Awareness Exercise
You can just make a list, but here is an example of how things could happen:
McDonald's decides to sell gourmet coffee, and to compete with Starbuck's on price. They will need to purchase more cups. Somewhere, a cup manufacturer will have to gear up production, and somewhere, they will be purchasing more raw materials. Along the way, a new job might be created in the transportation sector and a new house might be sold in the community with the manufacturing plant. Feeling confident, a worker in a paper products plant might buy a new television or take her husband out to dinner. Sensing that times are good, a restaurant owner might decide to spend more on advertising or might finally decide to hire an accountant. Someone might decide they can afford a vacation and purchase an airline ticket. Someone might decide to buy a new set of golf clubs. Because more trucks are rolling on the highway, a State might decide to upgrade a road with the increased tax revenue. A construction company might hire a new engineer and perhaps a government relations specialist. Maybe they will buy a new bulldozer and the heavy equipment manufacturer will decide to build a new plant. Perhaps one day, after that plant has been built, one of the employees will decide to buy a cup of coffee at McDonald's.
So do the exercise. Find an article about some news event, and write down at least ten things that might happen as a result.
This was not a one time exercise!
For the serious job seeker, this task does not end with having analyzed just one news story. Instead, it has to be a way of thinking about what's going on and what different events might mean. You don't want to be the person who goes out looking for a job as a mortgage broker while the mortgage industry is melting down.
You also don't want to be the last one to know which industries are going to grow in the coming years. You don't want to miss or overlook an opportunity, or fail to consider an option because you thought it wouldn't be worth it. You don't want to train for a job that won't be there and you don't want to pass up a training opportunity because you think there won't be any jobs in that field.
Maintaining an awareness of the world around you is also going to improve your chances of landing that job that you want. When you interview, a prospective employer is going to want to know that you know their industry, that you know the trends that might affect it, and that you are alert to the forces that will shape it. An employer will want to know that you are thinking!
Companies of all sizes actually hire people to figure out what's going to happen next. Spotting trends and anticipating the future is important in every type of business, and in the same way, it is important to you as a job seeker.