Ground Floor: Friday mornings were always about the appointments pages of The Irish Times.

Obviously not too early, of course, when we were supposed to be dealing with clients and earning a crust, but as soon as things died down a bit people would spend a little time leafing through the supplement. Generally not because we were all looking for other jobs (though from time to time the thought did occur) but simply to see who was advertising, what kind of offers were out there and what was going on in the market. We wanted to know where the glamour moves might be.

Back when I was carefully compiling a CV which had nothing on it other than my educational record and hobbies of "travel and reading" (though the furthest I'd managed to get to on my own was Brussels which was hardly a glamour destination itself) the banks were definitely considered the best bet for a glittering career. And through the intervening years, financial services have stayed pretty much in the frame, pulling in droves of people in the mid-1980s all the way on to the end of the 1990s as they decided that lunch was for wimps and that making deals was the only way to justify your existence. (Those of us already in jobs knew that lunch was most certainly not for wimps, it was for important clients and it could go on for as long as they damn well pleased.) Then the emphasis shifted from the dealing rooms to the technicians' labs as the new kids on the block - the IT and telecommunications sectors - snapped up all the hopefuls looking to make their mark. Financial services fought back immediately, as investment bankers and analysts sold the dream of the new paradigm and untold riches to investors.

But now, with the fines being handed out (Citibank has just been informed that it must pay $400 million (€350 million) for publishing fraudulent investment research among a variety of other charges); the IT companies announcing more job losses than gains, and the telecoms giants being reduced to minnows, where can eager school-leavers and graduates look to for glittering careers in the future?

Browsing through the first half-dozen pages of the appointments section of this paper last week I was surprised to see it packed full of ads for positions in further education.

In fact, financial services companies were offering seven different jobs, the state sponsored sector 10, private companies 10, charities three, IT 12 and university/third level a whopping 44. Admittedly an entire page of positions were for UCD which is clearly replenishing its lecturing stock, but it wasn't the only third-level college looking for people.

Being a professor or a lecturer doesn't really have the kudos of a business leader (except in the halls of academia).

In fact educators are not well regarded either here or in any industrialised country even though they probably have more influence over us than any one else we'll ever encounter.

So when people have finally emerged clutching their diplomas they're usually looking for something different themselves.

Besides which, the pay is hardly earth shattering and our culture is obsessed with how much we pay ourselves. Educators always want more money and in turn we want their pay to reflect results.

(Though why we should think this must apply to teachers and lecturers when it clearly doesn't apply to company directors is a moot point. I know I've banged on about corporate pay in this column quite a bit but I'm glad to see that the whole issue is getting a lot more space in other areas of the news media too.)

Getting back to the appointments page, and to be fair to both financial services and IT, there are suggestions that there is more than one position available in some advertised areas, so things might not be quite as dreary as they seem in those once-darling sectors.

But only 10 jobs on offer in the non-services side of the private sector isn't very heartening. There were, of course, plenty of other jobs on offer through agencies and with smaller ads throughout the section, but I was concentrating on the flagship offerings.

There's a huge sea change in the terms and conditions of these jobs too.

Although companies still try to make themselves appear appealing to prospective employees, the nature of the positions have changed substantially, with many of them being short-term contract work.

I think I know more people who are now working on contracts than I do in permanent employment.

Changing careers used to mean you were a bit flighty - now it's seen as a good thing, and some of my friends whose contracts weren't renewed have embarked on different chapters in their lives. Interestingly, many of them don't care about the glitter any more, they're looking for something more personally rewarding.

I've never met Fran Rooney whose move to the helm of the FAI is, if not typical, indicative of the kind of changes people are making. But if he thinks he can run it like a business (even a business under pressure) he has another think coming. The committee structure sees to that - and I believe that the FAI has more committees than it knows what to do with.

However, if he manages to change the culture of sports management he might yet open out a whole new career path for those desperately seeking something different. I wish him luck.