Any job ideas for a 30-something with no degree or trade skills
- Thread starter Psalm27
- Start date
Lionheart
Sparrow
True, but doing various hustles can become a career.
MichaelWitcoff
Pelican
I’d recommend doing a graveyard shift job where you can at least get paid to read about other opportunities and take courses. If you have to develop skills, may as well do it on the clock instead of losing time and money at home.
Jacob Robinson
Sparrow
Two big decision points: self-employed or employed by others, and trade or profession? Regarding a trade, do you have any mechanical aptitude, like working with your hands, etc?
One minor decision point: do you want to say in the location you are now, or do you want to move in the future. Some trades and professions are more easily taken across state lines than others. And, regarding professions, some can become so niche as you gain experience that someday there maybe only a handful of companies in a similar number of states who will pay you what you are currently making (learned that from experience.)
If I was in your position I would go for a trade employed by others to get started, then look into self-employment.
Skilled trades because there is a shortage that will not be automated out of existence, can not be outsourced, a lot of under-employed young people would never dream of doing those jobs, and they will not be filled by third-world immigration. Preferably a trade not licensed by each state so you can be mobile if need be. Self-employment as a long term goal so you can eventually work on your own terms and cut out the middle man. own your own equipment and pass the company on to your son if you ever have one.
One minor decision point: do you want to say in the location you are now, or do you want to move in the future. Some trades and professions are more easily taken across state lines than others. And, regarding professions, some can become so niche as you gain experience that someday there maybe only a handful of companies in a similar number of states who will pay you what you are currently making (learned that from experience.)
If I was in your position I would go for a trade employed by others to get started, then look into self-employment.
Skilled trades because there is a shortage that will not be automated out of existence, can not be outsourced, a lot of under-employed young people would never dream of doing those jobs, and they will not be filled by third-world immigration. Preferably a trade not licensed by each state so you can be mobile if need be. Self-employment as a long term goal so you can eventually work on your own terms and cut out the middle man. own your own equipment and pass the company on to your son if you ever have one.
Traveller124
Newbie
If you like tech, you can learn coding and get a job as a programmer. That doesn't need a degree.
Eternal Truth
Newbie
Noone can tell you what to do. Noone knows you better than yourself, you simply need a guide to discovering what you are good at and how to monetize it. This Guide is Efficiency from WSP.
Read Efficiency from Wall Street Playboys. Read it entirely. Identify which intelligence(s) you have. Follow the step by step plan at the end of the book. Make an actionable plan with short and long term goals (3 actions for each goal). Be succesfull. Be efficient. Do not waste any more time, you are 33!
Good luck.
Read Efficiency from Wall Street Playboys. Read it entirely. Identify which intelligence(s) you have. Follow the step by step plan at the end of the book. Make an actionable plan with short and long term goals (3 actions for each goal). Be succesfull. Be efficient. Do not waste any more time, you are 33!
Good luck.
You might give sales another shot. I know several people who are natural introverts who are successful enough in sales (me included) and some who are star performers. Sure, natural extroverts tend to be the best match for sales, but it takes more than just extroversion and you can be successful despite being an introvert, although you'll have to work harder. PM me if you want advice.
Go to Germany and learn German.
AlligatorState
Sparrow
A bit harsh, but he has a point here. You need to realize that there's simply no way to catch up with early 20s guys who got into gear and pulled ahead.
That's just how life works, and if you can accept that you messed up, you can at least make your 40s bearable.
Also, I highly recommend doing exactly what @MichaelWitcoff suggested. I worked as an overnight security guard and got straight As in college, actually finished my Bachelor's in just over a year online.
Get your unarmed guard license, find a nice cushy job working 8pm to 8am, do your patrols and study / browse web all night. Don't forget to bring a small laptop or whatever you are going to study with. I used my phone for a WiFi hotspot.
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NoMoreTO
Ostrich
Smartest guys on the floor I swear, but they don't make a ton. It's a foot in and good practical experience.
I'll add something else:
Start working now. Don't go into debt, save what you can. Don't sit on your hands thinking about what to do. Start working and your path will often appear to you.
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Douglas Quaid
Kingfisher
Community colleges are cheap and have several 1-2 programs to learn a trade. I'm 30 and doing this now. I don't even have to pay for the classes because the grants cover all of the cheap tuition.
I wasted my 20s as well, but it could be a lot worse. Think of all the people with debt, kids out of wedlock, extensive criminal records, in miserable relationships, overweight, etc. Most of them will not be able to turn things around. The worst thing for us is we don't have a solid career, but that can be fixed relatively easily.
I wasted my 20s as well, but it could be a lot worse. Think of all the people with debt, kids out of wedlock, extensive criminal records, in miserable relationships, overweight, etc. Most of them will not be able to turn things around. The worst thing for us is we don't have a solid career, but that can be fixed relatively easily.
JohnnySmith
Newbie
Start a business. get a sales job. either of those will build up a solid foundation.
Hm...
I'm 34, been doing marketing for the last 8 years. It's possible to ramp up quickly and build up valuable skills — but this is a very uphill battle and even with my experience—that digital nomad fantasy of endless 1099 work and big contracts is still a bit far off for me.
Honestly, that's not my main money maker, that's just to pay bills and give me capital for my options trading business.
I leveled up way past buy/hold value investing. Did CAN SLIM from Will O'Neil's IBD methodology—good shit, probably the most sophisticated buy/hold strategy for active common stock folks.
But yea, besides that, I've traded precious metals very successfully since my college days. That got me into options trading and now I sell volatility on: precious metals, tech, bonds, countries, hot sectors, loser sectors, etc.
I also had a very successful DJ career since 18. Went solo when I was 25-26, made 10x more money for 10% the same work, ridiculous. Was part of a big conglomerate too long. It wasn't until 2020 that I could not DJ at all. Whenever I got laid off, needed a new toy or wanted to disassociate and work through weekends—the DJ booth was always there for me. It was a bad thing in that sense, I didn't trade options nearly as well as I could of. But in 2020 and the glorious high volatility, this has been a landmark year for me. Honestly, I went super sayjin this year trading vertical credit spreads.
Hm...
Both this vocation path and investment path took a lot of time to cultivate, I'd say their both doable though. Trading... the ramp up is... purely dependent on your coachability and ability to follow a disciplined system—80% of people say they can, but can't in actuality. So yea, you gotta be honest with yourself.
Marketing..online certs are easy to get and most are free. You could build a portfolio, get get skills, certs, some small customers and then get a full-time job. But marketing is littered with crazies. It's a very gynocentric environment. Even the male figures are pretty cucked or worse, feminist allies and bullshit. One of my last bosses was this Ken-like Photoshop god with a jawline that could cut class. He banged the girls on the customer success team...and he was married. And he got fired. If you like being a normal white male in marketing, it will not work, it will be VERY uphill. I have dodged false rape allegations. My last CEO was banging my marketing director—started off as an emotional affair, but the dead bedrooms made him as desperate as a wounded gazelle. At my exit interview, I told him honestly I was surprised he was not #metoo'ed. He did not learn, hired another female director. I left in July—I'd rather risk poverty then risk unearned jail time. Earlier in my career, I have survived psycho lesbian supervisors, old corporate small hat women and worse. If you do not have the fortitude and political prowess for that, then do not swim where even sharks can drown.
(So yea—your perceived status as a male figure in the marketing world is very complicated. I am not white and can hide behind an Asian baby face fortunately. My height confuses people though at 6+.)
So yea, I also had lots of insides sales experience before marketing which motivated me to get the hell out of commission dependent jobs, it's way to hard. I got sales mojo to handle rejection for hours at a time, but I'm still human and that shit can get to you after a couple dry streaks. Programming CRM automation was WAY easier for WAY more money. And having a DJ background, I can manage events with utter confidence. I also enjoy public speaking so being a master of ceremonies is a walk in the park for me. This was VERY helpful in the beginning of my marketing career because most people run away from the stage in technology companies and even just as an MC/host for events and stuff, it got me very visible at my corporation and running AV + managing the green room, setting up microphones for speakers/VIPs... that helps a lot if you're rubbing shoulders with leadership all day and they can obviously see your valued contributions.
I've even saved 2 major conferences just because I had my DJ gear handy as a back up. Yea, I'm insane like that. I loaded 3000 watts of Yamaha DXRs + subs and 2k in microphones just in case... I'll tell you what, that gets you a measure of job security that paper can't convey. When the CEO owes your a favor.. that's nice. Having LED uplights and lasers too makes things very interesting. I tell you what, my cubicle was lit as fuck cause I had ALL the toys. =)
So yea, I would really look to figuring out your temperament and personality traits. I've made my career work for me in that way. Truth be told, nothing of what I write here is the highest and best use of my talents and interests—but it was a starting point and I'm still working at it. I was busy fighting for my life with my family in my late teens and early 20s, college was an afterthought. I was a bit of an academic prodigy as a child but my family's insanity and instability fucked me up solidly. It took me my entire 20s to leave them and build a life. So yea, it doesn't have to be perfect. Just start.
Look into the big 5 personality test. I hate a love/hate relationship with Dr. JBP, but I gotta give him credit, he leads the field on the Big 5 personality test that he and his team perfected. Yea, if you use discount code: Jocko or Rogan or JRE — you'll get a slight discount, it's like $15-20. Worth it. 100%. Then look up jobs based on that. Myers-Briggs personality test is bullshit because there are no wrong answers. Trust me, in the business world, there are absolutely bad set ups to avoid at all costs. I'm very fluid myself but I still come back to my core instincts. Like one thing Big Five measures that MTBI doesn't even contemplate is neuroticism. People react to stress and tribulation differently. You need to know. Hell, I gate it to an ex-girlfriend once. She came back with like 5% consciousness. She was the absolutely bottom rung. I was like wtf. Well, this girl later I nuked from orbit after she cheated on me and covered it up. She committed 6 figure medical fraud at work and was hiding an alcohol addiction + a heavy rotation of SSRI's. Yea, I noped away and exposed her to her family. She doubled down on the cheating even in front of her grandma. I was like fuck, there's no hope for you if you're gonna lie to your 88 year old grandma who loves me to death.
Hell, one other idea I found was I noticed a very interesting total lack of mobile public notaries in my area. Which seems improbable given the density of talent and all (SF Bay Area.) Well, I see a market niche. It costs no bucks to get started and I can get $15/per signature and also charge a fee for being a mobile notary. Hell, I can do that. =) More money for silver and gold.
If I could pick a trade, I would do locksmithing. It has a lot of overlap with IT. Think about door sensors, security, bluetooth enabled devices, etc. It's not just opening locked car doors and rekeying locks. There's a lot of technical acumen behind figuring out how things are stored under lock and key and having those assets managed digitally at scale. I fuck around with some lockpicks I got though. That is fun. =) Defeating fancy locks with the minimum of tools is very enjoyable.
I think welding is cool just cause you're fusing metal.
Plumbing is hard cause liquid shit. But the utmost respect for plumbers. Plumbers have saved more lives than doctors. When everyone was panicking for toilet paper in the spring time, I was like, freaking amateurs... I was worried about sewage options if the water mains stopped pumping.
I'm 34, been doing marketing for the last 8 years. It's possible to ramp up quickly and build up valuable skills — but this is a very uphill battle and even with my experience—that digital nomad fantasy of endless 1099 work and big contracts is still a bit far off for me.
Honestly, that's not my main money maker, that's just to pay bills and give me capital for my options trading business.
I leveled up way past buy/hold value investing. Did CAN SLIM from Will O'Neil's IBD methodology—good shit, probably the most sophisticated buy/hold strategy for active common stock folks.
But yea, besides that, I've traded precious metals very successfully since my college days. That got me into options trading and now I sell volatility on: precious metals, tech, bonds, countries, hot sectors, loser sectors, etc.
I also had a very successful DJ career since 18. Went solo when I was 25-26, made 10x more money for 10% the same work, ridiculous. Was part of a big conglomerate too long. It wasn't until 2020 that I could not DJ at all. Whenever I got laid off, needed a new toy or wanted to disassociate and work through weekends—the DJ booth was always there for me. It was a bad thing in that sense, I didn't trade options nearly as well as I could of. But in 2020 and the glorious high volatility, this has been a landmark year for me. Honestly, I went super sayjin this year trading vertical credit spreads.
Hm...
Both this vocation path and investment path took a lot of time to cultivate, I'd say their both doable though. Trading... the ramp up is... purely dependent on your coachability and ability to follow a disciplined system—80% of people say they can, but can't in actuality. So yea, you gotta be honest with yourself.
Marketing..online certs are easy to get and most are free. You could build a portfolio, get get skills, certs, some small customers and then get a full-time job. But marketing is littered with crazies. It's a very gynocentric environment. Even the male figures are pretty cucked or worse, feminist allies and bullshit. One of my last bosses was this Ken-like Photoshop god with a jawline that could cut class. He banged the girls on the customer success team...and he was married. And he got fired. If you like being a normal white male in marketing, it will not work, it will be VERY uphill. I have dodged false rape allegations. My last CEO was banging my marketing director—started off as an emotional affair, but the dead bedrooms made him as desperate as a wounded gazelle. At my exit interview, I told him honestly I was surprised he was not #metoo'ed. He did not learn, hired another female director. I left in July—I'd rather risk poverty then risk unearned jail time. Earlier in my career, I have survived psycho lesbian supervisors, old corporate small hat women and worse. If you do not have the fortitude and political prowess for that, then do not swim where even sharks can drown.
(So yea—your perceived status as a male figure in the marketing world is very complicated. I am not white and can hide behind an Asian baby face fortunately. My height confuses people though at 6+.)
So yea, I also had lots of insides sales experience before marketing which motivated me to get the hell out of commission dependent jobs, it's way to hard. I got sales mojo to handle rejection for hours at a time, but I'm still human and that shit can get to you after a couple dry streaks. Programming CRM automation was WAY easier for WAY more money. And having a DJ background, I can manage events with utter confidence. I also enjoy public speaking so being a master of ceremonies is a walk in the park for me. This was VERY helpful in the beginning of my marketing career because most people run away from the stage in technology companies and even just as an MC/host for events and stuff, it got me very visible at my corporation and running AV + managing the green room, setting up microphones for speakers/VIPs... that helps a lot if you're rubbing shoulders with leadership all day and they can obviously see your valued contributions.
I've even saved 2 major conferences just because I had my DJ gear handy as a back up. Yea, I'm insane like that. I loaded 3000 watts of Yamaha DXRs + subs and 2k in microphones just in case... I'll tell you what, that gets you a measure of job security that paper can't convey. When the CEO owes your a favor.. that's nice. Having LED uplights and lasers too makes things very interesting. I tell you what, my cubicle was lit as fuck cause I had ALL the toys. =)
So yea, I would really look to figuring out your temperament and personality traits. I've made my career work for me in that way. Truth be told, nothing of what I write here is the highest and best use of my talents and interests—but it was a starting point and I'm still working at it. I was busy fighting for my life with my family in my late teens and early 20s, college was an afterthought. I was a bit of an academic prodigy as a child but my family's insanity and instability fucked me up solidly. It took me my entire 20s to leave them and build a life. So yea, it doesn't have to be perfect. Just start.
Look into the big 5 personality test. I hate a love/hate relationship with Dr. JBP, but I gotta give him credit, he leads the field on the Big 5 personality test that he and his team perfected. Yea, if you use discount code: Jocko or Rogan or JRE — you'll get a slight discount, it's like $15-20. Worth it. 100%. Then look up jobs based on that. Myers-Briggs personality test is bullshit because there are no wrong answers. Trust me, in the business world, there are absolutely bad set ups to avoid at all costs. I'm very fluid myself but I still come back to my core instincts. Like one thing Big Five measures that MTBI doesn't even contemplate is neuroticism. People react to stress and tribulation differently. You need to know. Hell, I gate it to an ex-girlfriend once. She came back with like 5% consciousness. She was the absolutely bottom rung. I was like wtf. Well, this girl later I nuked from orbit after she cheated on me and covered it up. She committed 6 figure medical fraud at work and was hiding an alcohol addiction + a heavy rotation of SSRI's. Yea, I noped away and exposed her to her family. She doubled down on the cheating even in front of her grandma. I was like fuck, there's no hope for you if you're gonna lie to your 88 year old grandma who loves me to death.
Hell, one other idea I found was I noticed a very interesting total lack of mobile public notaries in my area. Which seems improbable given the density of talent and all (SF Bay Area.) Well, I see a market niche. It costs no bucks to get started and I can get $15/per signature and also charge a fee for being a mobile notary. Hell, I can do that. =) More money for silver and gold.
If I could pick a trade, I would do locksmithing. It has a lot of overlap with IT. Think about door sensors, security, bluetooth enabled devices, etc. It's not just opening locked car doors and rekeying locks. There's a lot of technical acumen behind figuring out how things are stored under lock and key and having those assets managed digitally at scale. I fuck around with some lockpicks I got though. That is fun. =) Defeating fancy locks with the minimum of tools is very enjoyable.
I think welding is cool just cause you're fusing metal.
Plumbing is hard cause liquid shit. But the utmost respect for plumbers. Plumbers have saved more lives than doctors. When everyone was panicking for toilet paper in the spring time, I was like, freaking amateurs... I was worried about sewage options if the water mains stopped pumping.
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Get a cdl and drive a ready-mix truck. Shave, dress appropriately, hopefully, you're in somewhat decent shape and not a slob -appreance matters.
Bring your a game to the interview and hopefully someone gives you a shot. That would be the easiest way in my mind to a decent middle-class life. Get your foot in the door and other possibilities will happen.
Bring your a game to the interview and hopefully someone gives you a shot. That would be the easiest way in my mind to a decent middle-class life. Get your foot in the door and other possibilities will happen.
Australia Sucks
Kingfisher
Renotime I can tell you in Australia from my experience working in hardware stores and others types of business that use wooden pallets that pallet flipping businesses do exist in Australia but they are not as profitable and are more of a side gig.
One place I worked one of the truck drivers had a pallet flipping side business and would take the empty pallets every few months (for free). He would then repair the pallets himself (some needed repairs and others did not) and resell them. The thing is though there is no regular massive pallet supply because in Australia businesses receive the majority of their stock on the resuable blue CHEP or red LOSCAM pallets which continuously get sent back to the warehouse to be reloaded and when required are repaired by CHEP or LOSCAM.
For example lets say you work in a large hardware store that receives an average of 60 pallets of stock per week. There might be for example 55 LOSCAM pallets which get sent back on the delivery trucks and 5 of the plain pallets that they will give away for free to whoever wants them. So in reality a truck driver could for example do one run per fortnight driving around to all of the local business and collecting the free pallets. In summary in Australia if you already own a truck a pallet flipping side business could earn you some extra cash on the side 2 or 3 days per month but its not a viable main business.
One place I worked one of the truck drivers had a pallet flipping side business and would take the empty pallets every few months (for free). He would then repair the pallets himself (some needed repairs and others did not) and resell them. The thing is though there is no regular massive pallet supply because in Australia businesses receive the majority of their stock on the resuable blue CHEP or red LOSCAM pallets which continuously get sent back to the warehouse to be reloaded and when required are repaired by CHEP or LOSCAM.
For example lets say you work in a large hardware store that receives an average of 60 pallets of stock per week. There might be for example 55 LOSCAM pallets which get sent back on the delivery trucks and 5 of the plain pallets that they will give away for free to whoever wants them. So in reality a truck driver could for example do one run per fortnight driving around to all of the local business and collecting the free pallets. In summary in Australia if you already own a truck a pallet flipping side business could earn you some extra cash on the side 2 or 3 days per month but its not a viable main business.