Professional success relates to more than education and a large salary. If you want to enter senior positions, secure promotion after promotion, and develop a positive reputation, it helps to be a people person.
Your outgoing nature, gift of the gab, and genuine interest in others will help you form stronger professional relationships, make a positive first impression, and improve trust in your knowledge and skills.
If you have a friendly nature or love helping people, you can choose from many occupations to match your personality and professional goals. Here are seven careers to consider if you want to work with people.
Sales
If you class yourself as an extrovert, you could enjoy much success in sales. Your outgoing nature and gift of the gab can make cold-calling easy, and you could strike up strong relationships with customers from a first meeting.
If you are not afraid of small talk with new people and are willing to work hard for a superb commission, sales could be a natural fit for your personality. Your gift for socializing could help you become a business asset and allow you to enjoy much job security throughout your career.
Nursing
If you prefer a career that helps people each day, nursing could be your calling. As a nurse, you will need to care for many patients daily, as well as communicate clearly with senior management and colleagues. Most successful nurses have exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, and can handle complex situations with a tactful, friendly, and positive demeanor.
Plus, there is no ceiling to the success you can enjoy in nursing, as there are many paths for progression, which will allow you to meet many new people throughout your career. For instance, registered nurses can complete a DNP family nurse practitioner track to provide care in underserved populations, improve patient outcomes for individuals and communities, and become inspiring nursing leaders.
A Public Relations Specialist
Public relations specialists must have exceptional communication skills, as they will need to speak face-to-face in the role. If you choose to enter the profession, you will communicate with various media outlets regularly on behalf of an organization or individual.
As a public relations specialist, one day, you might attempt to sell a product to media outlets on behalf of a client, and the next, you might need to improve or maintain a public figure’s positive image.
Therefore, you will need to develop strong professional relationships across the media, such as forming friendships with journalists, editors, bloggers, producers, and influencers. When you are not busy holding meetings or making calls to media officials, you will need to organize interviews, develop press kits, and work on expanding your network. It is the perfect career for extroverts who love meeting new people and aren’t afraid of responsibility.
Teacher
If you want to enter a professionally and personally fulfilling career, teaching is a worthwhile consideration for those who want to help people. You will use your interpersonal and communication skills to convey your knowledge and understanding to impressionable students. Your teaching style could help students develop a passion for a subject, which inspires them to work harder and smarter throughout education.
When you are not busy guiding students to academic success, you will need to work in harmony with other educators, talk to students’ parents or guardians, and meet with social workers or superintendents. It is an ideal occupation for those who love to talk to people of all ages and want to make a positive difference in others’ lives.
Flight Attendant
If you want to travel the world for a career and meet new people from many backgrounds along the way, consider a career as a flight attendant. You will spend your working life 30,000 feet in the air, traveling to interesting or beautiful destinations.
It is a perfect career path for positive, friendly, and hard-working people who have exceptional communication skills. As you will be a face of an airline, you must have a trustworthy, professional, helpful demeanor and an ability to diffuse frustration or conflict during travel.
Human Resources Professional
Human resources professionals will serve as the communication link between a business owner and their many employees. People skills will serve you well in this role, as you must interact with staff members and management daily.
When you are not busy answering employees’ questions about their position, working life, or legal rights, you may need to diffuse conflicts, create policies, recruit talent, facilitate training, or handle personnel issues.
However, the job will require you to manage many temperaments each day, as you may need to handle employee conflicts, bullying claims, insubordinate acts, suspensions, and terminations.
Event Planner
If you love to chat with new people, possess exceptional organization skills, and have great attention to detail, you might find an event planning career gratifying. You will first need to convey trust to a client and prove you are the right person to plan an event, which is where your strong people skills will come in.
Once you secure a client, you will need to work with various vendors and support staff to create impressive parties or events that have the wow factor. If a career as a professional event planner sounds ideal, you must demonstrate exceptional organizational and leadership skills to prospective clients.
Conclusion
If you want to put your people skills to good use throughout your career, the above occupations might be a perfect fit for your personality. Thanks to your way with words and ability to form friendships, you could quickly build connections with people of different ages and backgrounds, which will make you a company asset.
Of course, each career listed will have different responsibilities and requirements, which you must consider before picking an occupation. Compare a job’s requirements against your personality, personal goals, and abilities to ensure you choose the right option for your needs, skills, and desired work-life balance.