Some of the careers in this blog might lean more towards a bit weird more than just unusual.
You never know what’s going to strike a chord and be the spark that ignites a career you’ll love. Here’s a quick read of 13 more unusual jobs you might not know exist.
Professional Cuddler
Yes, this is a real thing. You could be helping people who are struggling with loneliness, depression, past trauma, medical problems, or who are simply in need of an extra cuddle…from a stranger.
Successful professional cuddlers might build an established clientele and develop repeat business or are open to one-off cuddles. You could be carrying out multiple cuddling sessions per day. Earning anywhere between $40 to $80 per hour, the hours are flexible and you could even work from home.
Golf Ball Diver
Basically professional recyclers. Golf ball divers retrievegolf balls from bodies of water in or around golf courses. The golf balls are then then cleaned up, repackaged, and resold. You could be part of an organisation where you just turn up, dive and earn 10 cents per ball. Or you could negotiate contracts to work independently for golfcourses.
It’s not glamorous work, often involving heavy lifting and diving into murky waters filled with all kinds of hazards. The rewards? Well you could earn upwards of $100 per hour; Glen Berger claims to have made over $15 million throughout his career.
Online Dating Ghostwriter
How about working as a modern-day cupid? You could earn $900 a month by writing profiles for people to post on their online dating site profiles. Not everyone is great at writing and if you are, you could be helping your clients to increase their chances of finding their perfect match.
Hippotherapist
The literal meaning of Hippotherapy is “treatment with help of the horse”. You’d be using the therapeutic benefits of horses and their movement to help human patients to overcome speech, physical, or mental health disorders.
Experience with, and love of horses isn’t enough though. You’ll need to qualify and become licensed as a physical therapist, occupational therapist or a speech or language therapistbefore you can specialise in this field.
Professional Bridesmaid
Not a wedding planner, but similar. Not a celebrant but a major part of a couple’s big day. Friend for hire, organiser, confidant, non-complaining member of the wedding party – if you get along well with people and want to help a bride’s wedding day run smoothly, then this could seriously be a job to consider.
Read more about the job here and here.
Water Slide Tester
Water Slide Testers check to see if the water slides in resorts, theme parks and hotels are both fun and safe. Imagine how fantastic it would be turning up to work every single day.
Paper Towel Sniffer
Odour Judges or Paper Towel Sniffers (there are people on LinkedIn with this as their job title) are hired by paper towelmanufacturers. You’d be sniff testing products to check if they smell good (or not). Positions may be limited though, and in order to be competitive you’ll need to have more than just a good nose for business.
Face Feeler
Face feelers are also known as “sensory scientists”, which definitely sounds more professional. In this job you’d be using your hands to feel the difference in product testers skin both before and after they’ve used lotions, creams and other products.
Line Stander
If you’re patient or perhaps you just enjoy people watching, and you don’t mind being out in the elements, you could make line standing a side hustle that could earn you money.
Once you’re hired you could find yourself lining up waiting for the release of a movie, concert or sporting event tickets, the newest iPhone, games consoles, or anything else. You’d get paid to hold a space for someone else who’s too busy or just doesn’t want to queue themselves. There are even websites and apps available for booking these services if you want to sign up.
Bed Tester
A temporary job usually, but one that’s surprisingly not competitive, is a professional bed tester. Mattress and bedding manufacturers, bed designers and luxury hotels could require your services. You could be paid to take naps, testing out comfort levels, sleep quality, room conditions and other factors.
If this sounds like your dream career, find out more about what a job as a professional sleeper involves.
Pet Food Taster
Pet food is a multi-million-dollar industry, so it should come as no surprise then that it’s taken very seriously. It’s not just pets that are picky about what they eat, their owners are particular about the ingredients, health benefits and smell of the food they’re feeding to their beloved pets.
Working as a pet food taster you’ll have to assess products on packaging, smell, nutritional value and yes the texture and taste as well – it’s all in a day’s work.
Worm Picker
Worm pickers work in the great outdoors “hunting” and collecting earth worms. The worms could be sold directly to fishermen to use as bait, you could be contracted by fishing companies to catch and package bait, or you’d work for Universities or other institutions that use the worms for teaching and research purposes.
No qualifications are required, but if you’re paid per thousand worms collected, then there are definitely some skills and commitment required if you’d like to make a living from this job.
Gross Stunt Tester
Love watching shows like I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here or Survivor? If you’ve watched the challenges taking place and thought “I could do that” – then you might have a future as a gross stunt tester.
You’d have to prepare and test out all the challenges. It would be your responsibility to ensure tasks are safe and contain the maximum grossness factor. On the plus side, you could earn up to $800 a day, and you have to wonder if there’s really much competition for the jobs.
Want to keep reading?
If you’d like to read about other careers that aren’t all that mainstream but are a little less bizarre, check out our blog 11 Careers you may never have heard of.
Searching for inspiration about careers after school, but these outlandish options aren’t appealing, we’ve got lots more to explore on our Careers and Job Spotlight pages too.
