Entering the job market?

If you’re a young person about to enter the job market, the skills you have already may give you more job mobility than you think — as long as you’re in the right “job cluster”.

That’s one of the main takeaways from a new report from the Foundation for Young Australians (FYA).

It found the skills you get from working in one job could on average be transferred to 13 other positions. The report suggests in the future young people should be focusing on their strengths and interest areas rather just the one dream job.

The report, The New Work Mindset, looked at 2.7 million job ads. FYA used an algorithm to look at more than 1,000 occupations, and found there were seven large job clusters based on similar skills sought by employers.

The clusters are:

• The Artisans (builders and maintainers)
• The Generators (sellers and servers)
• The Coordinators (balance the books and do repetitive tasks)
• The Informers (teach and provide information)
• The Designers (use expertise to construct or engineer things)
• The Carers (improve the wellbeing of others)
• The Technologists (understand and manipulate digital technology)

The “carers” cluster, for example, contains 131 occupations; everything from GPs, to childcare workers, to fitness instructors.

“I think this gives a new insight into how these groupings can really help you,” FYA chief executive Jan Owen said.

“It should give young workers confidence that they do have skills and capabilities, even if they go in through one entry-level job, it could unlock a whole lot of others.”