Man, sometimes I just don’t get what passes for a good online article. Yahoo’s HotJobs site has an article about hot jobs that pay 6-figures. I think this article stinks, but after explaining why, I’ll tell you what I think is a fast track for a 6-figure job in almost any line of work.
I don’t know much about a few of the 6 jobs listed by the article, but here’s what I know about two.
Professional Hacker
Ever hear of a certified ethical hacker? That’s the professional IT certification for a computer scientist that works as a security specialist, forensic investigator, or network defense architect for corporations, the government, and law enforcement agencies to help prevent hacking or to track down perpetrators. To get into the field, you’ll need more than the hacking skills you tweaked together in your garage. Begin by earning a bachelor’s degree in computer science or information technology. You can get additional online college training in network security. The top 50 percent of computer scientists earned between $97,970 and $123,900 in 2007.
What kills me about this paragraph is that while it does tell you that you need more than ’skills you tweaked together in your garage’, it fails to mention that the best of the best usually have master’s degrees in computer sciences, math, physics, or engineering. So factor in your student loans for a graduate degree if you pursue this path. BTW, I’m not sure that there is anything called a ‘certified ethical hacker‘. (There is, but scroll down to the Controversy section to understand why the term is crap.)
You want to get an inkling of what it takes? Try going to Defcon for a weekend. These people will be your colleagues, your ‘frienemies’, if you will. And yes, it’s true, you do get to work with some public agencies and with a lot of financial institutions. But ask yourself if it’s better as a consultant vs full-time employee. That will make a difference in the salary you command. Hired guns always make more, but mercenary work has very few benefits.
Mobile Experience Architect
The cool streaming videos and eye-popping CD covers that get delivered to the screens of millions of cell phones and PDAs each hour are designed to make you spend money. Information architects create the structure and mind-manipulating patterns (site maps) of each mobile delivery. You’ll need to learn about marketing, strategy, and user testing through a degree program in computer science, Web design, or business. There’s even an IT certification for professional mobile architects. Salaries range into six figures.
This sounds really glib. Most IT architects I’ve met have at least 7 years of work experience under their belts and User Interface designers get seriously into other academic fields like behavioral psychology and user-interaction design graduate work. Again, most of my colleagues and friends in this line of work have at least one master’s degree (if not a J.D. or Ph.D. as well). ‘Mind-manipulation’ has an actual discipline and it’s not very diplomatic to call it ‘mind-manipulation’. (Who writes this stuff?) When I talk to my friends about what they do, they speak about ease of navigation and use being more important than delivering sales messages. Navigation and ease should facilitate that, not make you buy something blue when you wanted a green one. If that were true, American car makers should immediately make an aggressive mobile ad campaign to make you buy their cars. Were that it was so easy!
More than anything out there, you have go to slog your way through the trenches and earn your salary. No one is going to pay you big dollars without some mad skillz to show for it. (l337-er, the better.) All of my friends who do these two kinds of jobs make great money, but they worked a long time to get where they are. In your mid-30’s, everyone could be within a stone’s throw of making 6-figures if they’ve stuck with their fields and worked really hard. (This is coming from someone in her mid-30’s who did a complete career makeover at the age of 25. It’s taken me a while, but yeah, I could be making 6-figures soon because I earned it from working hard and maneuvering for the right experience and the right job changes, not because I got a degree in computer science, because I don’t.)
My advice, especially if you think you want to become a ‘certified ethical hacker’ for our government is to get a “Top Secret w/lifestyle-poly” clearance. That is the fast track to making a lot of dough in almost any field, administrative, financial, etc. You can get them with just a CISSP which is all most IT security job listings are looking for anyway. I don’t know of a single agency that publicly looks for a CEH cert. (More than likely you can meet a Fed that’s recruiting for a job like this at Defcon. They make it a game. ‘Spot the Fed!’)
If you take this path, you are agreeing to have the government do a very invasive security check into your life, a polygraph test and pee in a cup. Sometimes it’s also called a “TSCI w/poly”. Be sure you have a been a boy/girl scout for the last 10 years. You can document every foreign trip you’ve ever taken. You have very little financial debts, and no skeletons in your closets, etc. Getting one of these means premium pay, even directly with the federal government (and not just as a consultant).
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The fact that “Fashion Consultant/Personal Shopper” appears as a $100k+ job on this list should, ah, place it somewhat.
Heh, I feel your annoyance. What gets me is that the 2 jobs you mention tend to be populated by people who naturally arrive at them through their own abilities and/or proclivities. That is, no one is telling them these are “hot jobs!”.
Very well written post. Your emotions on the matter are transmitted very clearly.
I think your post also points out the fact that 6 figure income jobs demand the highest form of work effort – continiuous learning/training and lots and lots of experience.
If it were that easy to earn 6 figure income jobs, then everyone should be millionairesby now.