Top childhood dream jobs: LinkedIn Study

LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network with more than 187 million members worldwide and over 17 million in India, today released data about the most popular childhood dream jobs and the number of professionals on LinkedIn who have some of these cool careers.

As part of its “Dream Jobs” study, LinkedIn surveyed more than 8,000 professionals globally, of which 415 are from India, to find out the most common childhood career aspirations and how many professionals currently have their dream job.

The survey found that the top childhood dream jobs for men in India were:

• Engineer (18.6 percent)
• Scientist (9.4 percent)
• Soldier (8.3 percent)
• Airplane or Helicopter Pilot and Doctor, nurse or emergency medical technician (6 percent)
• Teacher (5.7 percent)

Women in India said that their top childhood dream jobs were:

• Teacher (16.1 percent)
• Doctor, nurse or emergency medical technician (14.5 percent)
• Engineer (8.1percent)
• Scientist ( 6.5 percent)
• Lawyer and Soldier (4.80. percent)

Nearly one out of every three LinkedIn members surveyed around the world (30.3 percent) stated that they either currently have their childhood dream job or work in a career related to their childhood dream job. Professionals who said they don’t have their childhood dream job were most likely to cite, “As I got older, I became interested in a different career path,” as the primary reason they work in an unrelated field (43.5 percent).

Irfan Abdulla, Director, Talent Solutions, LinkedIn India said, “LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network connecting talent with opportunity at massive scale. Students can leverage LinkedIn to pursue their dream careers by connecting with relevant experts, following companies, exploring career trajectories of key people in their area of interest and gain insights on a particular industry through LinkedIn today; while professionals who are in a different career can stay connected to the industry they are passionate about.”

“The dream jobs we aspire to as children are a window into our passions and talents,” said Nicole Williams, LinkedIn’s career expert. “Identifying and understanding those passions are key to improving our performance and enjoyment of the jobs we currently do, even if they aren't specific to the careers we dreamed of as kids.”

More than 70 percent of the global professionals surveyed said that the most important characteristic of a dream job is “taking pleasure in your work.” In second place was, “Helping others” (eight percent) followed by “a high salary” which came in third place (with just over six percent of the survey takers selecting it as the most important feature of a dream job).

LinkedIn also took a look at the number of members who have some rather cool careers. For instance, there are currently over 95,000 LinkedIn members in India who are fashion stylists, more than 30,000 authors or publishers and over 22,000 animators. In India, there are also 49 casino dealers, over 400 wine and beer specialists and more than 72 archaeologists who are LinkedIn members.