If you’ve ever seen the classic movie “The Graduate,” you’re sure to remember the line said to Dustin Hoffman’s recent college graduate Benjamin by a family friend giving him a clue to the next big career opportunity. “I just want to say one word to you.  Just one word.  Are you listening? Plastics.”

Well, I believe that today’s “one word” is “robotics.”  I feel very strongly about this.  Robotics is taking off in a big way.  According to technology watchers Singularity Hub, the population of workers in robotics will be as high as 13 million in 2012.

The market is ready to explode, and there are already a ton of job opportunities to be had. All over the internet you can find websites loaded with robotics jobs just waiting to be filled. In fact, after just a quick perusing this morning, I came up with this list. Take a look:

On employment web sites:

• JobInventory.com -  1,194 robotics jobs
• Indeed.com – 7,268 jobs came up with robotics as the keyword, with more than 5,000 paying over $50,000/year (although some of these higher paying jobs include surgeons who are willing to learn robotics for surgery)
• CareerBuilder.com - 1,015 robotics jobs found

On social media sites:

• facebook.com/Get.Robotics.Jobs
• LinkedIn.com - Nearly 150 robotics jobs
• Twitter.com – Many groups offering jobs in robotics

On aggregation sites (pulls listings from across web)

• SimplyHired.com -  14,221 keyword robotics employment entries

As we all know, the Industrial Revolution (1820-1870) was of great importance to the economic development of the United States.  I believe that we’re on the cusp of a Robotics Revolution. The schools are incorporating robotics in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) curricula, getting kids turned on to robotics at an early age. We’re going to end up with a lot of really smart kids! How can we go wrong? It’s a great time to be into robots!