10 job titles that didn’t exist 20 years ago

If the last decade has taught us anything, it has become abundantly clear that the job market is an ever-evolving field.

Even in the past five years, new jobs have emerged that weren’t even a concept before. But have you ever sat down and looked at job boards and considered how many of the jobs that currently exist didn’t exist twenty years ago? 

It should come as no surprise that the world has changed in major ways over the past twenty years.

We currently use technology that was merely an abstract idea in 2000, and with all of those advances, new jobs have emerged.

Some of these “new” jobs may seem obvious — anything that has to do with social media management, programming, or digital marketing wasn’t a major job field in the early aughts. 

Let’s take a quick look at 10 jobs that didn’t exist 20 years ago. 

Social media manager

Even ten years ago, hiring a social media manager would’ve been a foreign idea for your local HR department.

Sure, maybe a handful of bands had someone handling their MySpace profiles, but it wasn’t until Facebook exploded after its 2004 launch that people really started to get invested in hiring someone to manage their digital branding on social media.

Digital marketing specialist

You may have seen listings for marketing specialists in 2000, but the caveat here is “digital.”

In 2000, marketing largely existed offline.

Most businesses may have had someone sending out marketing-type emails, but they definitely didn’t have a dedicated person to tackle marketing their businesses online.

Chief listening officer

You may not even be familiar with what a CLO does because this job is even new in terms of the last five years.

A chief listening officer will take data from social media and in-person interactions with customers and consumers and use that data to analyze the company’s communication skills’ efficiency.

SEO specialist

Again, in 2000 you would not find someone who knows what the acronym SEO stands for.

Search engine optimization has become an emerging career field in the past five years, with people dedicating their marketing skills to prioritizing businesses and products’ visibility in search engines.

Ask Jeeves wouldn’t have been able to tell you about this.

App designer

Our phones are such vital parts of our lives and careers, and yet twenty years ago, we would’ve carried around pen and paper to take notes because the Notes App didn’t exist.

Today, dozens of companies are dedicated to creating new apps, but none of them existed twenty years ago. In fact, the Apple App Store didn’t even open until 2008. 

Crossfit instructor

This is just one of many wellness-focused careers that didn’t exist in 2000. Crossfit instructors and Peloton instructors weren’t even a concept until the 2010s.

Now, you may have found a handful of Zumba instructors in the early aughts, but it was still a very niche program in Miami at the time.

UI/UX designer

If you didn’t know, UI/UX stands for “user interface” and “user experience” and really became a popular career field around 2013. Now people go out of their way to train in this specialization, improving website design and interfacing to be as user-friendly as possible.

If you think back to websites in the early 2000s, it’s quite clear that no one was working in this field back then. 

Uber driver

If you were getting paid to drive people around in the early 2000s, you were a cab driver.

Flashforward to 2010 and Uber changed the career field, followed by Lyft and other popular ride-share apps.

Podcast producer

Podcasting may have reached mainstream popularity in the early 2000s, but most people were handling production in-house.

But with the emerging popularity of podcasts in the 2010s, people shifted gears.

They began marketing themselves as podcast producers, managing the production, editing, and marketing for some of the most popular podcasts.

Twitch streamer

Twitch was founded in 2011 and didn’t really gain full-blown popularity until the last five years.

Some streamers rake in over $5,000 a week just by playing video games and streaming for 40 hours a week. No one would’ve imagined this reality back in 2000. 

Bottom line

It’s important to keep up with the latest emerging job fields and trends relevant to your occupational training. It’s quite impressive to look at how many new jobs have appeared in the last twenty years.

One can only imagine what new career fields will be created in the next twenty years, as technology, social media, and the world continue to advance.