Community and Social Services Careers

You love people.

Like…you really love people.

You want to spend your life caring for them, helping them, sitting there patiently listening to them while they rail on and on about their various issues...in fact, you might even love other people more than you love yourself. That number on your paycheck is some pretty hard supporting evidence.

So yeah—the question you have to ask yourself is whether that warm, full feeling you’ll have in your heart will make up for that cold, empty one you’ll feel in the pit of your stomach after your fourth night in a row of having Saltine-and-mini-cheese-wheel sandwiches for dinner.

Those in the community and social services fields are providing a valuable service, while sacrificing their own financial security and comfort, and for that reason, you might think that…at least they sleep really well at night.

But the truth is that they are exposed to a ton of heartbreaking stuff during their days. Rehab counselors hearing sob stories of addiction and walking in on patients who have O.D.’d…therapists watching (sometimes helplessly) as couples, families or marriages are being rent apart…social workers striving in vain to help underprivileged kids pull themselves out of bad situations. Yeah, the successes will make you feel darn good about yourself, but the failures will ensure that you’ll need a therapist on call for yourself as well.

The good news is that the work you do will never become obsolete. Have you, uh…met people? They have got some serious baggage. As long as we have insecurities, and doubts, and are susceptible to addiction, we’ll need certified professionals who are trained to help us cope with our problems. If we were to ever stop having problems…that could be a problem.

But no, the money ain’t great. Median salary for these people-helpers is around $40k. If you’ve got your own successful psychiatric practice, or you’re federally employed, that number will be higher; if you’re talking down troubled teens at a small-fry community center, you can expect it to be less. But…you knew that. You obviously didn’t get into the emotion-fixing business so you could afford a swimming pool in the shape of a giant dollar sign. As long as you can scrape together enough to earn a living, you’ll be content.

Well…you’ll have to be.

Careers In This Field