“Where are they now?” It is a question asked many times for many different reasons. You hear it when former classmates from high school or college are reminiscing, or when people are recollecting old television shows or movies and wondering what became of their stars. You hear it during discussions among community members about local athletic record-setters of years gone by, and when colleagues visit during lunch or at breaks about former co-workers.

But have you ever thought about “where are they now” from an occupational standpoint? As with business trends, occupational trends see many fluctuations and changes, often because of technological advances. We looked at a few occupations in which workers are finding jobs in industries where there were not formerly opportunities.

One example is commercial and industrial designers. By definition, they develop and design manufactured products for companies by conducting research on product use, marketing and materials to create functional and appealing product designs for consumers. While commercial and industrial designers are still typically found working for manufacturing companies, the way in which they operate within the company has changed. They were typically part of the firm’s marketing, advertising and/or sales team, producing designs for trade shows or customer presentations. But now these designers can also be found working in engineering and/or information technology departments. Commercial and industrial designers are sometimes the link between multiple departments of a company as products are designed. They still ensure the designs are appealing to customers, but now also work with the engineering department to ensure the product’s functionality as well.

Automation has probably brought about the biggest change for commercial and industrial designers, as they no longer have to rely solely on sketch books and manual artistic talents to create their designs. Most companies now use computer automated software packages to develop and design the products they produce. This has given designers exponentially more flexibility in design and the ability to produce multiple designs in a shorter amount of time.

Recent trends have led to new opportunities for employment for graphic designers as well. Graphic designers create graphics to meet specific commercial and/or promotional needs, such as packaging, displays or logos. Graphic designers, like commercial and industrial designers, used to find most job opportunities limited to the marketing, advertising and/or sales departments within a company. Now graphic designers may be found in the engineering or information technology departments, or they may be their own department working independently within a company. With the continued rapid growth of the Internet and advances in software technology, marketing and promotion of products is one of the most important business strategies companies employ to try and maintain or increase their market share for a product or service.

Advertising agencies, newspapers and printing companies used to be the main industries where graphic designers were employed. Now in addition, they are employed by wholesale and retail trade, finance companies and manufacturers to name a few. Most companies now maintain and utilize their own website to help promote their company and products; therefore most of them employ a graphic designer or entire graphic design department to work with the information technology department in promoting their products or services. Some companies have found it more cost effective and timely to employ their own graphic designers, rather than contracting for this service, to keep up with their competitors in promoting their products or services. The graphic designers also take information and designs from the engineering department of their company and design sales and promotion layouts to help promote the products or services.

Computer software engineers, applications and computer software engineers, systems software are two more occupations which have seen changes in the types of industries where they are employed. Applications engineers develop, create and modify general computer applications or specialized utility programs. These applications and programs are usually meant to optimize business efficiency and can be for all types of industries, from banks to manufacturers. Software engineers research, design, develop and test operating systems-level software, compilers and network distribution software for all types of industries, including medical, industrial, communications, etc. Computer software engineers were typically found in companies designing computer systems for customers, but over the last several years they have seen employment gains in other industries as companies have begun hiring their own workers to design applications and/or software specifically for their business.

Computer software engineers design applications and software to improve efficiency in many areas of a business, from accounting, warehousing, customer service, etc. And with the speed at which automation continues to change the way business is conducted, these companies have found it more efficient to have their own staff of computer software engineers to continue and update, enhance and modify applications within their company. This has become increasingly more important as more companies utilize the Internet to broaden their customer base across other states, regions or countries as a maneuver to increase sales of their products or services. Once these computer applications or software programs are developed, they provide another benefit to the company, as they can also be marketed and sold to other companies—offsetting development costs and increasing revenues.

Customer service representatives (CSRs) is another occupation that has seen a change in the industries where they are employed. These workers interact with customers to provide information in response to inquiries about products and services, and to handle and resolve complaints. CSRs have always commonly been found across a wide range of industries, but the bulk of their employment used to reside in finance and business services. However, now they can be found in large numbers across almost every industry. Again, the advent of Internet sales and automated marketing strategies have led many companies to rely on CSRs to help increase their customer base as well as retain repeat customers.

CSRs traditionally used the phone to resolve complaints or provide information to customers about products or services sold by individual companies. With current technology, however, they are able to use e-mail, websites and interactive chat sessions to help resolve these issues. This automation has led many companies who used to contract with a third party company for customer service to develop staff within their own company for this service. They can then utilize CSRs to provide sales information on add-on features of their products or new product lines being provided by the company.

The ease of ordering and finding products and services on the Internet has led many more companies to employ CSRs to maintain their sales level. With the ability to easily search for and purchase products online 365/24/7 in a virtual global marketplace, quality customer service has become a crucial business practice to maintain customers.

Technology changes and the struggle to maintain customers are two reasons workers in the occupations mentioned above are finding job opportunities in industries where they have not typically been employed in the past. What is next for these and other occupations will be determined by employers across the state as they continue to evolve to maintain and improve their competitive edge.