How to succeed in business without ever flying
September 11, 2014 5:05 PM Subscribe
What categories of (or what specific) jobs and/or career paths in large corporations are least likely to require travel with turnaround and/or distance that necessitates flying? What types of industries (while otherwise thriving) seem to be paring down their travel budgets and relying more on videoconferencing and similar tech? What about government jobs? Are you a highly successful ........ and don't, or at least have never been required to, fly for work? I would love to know about your job.
I've got a pretty stubborn phobia and will seek further help for it in my own time; suggestions on how to do that or things that helped you are not what I'm looking for right now.
I've got a pretty stubborn phobia and will seek further help for it in my own time; suggestions on how to do that or things that helped you are not what I'm looking for right now.
In my experience, jobs most likely to involve travel are higher-level sales jobs. This might include less traditional "sales", like fundraising (either like VC fundraising, so CEOs and high-level execs and startups, or at non-profits) or anything where schmoozing is very seriously part of the job. Or jobs where you're doing training and your company has a lot of worldwide locations.
As an analyst working at mostly smaller companies, neither I nor anyone I work with have ever been asked to travel. I would think any company with only one location or with multiple locations but you're looking at the largest/main location would be less likely to require travel in general, regardless of the role.
But other than one person I know who is in a very heavy travel job (and knew that going in), travel is really uncommon among people I know, except for some who have used other office locations as an excuse to travel because they wanted to and the company was willing to send them when they asked, not because the company wanted them to.
posted by brainmouse at 5:26 PM on September 11, 2014
As an analyst working at mostly smaller companies, neither I nor anyone I work with have ever been asked to travel. I would think any company with only one location or with multiple locations but you're looking at the largest/main location would be less likely to require travel in general, regardless of the role.
But other than one person I know who is in a very heavy travel job (and knew that going in), travel is really uncommon among people I know, except for some who have used other office locations as an excuse to travel because they wanted to and the company was willing to send them when they asked, not because the company wanted them to.
posted by brainmouse at 5:26 PM on September 11, 2014
I think you're seeing a general trend against business travel in favor of teleconferencing in most industries, though I'd also say that it's rarely a given one way or another for any individual business and even any individual situation or position for a business. Even two companies in the same industry might show different attitudes and expectations regarding business travel. I'd suggest that you'll get a better answer if you can be as specific as possible about where you'd like to work. Perhaps it can be something you ask when applying for a job, even.
I'd echo brainmouse; the only area where I've really seen much of an expectation of travel is in sales-oriented positions, where the personal contact required for effective "schmoozing" is required. That or the airline industry, but I suspect you've eliminated that already. :)
Speaking for myself personally: I'm a software engineer and while I've had a few opportunities to go on business trips, it has never been expected of me.
posted by Aleyn at 5:29 PM on September 11, 2014
I'd echo brainmouse; the only area where I've really seen much of an expectation of travel is in sales-oriented positions, where the personal contact required for effective "schmoozing" is required. That or the airline industry, but I suspect you've eliminated that already. :)
Speaking for myself personally: I'm a software engineer and while I've had a few opportunities to go on business trips, it has never been expected of me.
posted by Aleyn at 5:29 PM on September 11, 2014
Response by poster: I'm intentionally looking pretty broadly at this point in part because I'm just starting to learn about how companies actually work. Interested looking for the categories that have the bottleneck (where someone who isn't going to be able to visit clients or subsidiaries in a different time zone every week) will not be able to progress. So, sales, obviously not. Legal, apparently not (where I work, anyway). What about finance, hr, audit type stuff... again, knowing what's out there is part of the problem. Whatever you guys know from your own experience is helpful.
posted by notquitemaryann at 5:30 PM on September 11, 2014
posted by notquitemaryann at 5:30 PM on September 11, 2014
Ah, one other type of job that can be more travel-heavy is contract or support work, either as part of a firm providing a service or as an independent contractor. My dad worked as a network engineer for a company providing network support and would occasionally have to fly or drive out of state to set up or fix one end of a network or another. With these positions, you have to follow the work.
posted by Aleyn at 5:37 PM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Aleyn at 5:37 PM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
In my recent experience, the government is radically scaling back their travel budgets, so that might be someplace to look. I am a scientist at a for-profit company -- and I have to travel for work about 1-2 times a year.
posted by OrangeDisk at 5:39 PM on September 11, 2014
posted by OrangeDisk at 5:39 PM on September 11, 2014
In my experience, most jobs don't require travel, especially not on planes. I feel like is pretty easy to avoid.
1. For starters, work for a local company/business that is focused on and servicing a specific geographic region. (The geographic region you are already in.) If they have only local offices and local clients, you'll never need to leave.
2. Have a job that can be done remotely. If you need to physically meet or see people or deal with physical objects, you are more likely to travel than if you do things that deal with electronic systems or can be done over the internet. Doing sales pitches means your job is only done in person and may require flying if you need to meet prospective clients in other places. Fixing computer hardware for a company means you have to be there. (Of course, No. 1 should mean No. 2 won't matter if you work at a place that does not have branches or clients outside of your geographic region.)
3. Have a job that is "behind the scenes." If you are a spokesperson, you probably need to go out and meet people. If you're a CEO or the public face of a company, you'll probably need to go out and meet people. If you're just a department head or something for payroll or accounting or research or anything else, you'll probably never leave the office. You will be part of how everything comes together on the inside, not how things come together from the outside.
Honestly, don't take offense, but this is a dumb way to look at your phobia and your job prospects. Start with figuring out what you want to do and what you like. THEN you can easily find a specific role or a company that will require no travel. I doubt you want to do a job you hate just because you don't have to fly.
posted by AppleTurnover at 5:40 PM on September 11, 2014 [5 favorites]
1. For starters, work for a local company/business that is focused on and servicing a specific geographic region. (The geographic region you are already in.) If they have only local offices and local clients, you'll never need to leave.
2. Have a job that can be done remotely. If you need to physically meet or see people or deal with physical objects, you are more likely to travel than if you do things that deal with electronic systems or can be done over the internet. Doing sales pitches means your job is only done in person and may require flying if you need to meet prospective clients in other places. Fixing computer hardware for a company means you have to be there. (Of course, No. 1 should mean No. 2 won't matter if you work at a place that does not have branches or clients outside of your geographic region.)
3. Have a job that is "behind the scenes." If you are a spokesperson, you probably need to go out and meet people. If you're a CEO or the public face of a company, you'll probably need to go out and meet people. If you're just a department head or something for payroll or accounting or research or anything else, you'll probably never leave the office. You will be part of how everything comes together on the inside, not how things come together from the outside.
Honestly, don't take offense, but this is a dumb way to look at your phobia and your job prospects. Start with figuring out what you want to do and what you like. THEN you can easily find a specific role or a company that will require no travel. I doubt you want to do a job you hate just because you don't have to fly.
posted by AppleTurnover at 5:40 PM on September 11, 2014 [5 favorites]
I can dis-recommend a profession - any type of audit job will probably require travel once you get past a certain level. I travel about once a month, and my boss travels at least three times a month. Some months he's gone for three weeks out of four.
posted by winna at 5:49 PM on September 11, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by winna at 5:49 PM on September 11, 2014 [6 favorites]
Most job listings are pretty clear up front whether there's any travel, because there are many categories of people who can't or won't take those jobs and there's no point in spending much time pursuing applicants who won't. Even sales, if regional, is going to be car-based for the most part.
Whether it's a phobia, or you're a single parent, or your inner ears are ruined or whatever, don't NOT apply for a job out of fear there might be travel, or because someone in this thread says a word. I was a network engineer for several years, and really my entire career has been support of various flavors, and I haven't had work outside driving distance in like 8 years. I have *customers* all over the country, but I also have a dozen VPN clients and remote access applications on my computer. Nobody wants to pay for me to show up. But there are jobs in my field that are nothing but road work. I am not interested in that life, so I don't pursue those jobs.
You might want to avoid a career in aviation (though a lot of those people also never travel), and yes, careers like auditing generally require several years on the road like 40+ weeks a year, but please don't let your phobia otherwise dictate your entire career. Do what you want to do and what you're good at and educated to do, and don't take specific jobs that require travel.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:52 PM on September 11, 2014 [9 favorites]
Whether it's a phobia, or you're a single parent, or your inner ears are ruined or whatever, don't NOT apply for a job out of fear there might be travel, or because someone in this thread says a word. I was a network engineer for several years, and really my entire career has been support of various flavors, and I haven't had work outside driving distance in like 8 years. I have *customers* all over the country, but I also have a dozen VPN clients and remote access applications on my computer. Nobody wants to pay for me to show up. But there are jobs in my field that are nothing but road work. I am not interested in that life, so I don't pursue those jobs.
You might want to avoid a career in aviation (though a lot of those people also never travel), and yes, careers like auditing generally require several years on the road like 40+ weeks a year, but please don't let your phobia otherwise dictate your entire career. Do what you want to do and what you're good at and educated to do, and don't take specific jobs that require travel.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:52 PM on September 11, 2014 [9 favorites]
Local government/school systems for sure. I would also say you'd be reasonably safe in a lot of departments in the case of very large (1000+ employees) headquarters of a company that doesn't have a lot of subsidiaries or do primarily client services.
posted by deludingmyself at 6:13 PM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by deludingmyself at 6:13 PM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
Management consulting requires a lot of travel.
Academia doesn't require it exactly, but if you don't do it, you aren't going to get far.
IT support for a specific company usually doesn't require travel outside of the city you are in.
Lots of freelance style jobs let you work remotely, which some people see as a reason to travel a lot, but you could just as easily see it as a reason to never, or rarely go to the location where your client is based.
posted by lollusc at 6:23 PM on September 11, 2014
Academia doesn't require it exactly, but if you don't do it, you aren't going to get far.
IT support for a specific company usually doesn't require travel outside of the city you are in.
Lots of freelance style jobs let you work remotely, which some people see as a reason to travel a lot, but you could just as easily see it as a reason to never, or rarely go to the location where your client is based.
posted by lollusc at 6:23 PM on September 11, 2014
My sister works in local government, for state police and she has to do a lot of driving but never flies. Part of this may also be that she is in a state that you can drive end-to-end in about two hours and change. So state-level jobs may depend a little on how big the state is. In the library world, the only time you'd be flying as a librarian is if you do a lot of public speaking (like me) or go to professional conferences. You can be a successful librarian without doing these things, especially if you were professionally involved at a local (i.e. state) level so part of the trick, again, may be selecting a small state.
posted by jessamyn at 6:31 PM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by jessamyn at 6:31 PM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
Academia depends on what you're doing. I never go anywhere as a peon, but the managers at my job MIGHT go to a conference once a year. There are the occasional travel jobs (say, the admissions department or the high level execs), but they are advertised as being such prominently. Generally speaking, if you are high level, you're more likely to travel. Though a friend of mine has a job where she goes to conferences at LEAST every other month (if not every month), so there's that. Again, they will advertise if a job requires travel, or you can ask just to make sure in an interview. Also, just sticking to local businesses that don't really work on a global/out of state level or have conferences will help.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:35 PM on September 11, 2014
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:35 PM on September 11, 2014
I am in finance for a hospital and never have to fly at all. People do not have to fly anywhere who are in our general accounting, accounts payable, decision support, financial analysis, billing and budgeting departments. There are no other branches or locations to travel to. Very rarely some of the more techy types may go somewhere for training. So maybe healthcare finance would work for you.
posted by maxg94 at 7:00 PM on September 11, 2014
posted by maxg94 at 7:00 PM on September 11, 2014
You work in legal and have to fly? You can definitely find a legal job where you never have to fly. It may involve a perceived downgrade from the type of legal work you're currently doing, though. Local magistrates, court personnel, lawyers who have only passed the bar exam in one small, driveable state and who do car wrecks, workers' comp, divorces, DUI defense...
posted by Bentobox Humperdinck at 7:09 PM on September 11, 2014
posted by Bentobox Humperdinck at 7:09 PM on September 11, 2014
I work for a software company that develops travel booking tools for businesses and even then I never travel, nor does anyone else around me (designers, researchers, software developers, architects, etc).
posted by joan_holloway at 7:14 PM on September 11, 2014
posted by joan_holloway at 7:14 PM on September 11, 2014
I work as a freelancer in the entertainment and marketing industries and I do a bunch of traveling. Part of it is for client meetings, part for conferences and the like.
posted by Andrhia at 7:22 PM on September 11, 2014
posted by Andrhia at 7:22 PM on September 11, 2014
Work on in-house product teams. I've done this my whole career and I've never been asked to travel (I'm a UX designer). In fact, even conferences are rare because they eat up the department budget, despite the fact that I work at a big and well-known company. My peers who work at consulting or advertising agencies have to travel to meet with clients.
To recap, if you don't work with clients, you probably don't have to travel.
posted by MsMartian at 7:47 PM on September 11, 2014
To recap, if you don't work with clients, you probably don't have to travel.
posted by MsMartian at 7:47 PM on September 11, 2014
I am a lawyer with clients all over the country and I almost never travel for work. More often, my clients travel to my city and we meet here. Any kind of legal work where you represent largely local clients in local matters (state court, for instance) will not require travel.
posted by devinemissk at 8:19 PM on September 11, 2014
posted by devinemissk at 8:19 PM on September 11, 2014
I work in digital marketing - websites, emails, etc. At my previous job, the only time I traveled was for an annual conference (and that's bc I asked to go). My current job has another office across the country so I travel there occasionally, but again, that's only because I ask to go. Otherwise, I'm pretty chained to my desk in my office, unlike my field marketing colleagues who are constantly going to conferences.
posted by saturngirl at 8:56 PM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by saturngirl at 8:56 PM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
The advice above to think geographically is good. In this area, in my field, everyone seems to have about a five hour radius -- within that, you drive; outside of that, you don't go. There's a few higher ups who are managing regional offices and fly all the time, and there are some consultants whose geographical areas are much larger (Monday in Alaska, Wednesday to Japan, etc), but everyone else just drives and no more than half a day.
Unless you are going between cities with great commuter flight connections (like NYC - Boston), five hours is about the break even point for flying when you account for security, getting to and from the airports, and delays. Flying means a lot more paperwork in terms of travel requests and reimbursements, as well as being an undignified hassle, so people tend to avoid it.
But all the support and office staff (which doesn't mean low paid) never travel, and plenty of people never need to go even across town.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:10 PM on September 11, 2014
Unless you are going between cities with great commuter flight connections (like NYC - Boston), five hours is about the break even point for flying when you account for security, getting to and from the airports, and delays. Flying means a lot more paperwork in terms of travel requests and reimbursements, as well as being an undignified hassle, so people tend to avoid it.
But all the support and office staff (which doesn't mean low paid) never travel, and plenty of people never need to go even across town.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:10 PM on September 11, 2014
Large firm auditing definitely requires travel including by air, how much varies. I suspect it's more in the US than in Europe. I could structure my portfolio so as not to require any air travel and I could choose not to volunteer for roles that require travel but I can't get out of mandatory training. They schedule some key training events that co-incide with starting life at the firm and then subsequent significant promotions. These take place for the whole cohort of the area or sub area as massive central training events. Some of these too far to travel to without plane. Assuming average progression rates that'd be a return flight once every 2-4 yrs for these training events.
posted by koahiatamadl at 2:46 AM on September 12, 2014
posted by koahiatamadl at 2:46 AM on September 12, 2014
Avoid sales and management. I'm in IT, and until I got in to management I didn't travel at all.
posted by blue_beetle at 3:24 AM on September 12, 2014
posted by blue_beetle at 3:24 AM on September 12, 2014
Working for a company with a lot of offices in different places doesn't necessarily mean flying. My current company has offices all over the US and I've never met a lot of the people my group does work for.
I'd say this is because we're a communications company and so we have some sort of awesome teleconferencing software, but we don't.
posted by madcaptenor at 5:10 AM on September 12, 2014
I'd say this is because we're a communications company and so we have some sort of awesome teleconferencing software, but we don't.
posted by madcaptenor at 5:10 AM on September 12, 2014
As someone who has worked in the auditing profession, I second the comments above on auditing and travel. I had to fly nearly every week when I worked in Public Accounting. It was very demanding and stressful.
I can say that my State Government counterparts almost NEVER flew anywhere.
I have friends who are attorneys. Unless you have a specialty that forces you to travel, the amount of travel they face is very low. One of my best friends does real-estate work for a living and in 20 years she's lever left the County for business.
I have a fraternity brother who is a Senior VP for a large bank. He travels within the state, but hasn't flown for business in more than a decade.
On the other side, my dad was in the Air Force and (well, Duh) he flew EVERYWHERE. Constantly. Same for most of my friends in the military.
posted by Colonel Sun at 5:41 AM on September 12, 2014
I can say that my State Government counterparts almost NEVER flew anywhere.
I have friends who are attorneys. Unless you have a specialty that forces you to travel, the amount of travel they face is very low. One of my best friends does real-estate work for a living and in 20 years she's lever left the County for business.
I have a fraternity brother who is a Senior VP for a large bank. He travels within the state, but hasn't flown for business in more than a decade.
On the other side, my dad was in the Air Force and (well, Duh) he flew EVERYWHERE. Constantly. Same for most of my friends in the military.
posted by Colonel Sun at 5:41 AM on September 12, 2014
I work for a multinational manufacturing corporation with a constantly shrinking travel budget. The folks that still travel are the directors and executives, as well as the folks working on our new corporate ERP. So I've been sent to Europe a few times recently but only because I'm on this huge project. On the other hand, people are able to say "no I can't travel" and they don't have to, although they may have to join the relevant teleconference at a ridiculous hour for their time zone.
I'm changing jobs soon, to the banking industry, and was assured that there would be very little travel. What little travel there is would be domestic only, maybe once a year. Colonel Sun confirms that the banking industry might be a good one to look at.
posted by cabingirl at 8:31 AM on September 12, 2014
I'm changing jobs soon, to the banking industry, and was assured that there would be very little travel. What little travel there is would be domestic only, maybe once a year. Colonel Sun confirms that the banking industry might be a good one to look at.
posted by cabingirl at 8:31 AM on September 12, 2014
HR can require frequent travel, depending on your company and your individual role. Training for a national/international company? Almost certainly. Leave management anywhere? Probably unlikely. I traveled most as an HR generalist working for a national company where the region I managed covered 12 states. My coordinator, however, stayed in the office and travel was never required.
posted by ThatSomething at 9:31 AM on September 12, 2014
posted by ThatSomething at 9:31 AM on September 12, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:09 PM on September 11, 2014 [12 favorites]