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The 21st century workplace is an arena of uncertainty. The modern workplace will continue to shift and change as new opportunities open up all over the world and new technologies change the shape of companies and careers.

You will need to learn new skills throughout your life and be in charge of your own self-development. Although companies will invest in training their employees, you will be expected to add value in return, keeping up with the pace of change. You are likely to change employers so, even if you are employed, think of yourself as your own self-employed business.

What we want from work is changing too. More of us expect fulfilment at work; we want to be stimulated. If we are bored we will just change careers. Self-realisation is also big this century. Many of us want work–life balance or autonomous work. Some of us want it all, and now: wealth, power and happiness. We have to be prepared to learn skills in our spare time as well as at work to achieve high employability.

All this adds up to the arrival of new types of career. Not all of them are cool, but some of them are very cool!

Ten good reasons why you need a cool career right now

Change is afoot. If you don’t take these factors into account when thinking about your career you could get left behind in a dead-end job or, worse still, become unemployable.

1. Only you are in charge of your career. This is the age of self-responsibility. We each need to take charge of our careers. A career for life will no longer be handed to us on a plate. You need a career you can really embrace with gusto and commitment.

2. Building a lifetime brand – you, inc. Think carefully about every choice you make. Your career choices sell you not only on your experience but, in effect, as a brand. Your CV is not a history of your background as much as a personal marketing document. The cooler the careers on your CV, the more you will be worth as a ‘name-brand’ in the market place – this will give you longevity and reward in your career.

3. Your expectations. We expect our personal life to provide us with enjoyment and meaning. This has now extended to work-life. A good pay cheque alone is no longer sufficient as a measurement of personal satisfaction. Our own personal definition of coolness is part of the package we expect to get with our jobs.

4. New working patterns and opportunities. Nine to five working days are no longer the norm for the whole workforce. There are new ways of working that allow more portfolio careers, short-term contracting, interim employment, telework and self-employment. This gives you more opportunities to choose a cool career.

5. New technologies. Technology is cool. It has given us all the flexibility and freedom to work from home as well as from an office. It has also potentially given us more control over our own time and allowed each of us to be more creative and expressive. We can write our own blogs, set up small businesses on the internet and communicate overseas. It is only in the last few years, for example, that people have actually been able to make their living as eBay traders.

6. Growth of the service economy. The changes in the West towards service-based economies allow us to create new services for others that have not previously been thought of. Who would have thought a few years ago that personal concierge services for the megarich could provide a career? The fastest growing industries could be, for example, personal services, leisure, business and financial services, hospitality and health care. What career could you choose to fit the trends of this century?

7. Personal meaning. This century’s expectation is that we ‘should’ and ‘can’ express our own values and interests in the work we do. If we can’t, we generally expect to change jobs. Choose a career that you consider cool. That choice is available to you.

8. Self-empowerment and lifelong learning are valued. The expectation now exists that we can, and will, change career more than once, so we gain the ability to develop different skills by working in more than one environment or industry. It is OK to choose not just one, but several, cool careers that appeal to you.

9. You are a business. Working in a big, hierarchical company no longer needs to be the norm. We can all set ourselves up as independent entrepreneurs providing a service to others. Ideas and creativity will lead you to establish your unusually cool career.

10. Globalisation. The 21st-century world is one of international movement. We no longer need to work only in the country we grew up in. We can have flexible career plans that include a period of experience overseas that will be valued when we return home. Broaden your thinking. Cool Careers is full of ideas that will take you across the world rather than just on a short commute to a dull grey office block. Think laterally, and find a very cool career.