LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network with more than 187 million members, 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 393 professionals in Singapore, and more than 8,000 globally to find out the most common childhood career aspirations and how many professionals currently have their dream job.
Here are the top-ranked dream jobs for Singaporean men, compared to other professionals around the world:
| Rank | Male professionals, Singapore | Male professionals, globally |
| 1 | Engineer (11.4%) | Engineer (10.9%) |
| 2 | Scientist (9.2%) | Airplane / helicopter pilot (10%) |
| 3 | Airplane / helicopter pilot (8.5%) | Scientist (7.7%) |
| 4 | Doctor / nurse / paramedic (6.3%) | Doctor / nurse / paramedic (5.3%) |
| 5 | Police officer (5.5%) | Astronaut (4%) |
Not surprisingly, the dream jobs for women differed significantly:
| Rank | Female professionals, Singapore | Female professionals, globally |
| 1 | Teacher (14.8%) | Teacher (10.7%) |
| 2 | Doctor / nurse / paramedic (13%) | Doctor / nurse / paramedic (9.5%) |
| 3 | Lawyer (8.7%) | Journalist / novelist (6.8%) |
| 4 | Journalist / novelist (4.3%) | Veterinarian (5.4%) |
| 5 | Fashion designer / stylist (4.3%) | Lawyer (5.2%) |
Meanwhile, amongst Singaporean professionals of both sexes, dream jobs like astronaut (2.5%), artist (1.8%), superhero (1.3%), race car driver (1%), prince / princess (0.5%), zoologist (0.3%) and even ninja (0.3%) found far less favour.
LinkedIn also took a look at the number of members who have some rather cool careers. For instance, there are currently over 4,700 LinkedIn members in Singapore who are fashion stylists, 255 wine / beer specialists, 115 geologists, 112 casino dealers, and 2 archaeologists!
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).
“We may not be working in our dream jobs, but that doesn’t mean they should be discounted as childhood fantasies,” said Chan Ngee Key, Career Coach & Strategist at YourOwn360. “Think about what motivated those childhood aspirations, and instead, use those passions and talents to do better in your current job.”
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).
Here are the top three tips to help you get one step closer to landing your dream job:
- Follow your dreams by following your dream employers on LinkedIn. There are more than 2.6 million LinkedIn Company Pages. When you start following a company on LinkedIn you’ll get updates when people join the company, leave the company, when the company posts jobs on LinkedIn and other interesting insights.
- Get a professional pep talk from high profile business leaders on your LinkedIn homepage. LinkedIn recently added the ability to follow thought leaders on LinkedIn. You can read original content written by business luminaries like Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington and many more.
- Add relevant LinkedIn Skills to your profile and join LinkedIn Groups that relate to your dream job. Even though you’re not the professional athlete you fantasized about becoming back when you played for your school’s football team, your marketing skills combined with your love of sports could lead to a sports marketing position for a professional team. If you don’t have those skills or groups listed on your profile, you may not appear on LinkedIn Advanced People Searches related to those terms.
Visit the LinkedIn Blog to learn more about LinkedIn’s “Dream Jobs” study and to download the infographic.
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This article was originally sent out as a press release by LinkedIn and is published due to the relevance of the material for many tertiary students. The RIDGE does not claim any responsibility for the views expressed in this article or for the accuracy of the statistics.