30 Careers That Seem Great But Are Actually Horrible And Careers That Are Often Overlooked, As Shared In This Online Thread
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? Perhaps you idolized doctors or veterinarians, and you swore some form of the medical field was in your future. Maybe you always wanted to be a photographer or visual artist? Or you decided to become a pilot after your first experience flying in an airplane? We all grow up with dreams for our futures, but once the time comes to choose a career path, there are a lot more factors to consider than what looks or sounds the most exciting.
One Reddit user sparked an interesting conversation by asking for examples of careers that “seem promising but are actually traps that people consistently waste their education opportunities on” and others that are "often overlooked but unexpectedly lucrative". The post received thousands of replies featuring anything from jobs that require years of education for very little pay to underrated professions that provide surprisingly great benefits and wages. We’ve gathered a list of some of the most helpful responses, so you can have a better idea of what positions to avoid or search for if you're on the job hunt. Let us know in the comments if you have experience in any of these professions, and then if you’re interested in reading another Bored Panda piece featuring glamorized careers that turned into nightmares, check out this list next.
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Trap: Teacher.
Yeah it’s nice to have summers off but working 7am-7pm everyday plus a few hours on the weekends just to make 50k a year. Not to mention dealing with a bunch of whiny parents that don’t give a c**p about their child’s education.
Source: teacher
This is sad. You are in a noble profession. I hope you can find a district that is rewarding.
Choosing a career path is a lot of pressure. Most of us quickly make a decision at the age of 18 before going off to university or entering the workforce and are expected to stay locked into the same field for the next 45 years. Oh, you were interested in pursuing accounting when you were 17 and applying for colleges? Awesome. First, spend $50k on a degree, and then commit 40 hours a week of your life to accounting until you retire at age 65.
Of course, it is always possible to change career paths, but it is not likely to be a smooth transition. If you realize while you’re still in university that another profession seems more appealing, you can change your major. But it might make your degree cost tens of thousands of dollars more, and your "college years" might be extended longer than you'd like. If you have already entered the workforce before having the epiphany that your career is sucking the life out of you, you will likely have to be unemployed for some time while searching for a new job. And if you plan to pivot into a completely different field, more school may be required, which can be extremely costly.
Teaching in university/college. You have to do a PhD minimum, and consistently churn out new research materials. You'd have invested over a decade getting all the degrees but jobs are scarce so you end up being a temporary faculty for a few more years, doing the same or more amount of work for a fraction of the pay. At least, this is how it is in my country.
Higher education in the US really needs to re-invent itself. It sells a product at a cost far above the return. It is disappointment after disappointment. When I worked in government we engaged some of the "best" universities in the country. These efforts all failed. They took years to deliver a product a graduate student could complete in months...they had exorbitant administrative fees. They were useless...an abject failure.
Funeral business is where it’s at..
Very lucrative and your customers don’t complain. Or slap you!!!
Because it can be so complicated to shift career trajectories, it is important to make an informed decision when entering any profession. Unfortunately, that does not mean watching 10 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy to understand what being a surgeon is like or deciding to go to culinary school after binging Top Chef. It means talking to people in the industry and doing research about the pros and cons of the job.
But as of right now, it is quite common to pursue one profession and later decide to jump ship. According to one 2021 survey, 52% of American workers were considering changing careers, and 42% already had plans in place to make their transitions. This does not always happen at a super young age either. Apollo Technical reports that, “The average age a person changes careers is 39 years old.” Even after earning a degree in one field, many people go down a different path later. Apparently, only 21% of Americans whose studies specialized in a particular major use all of their education in their careers.
Probably about any kind of artist, but in particular 3D (CG) artist. Tons of art schools popped up selling degrees to be a video game artist or a chance to be an animator at Disney or something. Ended up oversaturating the market with low quality portfolios that had no chance of ever getting into a major studio.
My friends father told him he was wasting his time with art school and should get a real job. That friend was Christopher Rush, creator of Magic the Gathering Black Lotus. After working for Wizards, Chris was offered a gig to make artwork for a video game. He called his mother and told him how much money he was getting. She said "OMG, that's more than your father makes....." But he admitted that his ability to do all that was mainly being lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time. Good luck to you!
Trap: veterinarian, debt of MD but fraction of the salary. Works if you don't have to pay for college and vet school, but not really logical if you do.
If this is true its a shame, our vet is fantastic and goes above and beyond with the care of our six ferrets (anyone with ferrets knows your life largely revolves around the vet). That being said that while she is very reasonably priced, those prices are still very high. Though I imagine the lack of insurance and infrequency of visits for those who are not vetting always at the vet animals like ferrets, could result in high prices for pet owners and a ton of debt for the vets. This should be fixed, vets are vital and good ones who really care are amazingly special and hard to come by.
Most people have about 12 jobs throughout their lifetimes, so there are a multitude of reasons why someone might want to shift career paths. Not surprisingly, money is commonly a motivator. 39% of Americans who were considering changing careers or had already decided to do so cited a higher salary as their main incentive. Another common reason someone might embark on a new career path is because their goals and priorities have changed over time. What was of paramount importance to you at age 18 might have faded into the background of your life by age 30. It is completely natural for us to grow and evolve over time; there’s no shame in changing careers due to being at a different place in life.
A lot of non-profits rely on your desire to do meaningful work to get away with some pretty exploitative labor practices. I’m sure it depends though because that’s a really broad category.
Oh my ! 3 of my relatives are working for non profits. One helps our elder ones stay in their homes, one help people that deal with the conséquences of medical error and the last one take care of people that do not have the ressources to raise their kids (money or health). 3 very different fields... And the same problems "you need money for that project we asked you to prepare? This is going to pass in commission next year. But you have to find a way to make this work for yesturday !". "You would need 5 more personnes to do all the things that need to be done? I undestand, maybe in a couple of years we will have enough money to creat one position... Oh by the way, can you take care of the Travel to Monaco for the administrators next week, WE would need 3 limos to go from the 5 stars hotel to thé casino!" This is truly sick
Nursing school has to literally lie to students about what being in the floor in a hospital is like so that they don't run away.
I tell students exactly what being a paramedic is like. They usually assume in exaggerating and do it anyway. Then they try it and realize they're now stuck. The job is quicksand.
Journalist. I started bartending in college to pay for the degree. Got it. I'm still a bartender. You don't make money writing until you die. Or unless you f**k your boss. I had no interest in television news so that was out. Plus, I live in DC. I got tired of the grind real quick.
I feel for you. More than ever we need good journalism...but it is a tragedy the opportunities are not there.
Regardless of how they feel about the actual job, sometimes employees decide they just cannot handle their management any longer. Incompetent leadership is another commonly cited reason for leaving a career, as it can cause an uncomfortable workplace environment. Nowadays, greater flexibility in a job is also a hot commodity. When employees have the chance to opt for a comparable job that allows them more flexible hours and a better work-life balance, the choice seems obvious. Lastly, people who want to change careers might just not be satisfied with where they are. For whatever reason, if your job does not align with your values, bores you to death, or negatively impacts your quality of life, it’s important to know that there are alternatives. Most of us don’t have the luxury of avoiding all work, but we certainly should not have to suffer to make ends meet.
The biggest scam is being a qualified librarian. For terrible pay, organizations want you to have a flipping Master's in Library Science. If the jobs paid more, it would make sense but it's absolutely ridiculous. Even worse because you can sneak your way into being a librarian other ways and still be paid what qualified people are paid (there are always exceptions).
My husband is a librarian. He works really hard: they always have quizzes for children from schools, he reads lectures about literature (and other themes: for example, a while ago he did a lecture on the danger of drug use in school), he always tries to help people to find the book they need, he works at the archive... He's a great librarian, his boss loves him and people appreciate his work... But the pay is ridiculous. And that's so unfair.
Psychology- I have six years of school and I’ll need more to get to my end goal
Plumbing...become a plumber. That technology will not change much in 50 years...always necessary...always useful.
Any video game career. I wouldn't say any specialized degree is a waste, but it's completely unnecessary. Jobs are super competitive so breaking in w/out experience is hard, and there's more and more candidates every year. One company I worked for said they rejected five thousand resumes for a position they posted. If you are talented to get a job you're talented enough to make 2x more outside gaming. Stress, burnout, and divorce are super common.
One way to get into gaming is to create good quality content for games (those that accept mods etc). Probably the best resume you can have.
So how are we supposed to choose career paths that we will actually end up enjoying? Consulting some experts is never a bad idea. The Balance Careers provides a list of steps readers can take to “Choose a Career When You Can’t Decide What To Do”, and their first tip is to make a list of your hobbies and interests. First, just write down everything that inspires you, and then start to distinguish what is solely a hobby and what could be a legitimate career path. Even though painting can be a profession for some, if it is what brings you the most joy and relieves your stress, you might not want to turn to it for income too. Rare individuals can make a living off being an author, dancer or film director, but relying on a passion for your livelihood can suck the joy out of it, so be careful not to pursue anything that is too precious.
According to what I've seen with a woman I dated, Architecture. Lots of hungry, driven kids coming out of architecture school ready to make their mark on the world. Reality is that Architects make little money while being pinched between developers, customers, and consultants. Everyone other than them makes the money, and they're expected to work crazy hours.
Sounds pretty shitty.
Same with interior design. Post secondary schools have pumped out so many graduates that the market is saturated. Combined with the growth of home reno programs everyone thinks they can be a designer snd are shocked when their 'design' is a huge old mess
Working as an EMT or Paramedic. The work is rewarding but most companies are private and pay dog s**t most of your money will be made on Overtime which is mostly forced due to understaffing. I did it for 6 years and completely burned out due to being overworked. Now getting picked up by and FD or a state/city run EMS program is different and better in my opinion but most people get stuck at a private company for too long
I do beekeeping and while i find it very rewarding it seems like a growing trend of a trap. There have been a ton of people who "want to get into it". Probably spend like $400 on equipment/bees and are done with it after 2 years. You could buy a ton of honey for that. Plus hobby beekeepers are worrisome because if they don't treat their bees properly they can be a vector for disease.
Next, The Balance Careers recommends determining your skill set and what working style you prefer. For example, if you are extremely extroverted and enjoy making conversation with clients and colleagues, you might not want to choose a remote job that rarely affords you social interaction. And when noting your skills, consider “hard skills” like computer programming or being fluent in another language and “soft skills” like communication and organizational abilities. Consider all of your strengths and weaknesses and lean into what can help you land a new job.
Trap: stripper
Overlooked: strip club staff
I know you don't need a degree, but if I had a dollar for every girl that thought stripping was it... Wait, I do have a dollar for every girl. Cause I stayed on the staff side. You have more responsibility than dancing, but if you get some management or accounting or business training, you can move right up to mgmt quickly. Most people running a club do not have a formal education. They're just doing what seems best, which can turn into who knows what. If you are professional, sober, not trying to sleep with the girls, and competent in the actual work, you're a unicorn. The hours are crazy and people are crazy, but the money is great. And I feel like it's so much more honest than a lot of corporate b.s. I sat through in vanilla jobs. A really well run club is a beautiful thing.
Also the trades, and other service work like hairdressers and house cleaners. You can make right under six figures if you work for yourself and can handle people well. These are both hard on the lungs though over time if you don't mask and ventilate well when working with chemicals.
Yoga teacher. I am still doing my yoga teacher training, but it is basically an MLM.
Carpentry seems to be good. I know two families where the dad is a carpenter. One is specialised in doing structural work like wooden beams for house roofs and so on, the other combined it with a love for art history and went into the restauration of antique furniture.
Both are their own boss, both are financially stable, own their own houses, provide their families, etc. When you have enough money saved up, you can also very effectively flip houses, because you can do so much of the work on your own.
If you are having a lot of trouble narrowing down what industry you would like to pursue, consider taking a career aptitude test. While you can take your results with a grain of salt, it does not hurt to receive a second opinion on what industries you might thrive in, especially if the test brings up career options you might have never considered. There are even personality tests that can help you determine how to best utilize your skills and traits. The Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, for example, breaks down your personality into 4 categories: extroversion or introversion, sense or intuition, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving. With 16 potential types, this test can provide an in-depth analysis into your personality, including common career paths your type pursues.
Theater. Unless you are already wealthy and know people in a big city that can get you a position in a company. Everyone wants in, much competition, low pay. Bad hours. Lots of travel and basically begging for work. I could say more about the things that have disappointed me. There has been some fun moment's and good people but I wish I would have gotten a degree in something useful. Putting Theatre design/production major on a application has never helped me.
Also there are a LOT of prima donnas wanting ALL the attention ALL the time :I
TRAP: Nursing
I was used, abused, overworked, and under paid. Everyone ends up burning out quickly, and the working environment becomes hostle. I almost never got a chance to take a lunch, and was consistently asked to stay overtime to cover for a total of 16 hours. My husband had to come pick me up several times, because I was in not shape to drive home after covering. Having to cover someone was a daily chore, because the nurses I worked with decided to come in to work from a day to day basis.
This is so sad. Many people get into nursing because they like to help people but don’t have boundaries. When I started I didn’t have very clear boundaries and have learned as I go along. I don’t put up with c**p and rarely ever work extra. As long as we allow people to abuse us, it will continue.
Any city,state,county,federal job that is union. Get on the gravy train young and when the opportunity arises and it will, take the new job advancement. The pay rate usually has generous raises and good benefit plans. You can enjoy a good life while you’re working and A great retirement.
Once you’ve narrowed your options down to a few industries you might want to dive into, feel free to start exploring them. As Alison Doyle of The Balance Careers notes, “Many skills are transferable from one industry to another. Look into a variety of industries and find out which skills are most important in each of them.” Often times, you can even shadow a professional in any field to get first-hand insight into an average day in their career. Informational interviews can also help, as they are an opportunity for you to be in control and ask your burning questions without any of the pressure of traditional job interviews. Lastly, internships can be a great starting point to help determine whether you want to pursue a career full-time. Many companies offer them as a way to ease into the industry and make connections, and after completing an internship successfully, you are likely to have a job lined up.
Being a chef. A lot of people spend a small fortune going to culinary school in order to work in a hot, stressful kitchen 70 hours a week, making a s***y salary that usually ends up being about the same rate (or less) that the burnout line cooks and dishwashers make per hour. Long days, endless deadlines, back pain from being hunched over prepping stuff all day, cuts and burns all over your body… not worth it, in my opinion.
Surprisingly lucrative: Travel Agent/Rewarding
So the internet has essentially allowed everyone and their mother to make up their own holiday. What the internet doesn't tell you is that the average person spends 3 WORKING DAYS planning/booking their holiday.
Rich folk don't want to waste their time on that. Smarter upper middle class families also realise the time saving.
So now I work from home putting together fancy holidays for people who have reached a stage in their life where their free time is much more important to them.
​
Bonus: Free or heavily discounted holidays.
Painting houses honestly. The market is constantly saturated with cheap workers so if you can get a reputation for quality work you can make a pretty penny.
According to a report from Apollo Technical, the list of the most satisfying careers in the world includes clergies, chiropractors, dentists, firefighters, physicians, nurses, physical therapists, teachers, software developers, psychologists and surgeons. There are various factors that contribute to job satisfaction like low levels of workplace stress, regular hours, variety in daily tasks, a positive company culture, opportunities for growth, and high salaries. Of course, not every job listed above receives a great salary. Teaching in particular is notorious for providing pitiful wages, but most of these jobs do include helping others, which is widely considered an easy way to boost our own happiness.
Information Technology:
Its less that you can't find work, but you never find work at your level, and everywhere I've ever worked (outside of the military wherein I got experience doing incredibly high level engineering work) has people who only half a*s know what they are doing. We are talking mistakes that someone on the lower levels of IT should be making.
The jobs you then wind up getting will have bosses getting angry at you over things you couldn't possibly know: Like how the network is structured, while at the same time refusing to give you network maps.
Being in IT gets old really fast... it's fun for the first few years... then it's just draining. and trust me it's the users/clients, not the actual work that drains you.
Trap: biotech and biotechnology. Long hours, low pay, most of the work is extremely dull and monotonous relative to what I thought “science” was, not much in the way of transferable skills.
I'm in biochemistry and I can partially confirm; science is more a repetitive grind and less 'EUREKA!' than one might think. The power in science lies in reliable results and the reliability comes from reproducibility, which is exactly as exciting as it sounds.
Trap: Physical Therapy.
In the US it's a doctorate program, so on top of requiring a 4-year undergrad degree you need to complete 3 more years of graduate education. High tuition, low salary for a doctorate, and most of the fillable positions are what we call patient mills. Essentially companies want to see as much patients as possible reducing 1-on-1 time and reducing quality of care.
Anyone in my city with a PhD in PT is laughed at. Bachelor is enough. No need for either Master or Doctorate. There's a guy in particular, left town to go to the USA to get his PhD, came back to practice before passing the exam and most every patient was laughing at him directly, but the other PTs behind his back, in front of us. He was not the only one.
Whether or not a job is a "trap" is extremely subjective, but it is fascinating to hear that some of these enticing career paths are not all they are cracked up to be. The next time my parents ask why I did not become a doctor, I'll tell them it's because of the grueling hours and all of the student debt I would be saddled with. (It has nothing to do with the fact that there's no way I could have made it through medical school or a residency...) Enjoy reading the rest of this list, and be sure to upvote the responses you found most informative. Then let us know in the comments if your career path was a trap or if it's surprisingly lucrative. (I hope to hear that it's the latter!)
Trap: Pilot.
You have to take on $150k debt to train, there’s oversupply of pilots in the West (and that was pre-covid) so you generally end up at a crappy low-cost carrier earning surprisingly little and paying back that debt.
You start off with little control over your hours and holidays. You compete with other pilots for the most attractive bases.
Contracts are very one-sided and redundancies are fairly common.
It was a pretty sweet career for a while, and senior pilots still enjoy a lot of benefits.
But to me, it just looked like a multi-decade grind of shift work and poor pay in some c**p corner of the continent.
In secondary school, after seeing some badass Nigerian female fighter pilots, I wanted to be like them. Then, one of them died, so I noped out and decided that commercial flying was the best for me. Met an uncle who was a pilot. He was struggling and still had debts from school. But sir, when you fly to a nice country, you take vacations right? Nope. Now, I'm a writer studying engineering. Will stick to that.
Over saturated id have to say on a serious note is most definitely Real Estate
Must be all those chodes selling scam real estate courses for like 10k.
Trap: therapist/counselor
Surprisingly lucrative: school psychologist
*if you’re interested in being a school psych feel free to reach out, especially if you are an undergrad psych major.
Thank you for what you do. My daughter's elementary school has a full-time psychologist on staff and we've utilized her services frequently (my daughter is borderline ADD, and we want to avoid meds if possible); she's been a TREMENDOUS resource for us!
Don't be a chef. If you insist on being a chef, don't go to culinary school. It's a waste of time and nothing you learn translates into real world kitchen knowledge. If you only plan to work in a restaurant, don't go to culinary school. The only reason you would go is connections to higher end places. Those places usually go to people with actual professional experience though. Don't be fooled into thinking that just because it's fine dining that they'll treat you better. I've worked in fine dining and in fast casual. They both pay like s**t and offer no benefits. In fact, fine dining actually pays less a lot of the time because of their stupid contracts. You're basically there for the "honor" of working there. Last time I worked fine dining I almost committed suicide in the walk-in. They knew and sent me home instead of calling a 5150. Thankfully, someone was home to stop me from hurting myself. There's corporate, but it's boring as s**t and it's typically just as bad as a mom and pop. I know from experience. They have HR, but who do you go to when it's the HR person that's sexually harassing you or berating you?
There's so much I hate about this industry now. The drugs, the drinking, the sexual harassment, the discrimination, the pay, the lack of benefits, the hours, ect. Oh God, the hours. They'll either work you just under fulltime so they don't have to provide benefits, or if you're salary you're worked like 60+ a week and they'll find a way to not pay you overtime. They always find a way to screw you out of your overtime, or even your lunch break. I've lost count of the amount of times I've worked through my lunch break. Oh, and you're not allowed to make your own food until after you clock out for your lunch break. You better hope there isn't a sudden rush, because your food will be used for an order. Sometimes I would get no food because of this.
I'm not even going to get started on being a cook during covid. It was horrible. It wasn't what made me quit though. What made me throw in the towel was after covid. I was excited to go back to work, but then I saw what every restaurant was offering. No increase in pay, no increase in benefits, and worse hours and workload because of the labor shortage. I just didn't see the point. If a f*****g apocalypse isn't going to change anything, then nothing will. I decided a little over a month ago that I'm done. I'm going back to school to get a real degree and a real job. Remember, for every Thomas Keller, there's a thousand lowly line cooks destroying their bodies just to barely scrape by.
TL;DR: Don't be a chef or a cook. It sucks.
A terrible profession - treated like c**p, working in hot humid conditions up to 14 hrs a day in an atmosphere of casual violence. A non-unionised industry with too much scab labour and one that relies on excessive drugs and alcohol to keep up with the pressure. 6 years in the industry turned me into a raving borderline alcoholic and pill head. Took years to adjust to office work and regular hours - just insane.
This one may be obvious,
Acting.
This is more, people who want to be famous in Hollywood, but live in a different country, and study acting at a regular university.
While you’re spending 4 years studying theatre, you’re Missing out on auditions! Missing out on getting a showreel. Missing out of real life experiences.
It’s great to have training, but nobody asks you what university you attended in an audition. Most famous actors were plucked off the street or had never done acting before. It’s purely about having ‘the look’ the director wants.
The only reason to study theatre is if you want to do Broadway (still might be the same with film) or you want to teach acting. OR you go to an exclusive school that has regular scouts or great connections.
And now with social media, it’s nothing about talent, all about how many insta/tiktok followers you have! So being good at your craft means jack s**t now.
Source: the amount of times I’ve been asked how many Instagram followers I have at an audition. Didn’t get the part because I don’t have followers. It’s ridiculous.
Trap: structural engineering, the stress/responsibility is not worth the pay (if you design something and it falls down its on you). The expected hours are awful, so that you can deliver projects on time. Plus you're expected to do a lot of the drawing work yourself now rather than having a draughtsperson covering that for you.
No necessarily lucrative, but surprisingly enjoyable; Pizza Delivery driver, clear expectations and instructions;
1. I expect you to take this order to this address,
2. tell me when you're on your way back,
3. come back,
4. Rinse and repeat.
Nice plus is that most people are happy to see you too. The tips haven't been great while I've been doing it, but I get to listen to my audiobooks and the roads are usually quite quiet while I'm doing it
Trap: the video game industry: sexual harassment / exploitation of female workers because theyre "not real gamers and only got in for their looks"(happened to me). Tons of expected overtime especially when you get close to release date, and they can treat workers like s**t because they know how many people are dying to get into the field. My shitty old company in particular replaced a quarter of their production staff with unpaid interns (esports events company).
The Trap: Art students of any sort. I got a bachelor+masters but it dont mean s**t cause the paper itself is worthless, and in most artschools you're basically *guaranteed* to get your paper. There's no "nah you're not good enough to achieve it". You just do. You're almost buying it at this point. Unless you're actually super talented and worked your a*s off to have a high skill level and are constantly working and posting, you might as well use your diploma as toilet paper. Its not easy either, you dont just..."draw" like 95% of the people think and become famous.
The Pro of it: Furry porn. Just draw furry porn. You dont even need to be really good as long as you accept a wide berth of fetish stuff to draw. It pays insanely well, and i've seen artists quit better jobs to settle for this instead because of how much easier, less stressful and carefree drawing inflation diaper cubs was. I myself am currently debating to take up my markers again and just start doing furry stuff on the side for the extra pocket change.
There's a joke in the art community about how simply adding the four letters 'NSFW' to your profile immediately gets you tons of commission requests.
Before Covid I was making £500 a day chasing rodents out of restaurants. You need some basic DIY skills and common sense.
There’s probably a lot more pay if you go self-employed and are good at marketing.
Overlooked: Water Treatment Field
Very lucrative field considering literally every person and business uses it. Requirements for becoming a treatment operator differ by state but typically require taking some classes and getting a license then on job training. Many places will hire you as an OIT (operator in training) and pay for your classes while you learn the system. Starting pay in my area in AR is $15/hr with yearly increases. If I could go back I would’ve started after high school instead of going to college.
Water treatment, garbage collection, any of these kinds of civil services are good and ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.
Overlooked: Mining engineer. Basically worldwide there aren’t enough graduates in this field given the current boom. In Australia we were basically poaching all the grads from overseas that we could, though obviously COVID has put a brake on that presently.
Coal mining is slowly dying worldwide both for environmental and economic reasons so I would recommend going to an university /mining school that focuses more on metalliferous mining. I’ve never worked in coal but my impression was it’s generally technically boring anyway.
Due to worldwide measures taken by governments, more kids are being nice rather than naughty by the year. So Santa, as the largest global purchaser of coal, is slowly buying less and less.
My friend is a vet tech. You go to school because you want to help animals. You come out starting at $13 an hour but you can make significantly more testing on animals. What a fukd up choice to have to make.
Read a lot of the comments. Here's the actual situation,
1. Every bit of education you get, can be useful. It just may not be useful in the way you expected.
2. Education costs way too much. At the rate we pay for education, the results *need* to set a really high bar.
3. Not all jobs are in *your* area.
That said,
3. Every field has a skill distribution. Getting a degree puts you on that distribution, and not an outlier (on the low skill end). But every skill has a demand. You can imagine this distribution being like a normal curve, where the top, let's say 80% get jobs reliably in one field, or 1% in another.
Some examples might be, if you want to be a professional flautist, you need to be in the 0.1% skill distribution. If you want to be a professional artist, maybe 5-20% depending what you are working on. For technical fields, today, if you have any skill in that field, even if it's not formal training, you can be successful, so it's basically 95-100%. For engineering I would estimate 80-90%, if you have an engineering degree, it's hard not to just sort of get a job, since people are calling you all the time like "hey, do you like money?" For liberal arts (which by the way, the idea that lots of people get liberal arts degrees because they are easy and then can't find employment is a myth. People just don't get liberal arts degrees, it's something like 0.5-1% of grads having only that degree). It's probably like 20%. Prepare to starbucks.
Some conclusions from the above,
1. Trade schools are quite viable due to 2) above. They are much cheaper and still lucrative, and per 3) the skill distribution is such that there is a high demand. This makes it low risk (for now).
2. If you pick something with a high skill distribution, be prepared to work hard to make it happen. If you want to be in the NFL, you need to be in the top 1% of 1%. That's just the way it is, that's the nature of the situation.
3. Finding the skill distribution, really understanding it, for a given area, and understanding the sub-fields within an area (eg, areas of law for a lawyer) is an acquired skill itself. The govt can provide some insight, and it's not an exact science.
4. Just because your field of choice has a low skill distribution, doesn't mean you shouldn't try to be the best in your field. For earnings and security measures.
I've done a lot of thinking about job markets and this is the perspective I have. However you want to visualize it, that's up to you. Eventually this is the way I will describe it to my son, hopefully with some contextual understanding of the skill fields.
Having your own business. Any business. The change of failure is way higher than people think and changes are you’re working 100 hours a day for less than minimum wage.
Source: have had my own business. Have friends and family who still do. They all work their asses of just to barely keep afloat. Meanwhile, I have a ‘normal’ job, work less and earn more.
Also, ‘yeah but as ‘entrepreneur’ at least you have a lot of freedom’-line is utter c**p. No, you don’t; clients/customers dictate your schedule, because you need the business and the money.
I have heard from people in this situation that they barely ever turn down work, because they have no guaranteed income, thus never take time off and become totally burnt out. I’m sure once you’re established it’s better/possibly lucrative, but not knowing whether you are covering your outgoings/bills and even if you are, whether you will next month and so on, must be stressful.
Drug dealing. You're roped in with the old "you'll make tonnes of cash doing basically nothing", but nobody ever tells you that you'll never be able to spend that cash and you'll be spending most of your life trying to stop both law enforcement and other criminals taking it from you - and then eventually, they will, along with probably your life or your freedom.
You can go to 4 years of college, take a $300+ exam, spend thousands on applying to and interviewing at medical schools, get accepted, go through 4 years of medical school (average student debt: $200,000), then never practice medicine or receive a physician salary because you didn’t match into a residency program. You still have to pay off all that debt though!
Edit: Here’s an article about how students that attended Caribbean med schools are struggling:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/health/caribbean-medical-school.html
Edit 2: Another NYT article on doctors not matching.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/19/health/medical-school-residency-doctors.html
With most of the family physicians and specialists in Canada retiring and this, guess who receives the end of the stick? It’s the public. 😔
Sales is super overlooked, but one of the most lucrative career paths available. For instance, I work selling mattresses at a retail location, and consistently earn over six figures.
6 figures a year for selling mattresses? INDEED website says US mattress store managers can expect to make between 34K and 40K, tops.
Higher academia, especially in the Anglo-Sphere. For many decades, the idea of furthering one’s education was promoted and culturally instilled on generations.
At the same time, the price of higher education rose and rose.
I went to university in Germany, so my education was completely free, but I’ve been teaching Medicine and English at a very prominent German university for 3 semesters and am planning to give it up to teach at a kindergarten.
Myself and people in my position at a university are working 60-70h weeks for little more than minimum wage. (German minimum wage is the equivalent of $12) I can’t even imagine doing that while also being *in debt* to a university.
While I get frustrated with the rise in anti-intellectualism and “I went to the university of life” attitude compounded by the false belief that people with degrees look down on those who don’t (false from my experience at least), I gotta say: if you want a job that pays well and doesn’t follow you home; avoiding university is perfectly valid.
Scientist feels like an expensive, low paying trap unless you are truly passionate about research.
The more passionate you are the higher-up you get, but also the more of your life you have to dedicate to science. Once that professorship comes into view, you live at the faculty. I know people who almost can't not work (which is partially due to their passion as well, not pure from the demand of the job)
Trap: specialised masters in international relations or other extremely niche public service roles when you don't have work experience. Unless you're already employed in a role that requires those skills they are really only for academics yet they advertise as helping you get into international public service.
Source: hire for an extremely competitive grad program for a government agency that includes lots of international travel. We will hire the undergrad who has stories of conflict resolution delivering pizzas to crackheads over a specialised masters whose examples all involve group assignments. Most of our hires come from internal sources too so your chances are overwhelmingly better if you work in our call centre for 6months then apply instead of doing a specialised masters.
Unexpectedly lucrative, Linemen our electrical grid is 60 years outta date and always in need of replacement $1500 will get you in linemen school and decent references to companies hiring. The local pay is good but the traveling pay is amazing along with 401k and solid benefits.
Dental tech . They are pumping thousands of those out of those day time television career colleges. There’s not even that many dentists. I’d say a good career is nursing. But one can find out pretty f*****g quick they hate it. And there’s not enough schools for the all the people that want to be one .
Dental Hygienists in the US make more money than techs & assistants BUT most work in small businesses that aren't required to provide health ins or sick leave, let alone vacay. You generally work 1-3 days/ week in more than one office & dentists are notoriously difficult to work with- you're fortunate if you find a sane one as turnover in these offices is low ( understandably.) Do yourself a favor & DON'T.
Honestly, half these answers aren't traps. You just didn't look around you. Take psychology for example. I knew a woman who had a psych degree, making $12 an hour at the same job I had, while I had no degree. Additionally, while talking to one of the ex-heads of HR for FedEx while on a plane, she explained that in most cases a masters + experience is required to successfully use a degree in psychology, especially if you want to enter HR or the like.
Additionally, the professions that are being listed as unexpectedly lucrative, aren't unexpectedly so. Plumbers can make a boat load of money if they play their cards right, same with machinists and other trade skills. It isn't that it's unexpectedly lucrative, it's that you were taught, or at the very least convinced yourself, that going to college for a useless degree is worth more than going to trade school.
You made the same as someone with a degree in psychology without a degree, but you also didn't have the student loans to pay back. That makes that $12 an hour into so much less over all.
From what I’ve heard, anything with a PhD. Academia, medicine, etc underpays for the overall debt required and/or pushes burnout in order to ladder climb.
I don't have any evidence but I feel like multi-language jobs are often overlooked. I don't know if language programs at colleges are oversaturated, but it seems to me being able to read/write/speak 4+ languages may be a highly employable skill.
Also when I took intro geology it seems like there are lots of jobs out there for skilled geologists but not that many people to fill those positions.
Trap: graphic design
Surprisingly lucrative: plumber, HVAC, electrician, diesel mechanic, machinist
Source: my family.
Yup. All the blue collar skilled labor jobs. Jobs that take 9-18 months to train, often while being paid while you learn, which have a base pay of $20-25/hr and top out at $59-$80hr, that three generations of kids have been taught to view with scorn. There are 7 million unfilled, SKILLED labor jobs in the US, and these jobs have been operating at a deficit for decades. Add to your list, welding, carpentry, masonry, sanitation, factory workers. Low bar for entry, degree's aren't required and yet these things are actual work, that require effort. Somehow it's better to work for minimum wage and complain about being underpaid.
Teaching. I was told “there’s a high demand” for teachers when I was in college, and when I finally found a job, the hiring admin told me I was going to teach a class I had zero experience/schooling in. I wasn’t about to decline my first real teaching job so I said yes.
At that time, my wife and I had just had our first son, so I declined the teacher induction program (basically where the district provides you a “mentor” to help you learn as you go, but this translates to essentially even MORE paperwork and essays as a first year teacher... so I said no thank you).
Fast forward to February, I get called into admins office and I’m told they are not renewing my contract (basically I am now fired, tho I did nothing wrong or illegal...) they did not give a reason for letting me go at the time. The only silver lining was I was allowed to finish the school year and complete my initial contract. All the work, prep, refining, meetings, student followup, discipline issues, all of it was just gone in an instant. Huge waste of time if you don’t have proper support at your school and admin lets the kids get away with all kinds of s**t. That being said, I hope to hear back from a new school in about 3 days, fingers crossed it’s better than before!
Not unexpectedly lucrative but overlooked.
Mining Engineering.
Last year Australia graduated only 23 of them.
The industry is screaming for them. A graduate job is sitting at 110k then the sky is the limit.
I'm currently 220k AUD and having an interview about an expat job for 250k USD after tax.
My two cents; it's overlooked because people associate it with the environmental impact that mining almost always has (I believe). On the other hand, if nobody enters the field then mining also can't grow in terms of said impact.
Sometimes I think my philosophy degree. But then it weirdly became super handy when I entered business. You never know, I think these days its more about finding ways to apply your knowledge AND be creative.
Trap: Video Game developer. Lot of people who get Computer Science degrees love playing video games and have a fantasy of being a designer / programming for any of the big game studios. Insane market saturation combined who crazy deadlines. Source: Am software engineer, seen many friends try this path, all failed.
Overlooked: AC technician. AC broke and I called the repair guy. 18 year old kid, 2 weeks out of high school showed up. Said they are completely booked 2 weeks in advance. Company charged me $200 for 90 minutes of work, kid said he brings in 45 an hour. Paid off his car and 0 debt at 18.
Grass taxonomists are almost entirely unheard of, and very well paid.
Edit: Holy s**t, I Googled it and it's even crazier than you think. No wonder they're well paid; you need them m**o's since grass is in like, everything we eat. I just found out that sugar cane, bamboo, corn, oat, wheat, rice, barley, and rye are all in sub-families of grass.
Math/Stats degrees make it easier to get financial support through scholarships sinse there isnt much competition and you don't have to pay for your PhD plus you get a stipend. Pretty great if you are good at critical thinking. From there you can go into various well paying fields
Especially since the jobs can include working for places like NASA and Tech companies. More math in those jobs than you would think.
Don't get a psychology degree. Barely anyone gets to be a psychologist after the first degree they get (it's like 2% of bachelors level grads) and plenty of those who do wish they hadn't. Where I am it's a bachelors, honours and then masters to become a psychologist, all for a traumatic job where the starting pay is s**t and the pay ceiling is low when you take the entry requirements into account.
80% of psychology grads wind up working in H.R. Most of the rest wind up in mental health jobs where the median turnover is 18 months due to burn out. There are better ways to spend 6+ years and f**k knows how much money, and that's if you succeed.
Saturated: lawyers, journalists/writers, massage therapists, architects, graphic designers, pharmacist (right now, I know about five pharmacists looking to make TOTAL career changes)
Surprisingly lucrative:
Talented machinists/tool and die makers can make mad money. The "old guard" in this field is literally dying out and there's still a great need for it.
Diesel mechanic/boat mechanic - I was frankly shocked at how much money can be made here! My friend is a teacher and one of her former students is a boat mechanic - he regularly turns work away because there aren't enough hours in the day and, in his mid-20's is making about $120K/year. Bonus, he loves the work.
Welding: there are some types of welding that are very well compensated - sometimes for the skill needed, sometimes for the danger of doing it and often both.
HVAC: again, great money out of the gate and non-stop demand for services. If you have business mind and can start your own HVAC company, you will most definitely do well for yourself!
Welding can be boom or bust. The field became oversaturated in the '80s during an oil field bust. No one was hiring welders locally for over a decade and the local training programs closed. Unfortunately any building trade can have this happen. Our housing industry also collapsed. Look around where you are since many of these jobs are location specific.
Radiography,,,, its not well known and short staffed really. Radiographers are in mad demand and earn quite okay across countries.
Licensed profession in some areas since radiation poisoning is a potential if you do it wrong. Called xray techs in some areas.They are often crosstrained in ultrasound, mri. Much in demand field. Often the training can be done through a community college in the US. If you work in an outpatient setting then you have a set schedule with little overtime. Hospital based may require rotating shifts or being on call. The ones I currently know have been in the field decades and enjoy it.
Trap: Teaching!
*Oh so you want to help children learn? You want to shape the next generation?*
Teaching is waking up at 5AM, continuing to work when you get home til at least 7 PM, and drowning in prep work. I wish all the best to those that power through but I KNOW it's not what you expected and you deserve better... </3
Its funny, when i was growing up everyone said, you dont wanna flip burgers or work construction do you? Well, i went to culinary school and learned how to flip more than just burgers, only to waste almost 10 years of my life making little money.. so then i became a union carpenter.. ill tell you.. its sad to know that im making at least double annual salary as those same teachers that told me you dont wanna choose that path... 6 figures, and i do more math than i ever did in school
I was one of the first girls to take woodworking in my school in the '70's. The math needed to figure out how much materials you will need even for a simple project surprised some of the students. One thing the class taught me was I could do it if i,wanted to but I really liked labs. Close to retiring from lab work. I would have made more in carpentry.
I started at the United States Post Office in 1993. I knew I would have a good retirement but never thought we would be so well off. My wife worked there also. I loved my job. I retired last year and moved to Germany where my wife's family lives. Dream come true.
That sounds lovely! Sadly I don’t think it will be quite as ideal these days, at least not on the postal side.
Law in Australia. Don’t do what I did and study law in this country. I graduated with distinction average grades and in this over saturated market i wish I could get those hours from the library back. The legal field is f****d in this country. The job market is so saturated and even if you get hired it’s for peanuts.
I would say that the LBN is a trap because it’s not often recognised overseas. It just makes more sense to get to JD. There are also several types of law, the most lucrative plus accessible are with international corporates doing anything from contracts to M&A.
Engineering in India. Everyone's an engineer in India, with outdated syllabus, pathetic infrastructure and terrible job prospect.
Lookdev or technical CG artist in India, no college required, if you are good you get paid a lot in $8k a month at times (remember its a developing country), work very little hours 20 hours a month sometimes.
Pretty much every job that requires a 4+ year degree can be a trap. No one actually keeps an accurate tally of how many positions there are vs how many people enter a program. Colleges have no incentive to tell you not to pursue a career you might want and companies have an incentive to make it look like that jobs are more in demand and higher paying than they actually are. So you can go into debt for a degree that might not have any, or enough, good paying jobs .
What is pretty lucrative is skill trade work. It is cheap to get certified (compared to a 4 year degree) and most pay really well. (My whole comment is from a US perspective).
Surprisingly lucrative: construction. Especially in stars with a union
I have family in construction. Depending on where you are it is seasonal. It will shut done in bad weather such as snow on the ground. Family member learned to budget so money would last through the winter. In the southern US this is not as much an issue. Don’t get me wrong the money is great often double what teachers make. In my area it is also male dominated and women can have difficulty getting hired.
Programming is frequently just stress and unpaid overtime. There are good jobs and bad jobs, but a lot of people end up in middle salaries with endless s**t being thrown at them and there is never any budget or time to sit back and refine or rework things properly.
Dog walking. It's seen as a s**t job that is only for people who are under qualified or students, but doing it full time can make you bank.
Think about this, the avg rate is $20 per walk (which is roughly 30 minutes), that alone is double minimum wage in a lot of states, then factor in the fact that most dogs are walked twice a day, and now you're making $40 an hour. Do this for 6 hours and you make $240. Then there's the fact that many professionals walk 2-3 dogs at a time, sometimes even more, leading to $480-$720+ in a single day ($80-$120+ an hr). This is more money than a decent amount of jobs out there, even with a couple hours less than the typical working day
Sorry if any of the math is wrong, I'm tired af and did all of this in my head
I made perfect grades in school, but reading what other people have said about these job markets in the past discouraged me, so I became a small organic farmer. Very rewarding. I’m outside all day with some animals and my plants. Farmers also have the longest life expectancy out of any career. With climate change wrecking our food supply, farmers will be in demand more than almost any other job. People laughed at me thinking I was just a lazy no beat, but holy s**t did they all have wake up calls.
Anyone who thinks farmers are lazy are f***ing morons. It's literal backbreaking work. And like many civil careers (like garbage collection), it's necessary.
Unexpectedly Lucrative - any trade in commercial construction. I know plenty of people making 90k a year as an electrician, plumber, pipe fitter etc…. Learn on the job right out of High School as a paid apprentice, no student loans to pay off.
Chef, paramedic and midwife. Fuffing around with garnishes on Masterchef is NOT what it's like to actually be a chef. To get to the actual position of chef you have to go through years of kitchen drudgery. Paramedics and midwives? Everyone wants to be one but here in Australia they're extremely competitive fields, in the case of paramedics you also have the added risk of first responder PTSD and burnout.
Surprisingly lucrative? This won't make a person rich, but becoming a respiratory tech or imaging tech doesn't take very long, and can usually be done inexpensively at a 2-year college. It pays nicely.
One could become a respiratory tech and then use the income to pay for a 4-year degree in the subject of their choice with no student loans. Many universities offer night and online courses, so it's doable. I know someone who did just that. He earned a doctorate while working as a respiratory tech and is now a professor. I also had a friend in undergrad whose husband was a respiratory tech, and not only did they have a house, but he could afford to pay for her education.
Health care is a growth industry as the population ages.
Not on a national/global level, but any relatively uncommon or specialized field if you end up living in the same place you went to school. For example, I have a library degree, which not that many schools offer. I still live in the same place where I attended school, and so do a bunch of other alums, and we’re all competing in an over-saturated micro market. If you’re willing to relocate it’s not a problem, but because we’re all clustered in the same place jobs are hard to come by.
Accounting. I am not in accounting but I know many that are. They say it has 100% placement rate in college. What they don't tell you is that you will be bullied for at least 2 years of your life by your superior and well, plan on spending a few months doing nothing but working with zero time to even sleep or do basic tasks like laundry. Its called the busy season, plan on working from 8am to 2am in the morning, sleeping for a couple hours then doing it all over again the next day, day after day after day. Also you will be bullied by your superiors hardcore. I also managed to find out that any accounting place that you can actually land a job with does this to you.
Then they found the wrong companies to work for. My company required 55+ hours a week during busy season. Not that hard to accomplish and still have time for family. Busy season is usually mid January to Mid April, then it slows down and we are encouraged to take time off. Starts up again in September to end of October. We usually get extra days off during down time. The worst part about being a CPA is having to get in 40+ hours of continuing education to keep your license...but I'm not a CPA. Just a Tax CSR that earns good money with a company that is flexible enough, they are not requiring staff to return to the office, but rather allowing them to work from home most days. Makes the work/family balance easier to maintain. And it is 100% placement. I love my job!
surprisingly lucrative : surveyors
known a few that went on to form their own companies, set their own hours (working mums) and are basically doing really really well
Overlooked: Insurance broking/underwriting - slightly less pay than other financial services, but much better quality of life, social hours, and encouragement to network and socialise. Better in bigger cities for serious firms.
Being a river guide is an sweat f*****g job, and there is a huge need for them in the PNW right now. If you like being outdoors, camping for a living and want to go rafting, come be a guide. And despite common conception, the pay is I to dog s**t. You aren't getting rich, but if you want to be a river guide, being rich isn't really your thing anyways.
Unexpectedly lucrative?
Really any career that allows you to advance up the ladder.
Listen, a 3rd grade teacher is a third grade teacher. It doesn't matter if you've been doing it for 2 years or 20 years, you are still a 3rd grade teacher. Yes, you'll likely be a better 3rd grade teacher after 20 years, but your basic job is exactly the same. You've put a ceiling on how much you can earn.
On the other hand, an accountant starts out low as a staff accountant. Then Senior Accountant -> Accounting Manager -> Assistant Controller -> Controller -> CFO... No ceiling.
Skills shortage list for different countries will give you a good indication of what’s in demand. Also, I’m surprised no one said brick layer on this list - always on skills shortage lists and can end up making great money
I worked in high-tech field service for ten years, "road warrior" level... I had a lot of fun, travel, adventures, & enjoyed livin' large on expense account... My companies paid for me to get to do things that most people never get to do. The downside was that it was exhausting, endless unpaid overtime, the hassles of going through airports with all the silliness they do to you, and dangerous overseas trips to mostly uncivilized countries... It can be fun, but oh my! does the fun come at a cruel price... So beware...
I'm a journalist and get to do some pretty cool s**t and meet amazing people. I agree that the pay does suck.
Skills shortage list for different countries will give you a good indication of what’s in demand. Also, I’m surprised no one said brick layer on this list - always on skills shortage lists and can end up making great money
I worked in high-tech field service for ten years, "road warrior" level... I had a lot of fun, travel, adventures, & enjoyed livin' large on expense account... My companies paid for me to get to do things that most people never get to do. The downside was that it was exhausting, endless unpaid overtime, the hassles of going through airports with all the silliness they do to you, and dangerous overseas trips to mostly uncivilized countries... It can be fun, but oh my! does the fun come at a cruel price... So beware...
I'm a journalist and get to do some pretty cool s**t and meet amazing people. I agree that the pay does suck.
