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Best jobs to take while you decide what to do next
When big life events (school, jobs, service, etc) come to and end, the natural question is, “What’s next?”
Rest easy, there is no right answer. The decision does not have to come right away, but the bills still come rolling in. Here are a few great employment options while you sort out you future.
Emergency Medical Services
Working in EMS can be enjoyable for many, whether you were a combat medic, or want to work in medicine after college, EMS offers loads of experience. However, it may take some schooling. To be an EMT, certification can range from three weeks to six months. These programs can be found through local agencies or community colleges. Different regions have different requirements, but you could be on an ambulance as part of clinicals or on the job training, fairly quickly.
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EMS offers hands on medical experience, helps individuals become adaptable and critical thinkers, and develops people skills. The first thing you can learn from being in EMS is how to talk to people. EMS can be an underappreciated job, but it is rich in experience and can be greatly rewarding when working with the right people, serving the right kind of community.
Park Rangers
Love the outdoors? Being a park ranger would be the right kind of job for you. Depending on your state, being a park ranger does not require a degree. Though similar to EMS, in terms of experiencing the oddity of humanity, working with parks can be just as rewarding. The skills developed as a ranger would be policing and ensuring that people enjoy the outdoors in a safe and respectful way. You protect the parks, and ensure that others can enjoy it for years to come.
The National Park Service states they employ over 5,800 active-duty military and veterans. This accounts for around 28 percent of their workforce.
Life Guard
Grow up active and athletic? Positions at local gyms, YMCA’s, and even seasonally can help encourage an athletic lifestyle in the pool. Entry level lifeguards are typically of high school age, but with more experience, the higher likely you are to become in charge of a pool. There’s only a few certificates and classes away from where you are now to being able to manage more than one pool.
Learning to handle pool chemicals allows you to be potentially a regional manager- where you just have to ensure each pool that you manage is chemically balanced by doing a simple test. The water test is typically done hourly, which every lifeguard is also taught to do. Life guarding would expose you to people at a high capacity, but can be extremely fun when working with the right crew, much like any type of training or class taken in the past.
Keep an open mind
There are a lot more jobs out in the world that don’t take a specific degree to provide good experience. When working with people, showing your next potential employer that you know how to manage high stress situations and people will make you a competitive new-hire.
Even working outside of the field that you have your eyes set on can be a good thing. Employers look for well rounded individuals who can benefit their team in the long run, and having many unique and versatile experiences will help you more once you found your footing.
Keep an eye out for virtual job fairs to stay in the know.
From the author
With spring comes the start of many new chapters. The school year ends, which for some, is the end of their schooling. High schoolers may be getting ready to go off to college, or getting ready for their first enlistment. For college seniors, it’s the end of a long academic career, where full adulthood awaits and navigating the career world is soon approaching. For others, it’s the end of their enlistment, where the bliss of signing their DD214 is slowly wearing off as the regularity of the civilian world is turning into the stress of finding a career path again.
As a recent college graduate, entering the work force again is stressful. Its not the same as high school, where seasonal jobs were easy and fun. With a degree and the experience, working in fast food and retail is unappealing. Where, coming from a disciplined military lifestyle, those jobs may be boring or insulting compared to the experience accumulated. Regardless of what career some may plan on being in, the first job they have isn’t always in that field of work. But all stepping stones don’t have to be the golden arches.
