Starting today and continuing every Monday for the next seven weeks, Personal Finance Analyst will be posting a Recession Survival Guide focusing on everything you need to know about getting through the coming recession without losing your sense of humor or your mind.

First things first: Is a recession coming or are we already in one? Economists disagree about the precise definition of the word ‘recession’ and usually only declare that one has occurred after the fact. A common rule of thumb is that three quarters of negative economic growth usually heralds the beginning of a longer period of negative growth, job shortages, and other unpleasant problems usually referred to as a recession. While it is still possible to find pundits on the radio arguing about whether or not the US is in another recession right now, most ordinary people have decided that, duh, yes. We are. Totally.

If you are looking for a job right now, you know better than anyone that times are tough. It’s an employer’s market for sure, and the ‘let’s-hire-a-PhD-to-make-the-coffee syndrome’ is in full swing. However, even in a recession, some job categories experience growth and even employee shortages. Some of the job categories unlikely to be affected by a recession in coming years include:

Health Care.

Almost half of the fastest-growing 30 jobs in America are in health services, and not all of them require four to eight years of college. Medical assistants, home health aides, physicians assistants, medical records and transcription professionals, physical therapists, and all kinds of technology-related medical jobs like x-ray technologists and lab services technicians all desperately need filling, and all of these jobs pay well and are likely to be around for quite awhile. Many local community colleges and technical schools offer fast track training for health care jobs with financial aid, so if you are recently laid off from the auto or financial industry, give some of these schools a call and make an appointment with a career counselor. Some states even have money available for retraining displaced workers.

Energy & the Environment.

I saw a feature on television recently about a college that has added an environmental energy program to its curriculum. It is so wildly popular, and so needed, that many of the best students are being hired before they even finish their degree. One student joked that “if you can spell ‘environmental’ you’ve got a job waiting for you” and he wasn’t kidding. Traditional energy jobs in natural gas and oil industries continue to be strong as well, with Texas currently experiencing boom times again as oil and natural gas fields that just weren’t profitable to drill when prices were lower now are unbelievably profitable.

Education.

The US education system is in sorry shape and everyone knows it, including presidential hopefuls on both sides of the coming election. Good teachers are badly needed in many areas of the country, less so in others. Recent college graduates who are having trouble with their job search would do well to research certification requirements in various states and go where the need is. In fact, you can defer or even pay off some of your student loan debt if you agree to teach in certain depressed areas ( for example, some Indian Reservations) for a specified time period.

Security.

Police officers, port and international security experts, airport security, border patrol agents, and other jobs involving police work and security will continue to grow even during a recession, especially with the current political climate favoring heightened border security and anti-terrorist measures. Incredibly, the CIA is actually in the midst of a recruitment campaign and recently ran a large ad on the landing page of the online version of the New York Times, so if you’ve ever dreamed about being a spy, this is definitely your moment.

International Business.

If you are first-generation Chinese and are fluent in the language, consider some business training or a business degree and you will never want for high-paying work. A few grade schools in the US are now experimenting with teaching Chinese to young children. Anyone who has a language ability that correlates with a booming formerly-third-world nation like China, India, or any of the Middle Eastern countries, should have no trouble finding good paying work, no matter how bad the recession gets.

Another path you may want to consider if you are struggling to find paid work and you seem to just be treading water is self-employment. Certain seasonal jobs, like lawn-mowing, landscape design, and landscape maintenance are forever in demand. Even a stack of business cards letting the world know you will plant annuals will result in nonstop work for at least two months, after which you should have made enough contacts to keep doing maintenance on perennial beds and borders until the next snowfall. Lots of healthy younger people manage to combine this kind of self-employment with Christmas retail and do quite well with it.

All signs also point to rapid growth for online sales, so if you have a unique product you feel strongly about, you might want to consider marketing it now. While it’s true that competition online is fierce, it’s also true that many untapped niche markets exist and are likely to continue to appear. Actually, you don’t even have to have your own product; you can sell someone else’s niche product (or products) if you prefer. Do a Google search on ‘niche marketing’ and you will find more material than you can read in a lifetime, most of it obnoxiously promotional. Just don’t fork over any money to anyone upfront for ’secrets’ on niche marketing that will make you thousands your first week. There are no secrets. Find the right niche, work really hard, make money. That’s the secret. (And remember, you got it here at PFA for free!!)

Some other tips to keep in mind:

Don’t take it personally.

It’s not you, it really is the economy. Remember that in tough times employers can be as annoying as they want to be, and some of them you really don’t want to work for anyway. Do your best, present your best side in an honest, professional way, then let it go. (After following up of course.) Remember that you are also interviewing them. A good interview cuts both ways, and a good employer will welcome your questions and concerns.

Follow up.

When hundreds or thousands of people apply for the same job, it’s not likely you will receive a ‘no thank-you’ letter or a call back, so take the initiative and be a pest. Often, huge employers have an endless checklist of procedures they have to trod through for each and every employee, so don’t assume you didn’t get the job if you don’t hear back the next day. Ask at the interview when you can expect to find out if you’ve been hired, and ask if there are other interviews or tests to follow if you make it through this one. Then call them back in about a week to ten days.

Say what they want to hear, but be realistic.

Big corporations all have phrases they like and want to hear their employees say, even if these phrases are completely delusional and everyone knows they are ridiculous. I’m a proactive, enthusiastic kind of person! I hate to be idle ever, I need to be constantly busy. Difficult people don’t upset me, I see them as a challenge and an opportunity. Stuff like that. Say that stuff. You can wash your mouth out when you get home, and no one will fault you for it. The person interviewing you knows it’s crap too, but if you don’t say it with enthusiasm, you won’t get the job. The caveat here is be realistic. It’s one thing to play the game to get the job; it’s another to have that sinking feeling like you want to shoot yourself right at the interview and still keep trying. Sometimes it’s really better for everyone to just say, “Thank you for your time. I think this is probably not for me.”

Save your stories and write about them.

If nothing else, you can publish your recession job search on the web and make lots of friends and even some Adsense money. Some of the funniest stories I’ve ever heard are recession job search stories. In fact, I think I just thought of my next post here at PFA!

Stay tuned!