Career Profile: Research
 Research is an attractive profession for those seeking to explore a particular subject and then improve upon it. In general, research is needed for all industries, in particular marketing, academia, science, financial, and social science. Depending on the area of specialty, researches may be working directly with people, such as researchers who investigate people’s buying patterns. On the other hand, researchers such as pharmaceutical researchers study the properties of chemical combinations. Whatever their subject, researchers’ first and foremost purpose is to discover the implications their field of study has.
For instance, political researchers spend the majority of their time examining voting patterns, looking for trends and analyzing why people vote a certain way, claim membership with a certain political party, etc. Whereas social science researchers study humans and their behavior, whether individually or in social groups. Options for research topics are vast, but do require a lot of analysis, patience, and genuine interest in the area of study. Depending on a researcher’s particular subject area, career tracks differ.
Commonly, when people think of a researcher they imagine chemists in white lab coats mixing different chemical concoctions to develop the next pharmaceutical drug or college professors working on studies similar to the Milgram experiment. While these types of researchers do exist, research as a whole encompasses more than just academics and chemists. In fact, many companies hire researchers to study and analyze a subject to improve a product or better serve their customers. Financial analysts, for instance, study Wall Street and other financial institutions like insurance companies, banks, and venture capital firms in order to provide their clients with recommendations that make sound financial sense.
Aside from working in the private sector, researchers can also find engaging work in universities, government agencies, think tanks, and educational institutions. The topics of research and educational requirements differ according the type of research being performed; however, most research posts, particularly at universities, require a PhD and the ability to secure funding to pursue research ambitions.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics anticipates that research opportunities will grow faster than the average through 2014, mostly for medical scientists, with research posts in areas such as social science, chemistry, economy to be slower.
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