Make your Caring Personality Work For You
We all know that being a parent is the most rewarding, yet one of the most difficult and underpaid jobs in the world!
Perhaps you feel the time has come to get back out into the workforce and put your newly acquired parenting skills into practice? Maybe you are merely looking for something different to do on your return to work and feel this may be the perfect time to try something new?
Whatever your reason for looking into career options, it’s easy to think people with jobs they love are just lucky. They’re not. They have only worked out what type of person they are and have tailored their career choices to their personalities. How does yours match up? Well, the typical trait shared by all good parents all over the world is caring.
What exactly is a caring personality?
We all like to think of ourselves as caring yet we can all be a little selfish at time. It’s a human trait that we want to look after our self-interests. However, some people are naturally caring, naturally selfless and naturally comforting to others in their time of need. If this sounds like you, then you have a caring personality.
Caring people often work under the radar. No Beckhams or Sheeran’s here, their hard graft goes mostly unnoticed. However, these are the true heroes and deserve the recognition. Caring jobs only suit people who are naturally caring themselves, those who put others first. The good news is there are plenty of roles to suit a caring, sharing personality. The qualifications range from very little to advanced study but there plenty of websites offering advice, this one for example, and further information is available once you have decided a specific role may be just what you are looking for. Some of the roles require nothing further than a fantastic personality, dedication and perseverance.
Charity worker/fundraiser
There’s more to charity work then asking people in the street for money. From the event managers arranging fundraising opportunities to the charity workers who live in often horrendous conditions just to help others, the work is broad and varied.
A fundraising manager is responsible for raising money on behalf of organisations – often non-profit groups such as charities. It’s your job to come up with campaigns to hit the dreaded targets and then put them into action. Using a wide range of promotional ideas, you will raise money either from individuals or grants, but activities will differ depending on the size of the organisation you’re working for. You’ll need to put your heart and soul into each event to make it a complete success, but it can be incredibly rewarding given the good causes you could be helping.
What’s in It For You?
When you first start out, you can earn up to £20,000 a year; management can expect close to £28,000.
Although the work is varied, it can be tough. You can expect to put in around 40 to 48 hours a week depending and could be working evenings and weekends, too.
Am I qualified?
If you have experience or qualifications in marketing, PR or sales, you’ll stand out as a potential fundraising manager. Previous volunteer work will be helpful too though not essential. You can attend foundation courses run by The Institute of Fundraising, who will teach you the basics or study for a Certificate in Fundraising Management, which is the equivalent to an NVQ/SVQ level 4.
Carer/Care assistant
Carers are the ones to help people to do the everyday things we all take for granted like wash, go to the toilet and prepare a meal, for those people struggling to lead a healthy life, whether it’s due to illness, injury or age. It takes a particular kind of person to thrive as a carer. Your daily routine will be as varied as the needs of people you are looking after. You will often be helping people to wash and dress, eat and drink, and go about their daily activities such as shopping or filling in their forms. Care Assistants are often the first to alert nurses or doctors about new health problems.
What’s in it for you?
It’s a tough job, no two ways about it, although, for most, it is the most rewarding job in the world. It is also one that can be emotionally challenging, so you must be prepared, but you are gold-dust to your employer. As our population lives longer, there are more old people than ever before, and Care assistants are one of the UK’s listed skills shortages. The starting pay is quite low, little more than the national minimum wage of just over £7 per hour and sadly, you may feel your payment doesn’t mirror the social importance of your work. With experience and qualifications, this can rise to between £18,000 and £21,000. There are often opportunities for overtime, with shift allowance for weekends and evenings paying a slightly higher hourly rate.
Am I Qualified?
Again, for most employers, there’s no demand for academic qualifications. Personality and eagerness to take responsibility will sometimes take you further than any number of certificates. Some employers will expect you to have experience, even as a volunteer. You’ll require, at the very minimum, a DBS clearance and you will likely need a driving licence. You will be given basic induction training in health and safety, hygiene and lifting techniques and many employers will assist you in studying towards qualifications such as NVQ levels 2 and 3 in Health and Social Care.
Health worker
Health workers include nurses, doctors, healthcare assistants, and anyone else involved in the health industry. Nursing is a rewarding job in the medical sector with massive potential for progress. The pay may not always be ideal, people tend to get into these roles for humanitarian reasons, yet there’s lots of room for moving up the career ladder.
Registered nurses help everyone from newborns (and their mothers) to accident victims and the elderly, and in GP surgeries they are now a lot more involved. As a staff nurse in a hospital, you’ll work as part of a team responsible for looking after all of the needs of patients in your care, ensuring that they’re as comfortable, clean and happy as possible. You’ll be taking blood, measuring blood pressure and heart rate, giving injections, and administering any medication prescribed by the doctors, as well as keeping patients’ relatives up-to-date.
Healthcare assistants (HCAs) work in a hospital or community settings, such as GP surgeries, under the guidance of a qualified healthcare professional. You’ll work under the supervision of a qualified healthcare professional, usually a nurse. Sometimes staff working in HCA roles are known as nursing assistants, nursing auxiliaries or auxiliary nurses.
In either role, you need the skills to build relationships with your patients quickly and be observant enough to detect any changes in health. The hours can be exhausting, you will usually be required to work a shift rota, including night and weekend shifts, to provide 24-hour-care to patients and at times called upon to comfort people in pain or anguish, including grieving relatives.
The job is more of a calling than many other careers, and you do need to have to care for people genuinely. This is a tough job where you’ll face physical and emotional battles on a daily basis, and you’ll need to be prepared for almost anything.
No two days are ever the same as a nurse, and you’ll need to versatile and adaptable. The primary focus of your role is ensuring that your patients get better – and accepting that sometimes it just isn’t possible.
What’s In It For You?
Nurese are paid according to a complex NHS pay scale system. Once qualified you can expect a minimum salary of £21,000. Higher wages are available for those who opt to climb the management ladder, over £80,000 for directors of nursing.
Any form of nursing can be incredibly rewarding. Seeing patients returning to health and knowing that you contributed to their recovery is very satisfying. It’s also a very well-respected profession that most people see as being a very worthwhile career.
Am I Qualified?
To work as an NHS or Private nurse, you will have to take a relevant degree.
Individual universities set the minimum entry standards for these courses, and there will still be plenty of opportunities for people without academic qualifications but with experience working in clinical support roles to take a part-time course towards a registered nursing degree.
There are no set entry requirements to become a healthcare assistant. Employers expect good literacy and numeracy and may ask for GCSEs (or equivalent) in English and maths. They may ask for a healthcare qualification, such as BTEC or NVQ.
Employers expect you to have some experience of healthcare or care work. This could be from paid or voluntary work. There are sometimes apprenticeships in healthcare that can give you the knowledge to apply for HCA posts.
Dedicating your working life to helping and caring for others may never make you rich, but will enrich your life more than you could imagine.
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