Three Careers That Keep Showing Up on 'Best Jobs' Lists (And How to Land Them)

If you spend any time reading annual job rankings from U.S. News, Indeed, or the Bureau of Labor Statistics, you'll notice the same three titles appearing over and over: financial manager, IT manager, and physician assistant. They're not trendy picks. They keep landing near the top because they share a rare combination: strong projected growth, above-average salaries, and unemployment rates that hover close to zero.

But "great job market" doesn't mean "easy to get hired." Especially when most applications go through an Applicant Tracking System before a human ever sees them. Here's what makes each of these roles worth pursuing, and what you need to do to actually get past the screening stage.

Financial Manager

The BLS projects 17% growth through 2032 for financial managers, which is roughly three times the average for all occupations. Median pay sits around $156,000. Companies need people who can interpret data, manage risk, and make the numbers tell a story to leadership.

What ATS systems look for in these résumés:

• Specific credentials: CPA, CFA, MBA, Series 7
• Software and tools: SAP, Oracle Financials, Hyperion, Tableau
• Action-oriented metrics: "Reduced operating costs by 14%" beats "Responsible for cost reduction"
• Section headers that parse cleanly: "Work Experience," "Certifications," "Education"

One common mistake financial professionals make is burying their credentials in a summary paragraph or a footer. ATS parsers often miss credentials when they're tucked into unusual places. Put certifications in their own dedicated section.

IT Manager

IT management is one of those roles that sounds broad but is actually quite specific to each employer. A hiring manager at a healthcare company wants someone who understands HIPAA compliance and EHR systems. A fintech startup wants someone who can talk to engineers and translate for the C-suite. That specificity matters enormously for your résumé.

Median pay is around $164,000, and the field is growing at 15% through 2032. Unemployment for experienced IT managers is consistently under 2%.

What to focus on when tailoring your résumé:

• Match the exact tech stack listed in the job description. If the posting says "Azure" and your résumé says "cloud infrastructure," you may not match on keyword scoring.
• Highlight team size and budget scope. "Managed a 12-person team and a $2.4M infrastructure budget" is specific and scannable.
• Include both the spelled-out version and acronym for certifications: "Project Management Professional (PMP)" so the parser catches both.

This is exactly where a skill-match tool earns its keep. Pasting a job description into Past the Bots will show you which keywords from the posting are present in your résumé and which ones are missing, so you're not guessing.

Physician Assistant

PA is a different animal because it sits at the intersection of healthcare credentialing and standard job searching. The BLS projects 27% growth through 2032, the fastest of the three, and median pay is around $130,000. With a national shortage of primary care providers, demand isn't slowing down.

For PAs, the résumé challenge is twofold. First, your credentials have to be airtight and in the right place. Second, your clinical experience needs to translate for the specific specialty you're applying to.

Practical résumé tips for PAs:

• Lead with your licensure and certifications above your summary: PA-C, DEA number, state licenses, NCCPA certification status
• Tailor your clinical experience bullets to the specialty. A bullet about managing pediatric acute care visits reads very differently to a family medicine clinic than to an orthopedic surgery group.
• Avoid multi-column formats. Healthcare system ATS platforms are notoriously bad at reading two-column résumés. Stick to a clean single-column layout.

The Common Thread Across All Three

Each of these careers is competitive precisely because they pay well and offer stability. That means more applicants, more ATS filtering, and a narrower window to make a first impression.

A few things that apply to all three:

• Tailor for each application. A generic résumé will get scored against the job description and likely come up short on keywords that matter.
• Use standard section headers. Clever headers like "Where I've Made an Impact" can confuse parsers. "Work Experience" always works.
• Quantify everything you can. Growth percentages, team sizes, patient volumes, budget figures. Numbers stand out in both parser output and human review.
• Check what the ATS actually sees. Formatting that looks great in a PDF can turn into scrambled text after parsing. Running your résumé through an ATS checker before you apply takes ten minutes and can save you from months of silence.

The job market for these roles is genuinely good. The competition is just real. Getting the fundamentals right on your résumé is the part you can actually control.