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A core feature of my just-published book Careers for Dummies is dossiers on 340 careers, popular and under-the-radar. Here, I’ve selected a few under-the-radar ones that might interest the the readers of my Psychology Today blog.
Patient advocate. The healthcare system is labyrinthine, and as Boomers and no-pay/low-pay people, legal residents and not, tax the creaking system. So, hospitals, insurers, and patients hire patient advocates to help patients survive without undue pain, physical, psychological, or financial. More info: Patient Advocates: The Coach in Your Corner for Taking On the Health Care System and the Patient Advocate Foundation.
Wellness Coach. Of course, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So the traditional fitness trainer—“10 more push-ups!”—is being supplemented and perhaps increasingly replaced by the wellness coach, who may address diet, stress, substance abuse, and perhaps yes, tell you to do 10 more reps. More info: Institute for Wellness.
Dating Coach. A dating coach could do some or all of the following:
- Help the client clarify what sort of relationship s/he wants, for example: from short-term hook-up to marriage
- In light of the preceding task and the person’s personality, determine what combination of activities should be in the plan: dating sites, setups from friends, taking or teaching a class (Dance? Finance?), or traveling with or without a wing person.
- Help the client create an online dating profile that accurately reflects who s/he is and the kind of person s/he’s looking for. It may include taking the photo for the profile. After creating an impressive portfolio of such profiles, you might try to get hired as a dating site’s in-house profile writer.
- Help decide which profiles to reach out to and respond to, and how.
- Role-play flirting and dates. This strategy can not only provide useful feedback and tips, but shy or socially anxious clients could also benefit from the desensitizing effect. You could put it on video. After all, video is used to provide feedback during all sorts of lessons, from golf to interviewing, so why not dating?
- Assist in selecting clothes, hair, and makeup. Perhaps even accompany the client on a shopping trip.
- Double-date with the client and, afterward, provide feedback.
- Meet regularly to discuss the progress and, if needed, make changes.
- Coach the client on turning a good first date into a blossoming relationship.
- Even offer a group activity, such as a long-term-relationship boot camp. That could be highlighted by video-recorded mock mini dates on which each person would get and give feedback. Of course, the boot camp’s leaders would also provide input.
More info: "How to Become a Dating Coach."
Parenting Coach. Whether a parent has a newborn or an adult child who just moved back home, many parents worry they’re not good enough parents. They don’t want a therapist; they just want help in getting their pride and joy to not drive them crazy. Parents with a special-needs child or one with a substance abuse problem may particularly call on you. You can market to individual parents by offering free seminars at PTA meetings or public libraries, for example. Or see whether you can get referrals from your child’s pediatrician. More info: "Becoming a Parenting Coach: The Basics."
Thesis Completion Coach. Many master’s and doctoral students, and even some undergrads who have to complete a senior project need help. Want to provide it? More info: Association for Support of Graduate Students.
School Tech Coach. That orchard of apples long-planted in schools too often doesn’t bear as much fruit as the salespeople had promised. So increasingly, schools are hiring teach coaches to bring along teachers who may not be fully enamored by and expert in the use of ed tech. More info: "Ed-Tech Coaches Becoming Steadier Fixture in Classrooms" and International Society for Technology in Education.
Grant Proposal Writer. Fortunes are distributed by government and nonprofits based on grant proposals. If you are good at synthesizing ideas and perhaps coming up with your own to match Requests for Proposals, you could well be in-demand. More info: Grantsmanship Center and Proposal Writing: Effective Grantsmanship for Funding.
Campaign Manager. Even small local elections have become sophisticated enough for candidates to hire a campaign manager, and budgets for higher office continue to grow. So campaign management is an under-the-radar option for manager types who’d enjoy a role in how government’s enormous power is dispensed. More info: "How to Be a Great Political Campaign Manager" and "The Campaign Manager: Running and Winning Local Elections."
Heart-Lung Perfusionist. In open heart surgery, the surgeon can’t work on the heart if blood is squirting all over the place. So a machine is hooked up to an artery to receive the blood. The machine then, like a heart and lungs, pumps blood and air back into an artery on the other side of the heart and lungs, and circulation continues. Meanwhile, the heart is relatively bloodless so that the surgeon can work. The surgeon hooks up the blood vessels, and the perfusionist runs the machine. It all sounds straightforward, but talk to any perfusionist and she’ll say that the job is stressful. One mistake can be one too many for a patient. Only calm people with a high tolerance for stress do well. Perfusion is the smallest healthcare profession, with only 4,000 practitioners in the United States, and, because of the aging population, there’s a shortage. More info: Perfusionist.
Self-Published Book Editor. Amazon’s CreateSpace among others has made it easy for book authors to self-publish, perhaps too easy. Many self-published books could use editorial help. Fortunately, CreateSpace allows, after publication, the author to submit revised text. Want to help such authors? Here’s the link to the best-selling CreateSpace books. Those books are generating income for the authors and so they may be particularly inclined to invest in an improved version.
Pop-Up Shop. You rent a small space for a week or two for a seasonal business: Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween, and Christmas. More info: "What Is a Pop-Up Shop?"
Big Ticket Sales: Many salespeople think too small, perhaps out of fear. Real money is to be made in big-ticket sales, for example, golf courses, airplanes, venues, skyscrapers, and as a commenter suggested, heavy industrial equipment.
Exhibit Designer or Builder. Design-and-build types often overlook exhibit design and building. Exhibitors at trade shows and professional conferences have to compete for attendee attention and so often spend big on exhibits. More info: Exhibitor: Best Practices in Trade Shows and Events and Experiential Designers and Producers Association.
Government Procurement Consultant: The nation’s largest customer is the government—and it may be willing to pay $85 for a hammer. That’s the sort of customer all businesses love but many companies don’t know how to get the government to buy from them. Your job is to teach them. More info: U.S. Small Business Administration’s Government Contracting Division and The Small-Business Guide to Government Contracts.
Under-the-radar supply chain careers. Let’s say you like beer. Getting a job as a brewmaster is tough but dozens of careers exist in the beer world that most people don’t know about, so landing a job is easier. And you derive many of the benefits of being around the product you love—as long as you don’t consume too much product. What sort of jobs? Hop growers, spice distributors (Did you know that a key spice concoction is called Grains of Paradise?), brewing equipment sales and service, wholesaling, restaurant sales, writing reviews for trade publications.
