The current global recession calls to mind the problems of the 1980s, when there were equally high joblessless statistics as at the current time. At that time there was a marked retrenchment in our industrial base, so that a high number of car making, steel making, coal mining and comparable jobs vanished or were in short supply. It is intriguing to note the parallels between that earlier recession, and today, looking at the various sham jobs that were advertised, and are resurfacing once more now, a lot of them in sales positions, that no one would dream of applying for, if jobs were not in such short supply.

And yet, there are contrasts between the two periods, because of the appearance of Internet business and a wide range of legitimate online jobs in existence at the current time, that were not available 25 years ago. While the possibility for people to work from home is not new, the WWW greatly widens the possibilities for doing this.

To be sure, there are legitimate opportunities working in a commission-based sales capacity, but it is important to distinguish good from bad jobs, and avoid positions promoting something dubious. Once in the eighties I went for an interview with an employer promoting a new commercial directory. I was supposed to visit companies getting them to buy an entry in this. I suspected that this supposed directory was something of a sham, and declined the position. I never heard of the directory again.

In another example I applied for a vacancy selling a financial scheme, and was invited to attend an interview at a hotel. It is not unusual for employers to hire hotel space for the purposes of interviews. Unfortunately, when I got there, I discovered this organisation in fact had their office in a hotel room. Before I would even be taken on by them, I had to to sell 5 investment plans, to friends and relatives. So therefore, they were not interested in me, but in my contacts. Needless to say I steered well clear of that one.

Then I even spent some time as a door-to-door salesman. A lot of people find door-to-door salesmen irritating, and it turned out to be a deeply discouraging episode. People will think of various nasty ways of telling you they don’t want to buy your product. So then I tried out telephone selling, which had the advantage that I could work from home, however that was worse still than doorstep selling. People find it a lot easier to put the phone down on a salesman than to slam a door when they’re standing on the doorstep.

The door-to-door job adverts are less plentiful these days as many neighbourhoods have been designated as ‘no cold calling’ zones, and many of the telephone sales positions have been outsourced to India. Even so, this year I applied for a vacancy in telephone research, which I predicted would be preferable as it did not involve selling anything. Regrettably, I discovered that very few people were willing to take part in the survey, and some just hung up on me right away. I left the job after 24 hours.

So, with employment opportunities still extremely scarce, are there any alternatives that are genuine opportunities? After I tried out various non-starters I eventually considered Internet business opportunities. You will find some promoted on the online jobs sites, but in addition there are websites specialising in the topic of Internet business itself. Positions like these allow you to work from home, therefore there is no need to commute a long distance. Some opportunities might require a reasonable investment, but I know from my own experience that online jobs are infinitely better than trying to sell stuff door-to-door or by phone. Since I started in this area a while ago, I haven’t personally regretted it.

To become a postman or woman may not sound like one of the most interesting Careers ever, however there is quite a lot of scope for development which lots of people are oblivious to. I wish to provide some information on this role and what Careers people can branch into via this job, to aid people who are possibly searching for New careers to move into. Hopefully it will provide insight into a role which the majority of people probably would not consider as a New career choice, and help people see there is plenty on offer by getting a job such as this.

As with many New careers, as a postman you will be starting at the bottom and then climbing your way up through the business. There are a few different roles accessible to begin with, from sorting mail at a processing centre and allocating it to the correct area, to physically going out and delivering letters by hand. Some work you will do a combination of these jobs, and some roles work exclusively in the sorting centres, and they do not need to go out and make deliveries at all. The kind of hours you work depends on the type of job you take on – postal deliveries are early mornings, Monday through to Saturday, however working in one of the bigger depots or processing centres will more than likely require that you work shifts, which can be a little more flexible for some people. Most wages for these jobs reach from £12,000 to around £16,000, but it can rise as high as £22,000 for inner London.

In order to be a postman you must be physically fit – there is a lot of heavy lifting involved, both in the processing centres and out delivering. While out delivering you will be required to work in all weathers, and normally you will walk around six to eight miles every day, so it can get pretty tiring. Honesty is another highly important part of becoming a postman – everyday you will managing all kinds of packages with all kinds of contents, from personal letters to costly items. As such Royal Mail has an extremely important reputation to maintain, so they will be employing staff they can trust. Other helpful attributes are a good eye for detail, and the facility to work well in a team or on your own, unsupervised.

Once you gain experience of working for a big business like this, you might wish to start think about a New career path that will then allow you to improve your professional growth. There are loads of New careers you may contemplate going into – just one of the benefits of working for a large business such as Royal Mail. Typically, the path of development takes you to supervisory, then management roles. Once you are there, you have a huge amount of choice, as you could opt to go into something like marketing and advertising, or human resources management, or logistics planning. There are lots of choices here for the dedicated individual, as long as you show commitment and enthusiasm for your job you could do well in a large business such as this.