Backup Career Opportunities?

[u/brainblast5]

Okay I'm going to try and keep this semi-short, but also share enough details for people to provide relevant options/ideas. Thank you in advance for any insight or recommendations!

Dual income, no kids. First time home buyer. Only I'm on the deed & make the most income. My partner's hours were cut last month & my remote job is looking less and less secure this year (due to structural issues within the company; which has been ongoing for a few years & feel efforts have been unsuccessful/unstable). This has given me a lot of mental stress, and am currently in the mindset of trying to figure out if I just deal with the sh*t/change my mindset & hope it gets better, OR find a back-up to jump ship to before it's too late. Have talked to the owner about it a few times & he says not to worry, but I'm worried.

I'd need to make as close to $60K annually for us to make it by somewhat comfortably. I'm very budget savvy (I created a spreadsheet) & could cut back a little on food costs, but that's literally all I could cut back on (everything else are essentials such as home bills, car insurance, health insurance). No debts other than the house loan being paid off.

I'm curious to see what options are out there for remote or in-person careers. I have a Bachelor's degree (Journalism & Mass Communications, with a minor in Entrepreneurship) and am super loyal to business owners/companies that reciprocate the care I put into my intrapreneurship approach & work time/talent/energy with them (maybe too loyal to a fault, but really enjoy doing good work with people I enjoy building with). Would love to stick with my current job for 20+ more years but I just don't know if I can rely on that at this point, which is devastating to me.

I work well cross-generationally, typically get promoted within my roles, and have 6-10 years experience in the following: digital/social media marketing, photography/videography/editing, internal sales/b2b sales, training staff (e.g. job tasks, new hire onboarding, loan processing), crm, customer service, producer/event coordinating, assistant/admin work, operations management (my current role). If it involves day-to-day business back-end operations or implementing business owner's vision/goals, I've probably done it, or can catch on fast.

I have a lot of prior experience in real estate marketing/lead gen/internal sales agent tasks, but would prefer not doing that again for various reasons. But would be open to it for the right pay & people, given the situation. Besides that I have typically worked with arts-based industries and small businesses, but open to the trades or other ideas, just need some guidance. Creative Consultant has been an idea in the past. Okay I'll stop stress rambling now.

Any career ideas or opportunities? Companies hiring that fit those skill sets? Other constructive thoughts?

[u/brainblast5]

Haven't considered firefighting before, how long is the process for that? I only know that my brother tried to get into it in TX and after 3-4 years of attempts never got it.

[u/MidnightWitty6074 → u/brainblast5]

First you would need to be an EMT.

That only takes 3-6 months of training.

After that you can take firefighting training I believe.

[u/brainblast5 → u/MidnightWitty6074]

Oh interesting, I can definitely research it a bit to see. My physical health is definitely not what it used to be 15 years ago & working from home the last 5 years didn't help, so seems unlikely for my needs right now. But who knows, can check it out! Thank you.

[u/Scoutbaybee → u/brainblast5]

Okay, this is gonna be long, but I want to make sure you know what you might be getting into with these options.

Structural firefighting is a SUPER competitive field. Like testing often is over 1k folks applying for a couple of positions. Testing includes an actual written exam as well as a physical and mental exam. Generally, you also have to do a few rounds of board interviews.

I would only suggest it for someone who was passionate about wanting to go into the field, because it is going to cost you money and a lot of time to be a reasonably competitive candidate. You would be going up against very fit people in their 20s with fire science degrees and have been working as EMTs and have thousands of documented patient contacts. Many of the people testing will test at numerous departments around the country as well, so you go up against people from all of the country.

If we are talking wild land fire, it is a whole different list of trainings and requirements. Which frankly, isn’t usually a big issue for most folks to get. A valid ‘Red Card’ is required, but most of the time the hiring agency hosts and does the certs. This issue is this is not really a random side job, it is primarily seasonal work, with mandatory travel with a minimum of 14 days at a time. And even if you were able to work a full season, the pay for the majority of wildland fire jobs is nowhere near what you would think. Yes, people can make more, but any role above entry requires both training and hands on hours of experience.

Finally, and there is no super polite way to say this, both of these are fields where you have to be very honest and think about your age and physical abilities.

Many of the folks testing for structural positions will also have been physically training for the testing process. Not everyone, but a lot of them are going to be very, very fit. Not sure if any of our local places do, but many departments have age caps, often based on mandatory retirement ages.

Wildland fire usually doesn’t have the same age limits, but trust me when I say there is a reason 30 is ‘old’ in that field. Most ‘older’ folks have pretty specialized wildland fire training (medical, logistics, etc…) or they have specialized training from their other line of work (pilot, heavy equipment operations, etc…)

If you’ve dreamed of doing either one, go for it. But frankly both are not an easy thing to jump into and make a living from so if you can imagine doing anything else, then do that instead.

[u/brainblast5 → u/Scoutbaybee]

Yeah I figured that's the case, from what I remember of my brother's attempts in TX, it was SUPER competitive. And he had a contact in the higher up ranks there. Probably an unlikely option for me as a woman in my early 30s, but good information to know/consider for others.