Is your New Year’s Resolution about getting a new job? If so, you’ll want to be aware of these top 3 job trends that could affect the kind of position to look for, how you’ll apply for it, and the skills you need to succeed.

Hot Job sectors, Résumé Honesty, and Work-Related Education: Top 3 Job Trends to Watch in the Coming Year

Job Trend #1: Six sectors will offer on-ramps to career growth

A number of industries weathered the Great Recession or recovered quickly when it ended. Here are six sectors that will follow a growing economy to new heights.

1. Healthcare

America’s fastest-growing sector, it’s projected to grow 29% by 2020. Looming staff shortages make this an exceptional time to enter the field. New clinical managers, educators, and facility administrators will also be needed as millions more Americans obtain health insurance under Obamacare.

2. Information Technology

Nearly every industry will need systems analysts, software engineers, helpdesk pros, and network admins for the foreseeable future. Total employment is predicted to rise 22% by decade’s end.

3. Nonprofits

This sector includes hospitals, museums, and public universities along with charities. Nonprofits offer stable employment and steady growth, and in the coming decade they’ll need new blood. By 2016, nonprofits will require at least 80,000 new senior managers as Baby Boomer–era chiefs retire.

4. Education

Leaving corporate America? Universities are hiring instructors and administrators with management knowledge as they adopt business-inspired best practices. Older students returning to school will also appreciate a peer instructor who can share real-world experience in class. These factors are contributing to the projection that education, training, and library professions will add 1.4 million jobs by 2020.

5. Business Services

Three quarters of U.S. jobs—in fields such as staffing, hospitality, and advertising—occupy the business services category, which is expected to generate 18 million new positions by 2020. In addition to customer contact and sales, service-oriented firms seek workers from numerous professional backgrounds, including HR, finance, and property management.

6. Manufacturing

Forget hot, dangerous factories. Today’s manufacturing industry, which conducts 70% of the country’s industrial R&D, is a high-tech innovation machine that needs degree-equipped floor workers, computer-operated machinery programmers, and internationally inclined logistics experts who can extend companies’ global reach.

Job Trend #2: Career credentials will be under real-time scrutiny

The presidential campaign and Hurricane Sandy were widely followed on social media, but not everything users saw ...

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