. You can very well take a free career test to learn if this professional track is right for you.
The average certificate program at a certified assistant nursing school takes approximately six to twelve weeks to complete and usually includes at least sixteen hours worth of out of the classroom practical training. The typical course in certified nursing assistants training covers nutrition, anatomy, physiology, infection control, communication skills, rights of patients including the all-important HIPAA privacy regulations, and personal care skills.
Once you have completed your certified nursing assistants program, you still have to sit a licensing exam, just like any other graduate of other nursing programs would in order to receive their license from the state. In order to maintain that license, a certified nursing assistant will then have to complete approximately twelve hours worth of continuing education credits every year.
You can find many graduates of certified nursing assistants schools working in hospitals but that is far from the only place they can find work. Other big employers of certified nursing assistants are the long-term residential health care facilities, where a certified nursing assistant becomes a big part of residents’ everyday life. A number of doctor’s offices also employ certified nursing assistants on their office staff.
Massage Therapist
Massage Therapists aim to make individuals feel better and they relieve pains and stress. Massage therapists are using a unique toolset, their magic touch, and their magic hands. Massage therapists use their tools to reduce stress, relieve pains, loosen up bound-up muscles. This is an interesting field and you don’t need to stay forever at your first job. Career advancement in Arizona is very well possible.
Massage therapists can apply over 80 different sorts of treatments and generally, they specialize in specific directions. They can specialize in acupressure, deep-tissue massage, reflexology, orthopedic and sports massage, or in one or more special areas.
Each area requires specific techniques and skills. The type and length of massage treatment typically are determined by a client’s desires and condition. Usually, pregnant women, elderly clients, and individuals recovering from a severe injury will need treatment that differs from the way athletes are treated, or individuals simply wishing relaxation treatment.
Many specialized academies across Arizona offer Massage therapist programs that usually take some 500 hours to complete and include coursework in massage techniques, physiology, kinesiology, human mechanics, and anatomy. Depending on the program, massage therapists may also be required to take additional courses such as business management, accounting, and ethics. Renown for its quality education programs is the Arizona School of Massage Therapy.
Esthetician
To become an esthetician, you must attend an accredited school that offers an esthetician program leading to a certificate or diploma. Esthetician and/or medical esthetician training can be obtained at career colleges, technical or trade schools, and beauty schools. When you have completed your formal education, you are required to take the Arizona licensure exam which consists of written, verbal, and practical segments.
Beauty school or cosmetology school has something for everyone who is looking into getting into the beauty industry. People in the industry love their careers because they are paid relatively well though you won’t be able, as is the case in some other fancy high-class function, to make $100 or more an hour.
Cosmetologists are known to have high job satisfaction because they help people look beautiful and feel better about themselves and three they get to be creative on a daily basis. Beauty schools offer a number of different degrees to be able to find something that sparks your interest. For example, you could focus on hairstyling, or be a make-up artist, nail technician, esthetician specialist, or in beauty salon management.
Each school is different but beauty schools usually last 10 to 12 months for full-time students or around 2 years for part-time students. The financial commitment depends on the school. There are financial assistance programs available to help you pay for your education. Check with the school you plan on applying with to see what programs they provide.
You will need to pass your state exams and complete the education requirements in order to use what you learned in beauty school in the real world. Most beauty schools will help prepare you to pass the state exams.
Dental Hygienist
A career as a dental hygienist can be quite rewarding, especially in Arizona with its many older people escaping the cold winters up north. Dental hygienists generally work inside a dentist’s office. A dental hygienist will typically see the patient prior to the dentist.
The hygienist may execute a cleaning, consider x-rays, discuss at-home dental hygiene with the individual, and develop a preliminary assessment from the patient so the dentist is actually fully ready. In Arizona, dental hygienists must hold state licensure.
While work in dental care hygiene doesn’t require a bachelor’s level degree, these specialists usually need a diploma from an accredited post-secondary college. Training and education will take around three years to complete. Throughout Arizona, many community colleges and vocational institutions offer dental hygienist programs.
The best dental hygienists, however, learn the trade by performing. A professional school that provides an opportunity to understand outside the actual classroom as well as in real-life individual situations can provide students the leg on the competitors. Some dental care hygiene colleges run dental care clinics by which patients receive cleanliness care provided by students. This provides students the chance to utilize real patients inside a supervised environment created for learning.
Electrician
Electricians keep the power on in homes and businesses all over the world and the career prospects for an electrician are still very good. Technology is booming in Arizona and the demand for electricians is booming with it, especially if they have a good knowledge of voice, data, and video wiring.
Many people start on the road to becoming an electrician by attending a vocational college and taking college-level math classes while still in high school is certainly helping. Attending college is required it gives the trainee electrician a solid foundation in the basics before they head out into the big wide world to pursue the most important part of their job training – an apprenticeship with a master electrician.
Vocational courses cover a wide range of topics including Electrical theory; Blueprint reading; Mathematics; Electrical code and building code requirements; Safety and first aid; and Best business practices. Basic understanding of mechanical and industrial engineering will help an electrician secure a well-paying and steady career.
Obtaining an appropriate apprenticeship is an essential step for those hoping to become electricians. One of the other advantages of taking an electrician course at a vocational school is that the school is usually very helpful when it comes to finding students a good apprenticeship, something that may be challenging to do alone.
Before they can take their licensing test in most states an electrician must amass 2,000 hours of on the job training with a master electrician. That means that the average electrician’s apprenticeship lasts for about a year.
The final and most crucial step to becoming a fully-fledged electrician is to obtain an Arizona state license. Both State and local level authorities require electricians to demonstrate the mastery of their new trade through a series of written exams.
The licensing exam tests a candidate’s knowledge of electrical theory, the National Electrical Code, and assorted state and local building codes. There are special licenses available for some specialist electrician roles, such as public electricians, commercial electrical contractors, and electrical inspectors.
Phlebotomist
A certified phlebotomist is a new brand of medical professionals in Arizona. They focus solely on drawing blood from patients, most especially in hospitals, but also in large doctor’s practices, clinics, and even blood drives.
Many people may have not heard of the term phlebotomy or know offhand what a phlebotomist does, but it is almost a certainty that they’ve personally seen a phlebotomist in a medical setting either within a hospital or a doctor’s office. A phlebotomist is someone who is medically trained to draw blood for either blood testing purposes or a transfusion.
Because medical testing has become such an integral part of modern-day medicine, certification has become available for medical personnel and it is known as a phlebotomy certification. Phlebotomy helps free up the time of doctors to practice higher-level medicine and make diagnoses instead of dealing with tasks that can better be done by another medical professional with specialized training in a certain repetitive task such as phlebotomy.
Many vocational schools and community colleges offer phlebotomy technician programs that train you to become a certified phlebotomist. These courses are generally fairly short and consist of about two to four months of coursework and on then is it followed by a final exam to earn the credential of a certified phlebotomist.
Courses cover the essentials of anatomy and how to exactly draw blood, how to deal with patients, and some other important points such as the legal ramifications of blood collection. Naturally, much of the course addresses how to draw the blood in the best, most efficient, and pain-free places possible. Though this seems to be intricate medical work, it is possible to be taught in less than five months the complete and proper ways to draw blood from a patient.
Web Designer
Web designers use art and technique to create either a single web page or an entire web site made up of multiple web pages. Web designing is a form of web publishing, but some web designers take on the operation of both the aesthetics and the mechanics of a web site although, for the most part, the job focuses on the look and feel of the site.
Web designers become masters at a number of skills, including Graphics creation; Animation creation; Navigation design; Content creation; Programming; E-commerce development, just to mention a few options.
Today, numerous Arizona colleges offer specialized web design programs that allow you to learn a variety of skills and theories. Whether you choose a short 2-month certificate program to hone in on certain computer skills you are lacking or you choose a 4-year program to acquire your Bachelor’s degree, you will come away with a deep understanding of the mechanics of web site building and publishing.
You can sign up for certificate programs, Associate’s degrees, Bachelor’s degrees, and Master’s degrees, but the more education you have, the more efficient you will be when it comes to the varied techniques in web design today. As long as you’re learning, you will be well on your way toward your new career in web design in no time!
You may also want to be a Game Designer. A career in Game Design allows you to pursue the combined passions of computer gaming and game design. Game designers layout game flow and gameplay and learn to build games that will capture the passion of those who play them.
Game design schools help you how to create characters, their environments, storyline, motion capture, visual storytelling, 3D animation, low-polygon modeling, texturing, game design strategies, and the artistic side of game design as well.
Registered Nurse
The profession of Registered Nurse (RN) can be pretty tough at times, but it is absolutely rewarding. Registered nursing is, in fact, the fastest-growing field in healthcare in Arizona and all across the United States. Registered Nurses are in great demand creating special incentive packages to encourage more people to consider becoming an RN.
So let’s see how to become an RN and how long it will take. There is no standard path for future RN candidates to take when it comes to getting the education they need to become a fully qualified RN. You can pursue a master’s degree in nursing (MSN), a BSN (bachelor’s of science degree in nursing), an ADN (associate degree in nursing), or a diploma.
An associate’s degree takes two years, sometimes less, and this provides all the basic educational and hands-on training needed to sit for the required NCLEX-RN exam and become an RN. Some consider a BSN or even an MSN if they really do not need to go through years of extra schooling. Many do so to secure higher-paying jobs and achieve more prestige. For example, a BSN is usually a mandatory requirement for an RN who wants to pursue a career in hospital administration.
Whatever educational path you choose to follow in order to work as an RN, a nursing school graduate must sit, and pass, the NCLEX-RN. This standardized exam is written and set by The National Council of State Boards of Nursing and is accepted by all 50 states as a demonstration that the nursing school graduate has achieved a sufficient level of knowledge and experience to work as a registered nurse.
Once you have obtained your nursing license, it doesn’t end there. There are continuing education requirements established in every state that must be met to hold onto your license that comes up for renewal once every several years.
Audio/Video Producer
Audio/video production programs are becoming very important to media-related careers. As more and more people have access to the internet, video has become one of the most common ways in which businesses communicate with current and future customers online. Audio/video production programs will prepare students for many different careers.
These careers include equipment operators, television and movie designers, and audio technicians. Once you have completed an audio/video production program, you will be familiar with many forms of audio and video equipment, and editing sounds and videos. In our contemporary computer-driven world, there are some audio/video producers that make $100 or more per hour but to be honest, forget about those dollar signs in your eyes as that’s only possible for a few highly talented lucky guys!
Audio/video production programs are unique in that they allow you to specialize in the career that interests you most. Most people who decide to apply to one of the audio/video production programs are people who have an interest in fashion, entertainment, or advertising.
Audio/video production courses leading to an associate’s degree are available at a number of Arizona community colleges and technical colleges at modest tuition rates. Universities and four-year colleges offer bachelor, master, and doctorate degrees in audio/video production programs but as you will be earning a more advanced degree, tuition will be higher than at a two-year college.
An audio/video program entails more than just learning about audio and video equipment. You will learn all about the theory and history of audio and video production and usually, you’ll have the opportunity to work with real simulation models. This is a valuable experience once you enter the Arizona workforce.
Physician Assistant
A physician assistant is a health care professional that usually works under the supervision of a physician or a doctor. To become a physician assistant (PA), you will have to be licensed by the state of Arizona. Physician assistants could also go on to have their own health care facility.
To get a Physician Assistant degree, you will have to complete a course pertaining to biological sciences. These include both biology and chemistry-related programs. Many community colleges and vocational institutions across Arizona offer PA Associate’s degree programs.
If you have been studying a non-related subject at universities, some colleges may still admit you if you have at least two years of coursework under your belt. This will extend the pursuit of your degree to a total of four years. Usually, the length of time that it takes to get your physician’s assistant degree is two years.
For your degree to be legitimate, you should ensure that you have enrolled with a school that has been accredited either regionally or nationally. After graduating with your physician’s assistant degree, you will also be expected to sit for the Physician Assistant national certifying examination. Passing this exam is what will make you a licensed physician’s assistant.
For most positions, PAs will need to demonstrate vast experience. You can gain experience by participating in volunteer medical camps, internships in private and public health and medical facilities, and participation in relevant conferences and seminars.