If you look consumer services career from salary perspective, it is a very bad choice both short and long term. But there are better alternatives mentioned later in this article so make sure you read about those.
This career is not well paid now and things are going to go downhill from here.
The first reason is low barrier to entry because anyone with half a brain and working mouth can do this job. Which means you’re competing with bunch of other people for the same position. And fundamentals of economy say that salary is not going to be fantastic in that case.
The second reason is you can’t advance very far. Because you can fairly quickly learn ins and outs of the product your company sells and then you hit the plateau. Meaning 20 years of working experience isn’t much different from 6 months of experience. Which is another reason you’re easily replaceable.
The third reason is that your skills are not transferable to another company. For example, a software company can have unique product and some other company you’re switching to can have completely different product. And your knowledge about the first product doesn’t help you much at all.
The fourth reason is automation. Areas like artificial intelligence are advancing by the day. And chatbots and other technologies are getting better and better. So on top having bunch of people who compete with you, now you’re also in the ring with the machines as well.
Conclusion: do not take this career path.
Better Alternative
One thing that every company loves and needs is website traffic. And if you have the skill with which you can bring traffic, you are going to be wanted (and well paid) by the companies.
For example, one extremely useful skill to have is putting websites on search results. Also known as SEO.
BUT
Not all SEO is created equal. Because a lot of people in SEO think in terms of competing. And this makes ranking on search results nearly impossible.
But if you go for keywords that no one else can find, then you automatically win. And you don’t even have to be very skilled because competition is very low.
Check out organic revenue growth article to learn more about these keywords.
TAGS: career path, consumer services,
Senior Software Developer with experience in Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and search engine algorithms.