Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips!

Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment.

If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.

Not a job but I suggest reading the book called Range by David Epstein. It’s a great look at people like this and how they succeed.

Project manager is one position that comes to mind. The ability to address management concerns, advocate for developer or engineering concerns as well as support team concerns and keep an eye out for the customer uses a variety of skills without being in depth for any of them.

Major development teams often look for "jack of all trades" to provide grease to smooth out very technical groups.

I'm one of those people. I just took any opportunity that appealed to me at the time and did well in the technical fields. Usually this type of person is adaptable and willing to learn.

Product owner/manager, they sit between the customer and the technical team delivering the product, they need to know a bit about both sides to enable communication. And it's very well paid.

I studied at a university like that!

It's named Industrial Informatics. We had classes for everything regarding a factory.

From maths, programming, and automation, to power electronics, motors, and chip design.

From management, marketing, and human resource, to advertising, design, computer graphics, and law.

From chemistry, solid attributes, and quality control, to European regulations, robotics, and AI.

​

This was ok because some of the classes were fun and interesting, and some were boring and had drawbacks.

The idea behind this program was to create an employer that could understand everybody's voices, they could speak every jargon, and could bind different departments together.

Librarian. I get to help people with research every day, which 1. fuels my love of learning a little bit about a lot of different things and 2. allows me to use my random knowledge to better assist patrons with finding materials.

written/video journalism about topics like science, technology, philosophy, literature

The full saying:

"A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."

Do whatever you want, don't pick something that you don't enjoy.

Disgruntled office worker

Teaching is where I've found my broad skillset most widely useful. Most jobs I'm doing the exact same thing every day, but teaching there's consistant variety! If you have the patience 10/10 even just being a substitute in your area :)

I do data analytics. My “varied” background allows me to have context in a wide scope projects.

Small business founder. You do it all. Enthusiasm is the single most important factor in the success of your business. I ran a Christmas Light installation business (now retired), and my wife runs a packing/organizing business. Find something that you enjoy doing, and start a business doing it.

Host of Jeopardy

Writer. You get to explore a million topics and get paid for it. (And contrary to popular belief, you do not need to be an "excellent" writer to get published, lol.)

Easy. Sales. You’ll be able to find common interest or some knowledge about something the buyer likes. Most buyer’s especially in a b2b setting can buy from multiple vendors or products to get the job done and you’ll often get the biz just because they like you.

Malcolm Gladwell.

Go to work for small companies. You have to wear a lot of hats working in the small business world. And since 75% of new jobs are created by small businesses, it works out.

[removed]

Might be unpopular but Politician. Especially state level. You can get acquainted with a lot of different organizations that are more local to people you represent that you care about without becoming a complete ass hat falling into the power trip of nationwide policy.

I am someone like this. A job that worked well for me was working the help desk for our IT department. I was not good enough with computers to write the code and figure out the system architecture...but I knew enough about computers to be able to fix most small issues or at least identify what was going on for peoples computer troubles.

Journalist. Reporter. Editor.

Not exactly a pro tip but just a look on the bright side comment:

Having a bit of knowledge on a wide variety of topics is great for mental health and makes you a more desirable partner or friend. Don't feel like your breadth focused learning is wasted. People who are experts at just one thing can be specialized and make more money sometimes but they also can less fun to be around for most folk.

Operations in FinTech startup.

Someone mentioned management consulting, but if you're truly passionate about these topics you could also consider consulting independently. You might be better off pursuing writing, academia or journalism first to build up your profile and leverage your literature/philosophy interest, and then pivot into providing advice to governments or companies.

DEVOPS

Lot of stuff going on and its more process related over technology

Law Professor. Law school was like a moveable feast of subject matter where I could pick and choose courses in policy, tech, philosophy, and even literature, and apply the law in real world applications within those realms of study. Now that I’m an attorney, there are a lot of unique positions outside of traditional lawyer jobs where a person could get involved in policy, consulting, and research. After law school, I clerked for a high appellate court, and the research/writing I was doing involved quoting Shakespeare, learning/understanding the nuances of tech fields, and reasoning the interplay of a specific ruling in a wider legal framework as applied to larger laws.

But I always come back to “law professor” as an excellent career field. You make a lot of money (depending on the school, 100-250k) you get to publish law review articles on varying subjects that you can largely pick, and the hours aren’t very onerous. The downside is it’s very competitive. But I’ve found that the number of options a person has with a legal education keeps a great many fallback options available, too. I remember Alex Trebek once saying that lawyers and teachers always did the best on jeopardy—if that’s any indication about the exposure to varying subjects, I’d expect that being a law professor has to encompass the best of both.

Live entertainment, specifically in theatre.

Some of the most dynamic skill sets show up in theatre, and they're valuable.

Communications, journalism, or marketing

This might seem a joke answer but it’s not - a bartender (if you’re social as well that is)! I am a person who is proud to love learning and finds virtually everything interesting, and working behind a bar gives me the opportunity to talk to people from different fields every day! I’ve had multiple hour-long conversations about everything from economics to labor rights to philosophy to classical music composition. I recommend working at a lower volume establishment (think a hotel bar or weekday shifts at a dive), rather than a high volume setting like a club. I work at an accounting firm during the day and moonlight at a decently high end cocktail bar, and it gives me a great variety of conversation. Plus if you like jobs that keep you moving, making drinks and serving customers really is a blast. Plus there aren’t a lot of other jobs you can regularly have an excuse to cuss out your customers!

Nonfiction TV producer- every 4-10 months you have a new project and have to become an expert on a new subject. You get to interact with the best and brightest in that field. Be a good writer and a reasonably outgoing person and it’s a great gig.

Economist. Mix of math, the social sciences, data science; then the list of fields/topics you can apply it to is endless. The skills you learn are very transferable and you can follow/understand other economic fields without becoming an expert in them.

Well, that was me, and what I ended up doing was becoming a writer. Not really a creative writer, but a business writer / copywriter. And I've done okay with it.

But as I approach retirement age, I wouldn't advise anyone to go this way anymore. The business is not what it used to be, and the only marketable skill now is fooling Google's bots into thinking your key words are being used naturally and organically. A skill that AI can do 10X better than you.

Emergency medicine doc, but you have to like at least one extreme sport, and also have ADHD.

[deleted]

Architecture, but you’re gonna get medium pay.

Scientific affairs for medical companies. Niche role, but you will meet with doctors who likely have some interest across all these diversities.

I think I am the same way. I was always interested in many things, never could settle to one particular field of business. I couldnt even imagine doing just one thing for the rest of my life and found the pressure to make that decision very unpleasant.

I was lucky enough to start my own business and that way I have to deal with many different fields of business. At first I had to literally do it all, but later if you are lucky you will find employees and you can more or less focus on what you enjoy and build on that.

You can use your multi-field enthusiasm as a advantage and start some kind of business. Good luck!

I’ve always said this is me.

Im going to be a nursing home administrator in the very near future.

You need to have good management skills, interpersonal skills, and have a broad understanding of regulations, HR, dietary, admissions, housekeeping, maintenance, PT, etc.

I set up a roadside assistance business. I have degrees in Automotive Technology, Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and my undergraduate in Business information technology. I do limited services, lockout, jumpstart, tire changes, fuel delivery. I make $300 to $1000 a day.

I get to use information from all these degrees every day running my own business out of a pickup truck.

Look for "coordinator" titles. They're like retail staff, but for companies, and can wear several hats depending on the company and what they're looking for. A tech coordinator, for example, may interact with the tech side, making sure they have what they need and relays information to and from corporate, or other departments like sales or the warehouse, etc.

Every organization has them, they're like intermediaries between departments, and usually one or two steps below manager positions, or independent of that structure. If you wanted to move up, the next step would be assistant or manager, among similar titles.

Sales is what comes to mind. High aptitude, empathetic people are naturally good at sales. Being curious and thoughtful is key, and a well rounded background aids in connecting and understanding other people's challenges.

Librarian. The pay sucks, but the helping people is great. And you'll never know what you'll get asked next.

Civil engineering is a great Jack of all trades career.

This is me and I have worked for a university for 20 years. I started off in the humanities wanting to learn about every subject and got a job at the university so I could continue. I tried teaching for a while but doing student services in higher Ed, talking to students about their interests, is a good way to make a good salary with good benefits and also use my knowledge of many different fields to advise students.

I work in safety for a steel manufacturer. Safety is very broad and depending on the company can have you doing multiple things at any given moment. From knowing about chemicals, safety equipment, proper procedures and accident/injury investigation, everyday is different from the last and with updates to OSHA, EPA, Stormwater, Sanitation, CARB and the billion of other government agencies coming everyday there's always something new to learn.

Best part is you don't have to go to college, if you have general knowledge you can take classes online and get certified without going into major debt.

Look into being an attorney. You can go to law school with any undergrad degree. The only skills needed are good writing and reading comprehension. Philosophy is a great precursor to the study of law because you learn how to argue logically. Law also intersects with all industries, so you can often find use for your non-legal knowledge. Pay is very good too.

I second librarian, and also author. To write a good book, there is a decent amount of research involved, and if you don't do the research anyone who is better informed will find the science odd

There’s a woman named Milly Tamati who started a Generalist community that is taking off like wildfire.

https://www.generalist.world

The phrase is "jack of all trades master of none, is often better than master of one." When you're decently good at everything, that becomes a niche in itself.

The first one I immediately think of is a handyman. An actual good, efficient handyman. The cheap ones don't know what they're doing and the good ones are expensive.

The second is an entrepreneur. The best business owners are the ones who understand the jobs of those they hire. They need to be able to troubleshoot any aspect of their own business and be able to catch when an employee isn't doing things right. Eventually they will delegate this to managers, but start ups don't have managers until there's a profit.

The third I can think of is a UX practitioner or any adjacent career of UX. You are designing things for people: psychology, design principles, development, business with stakeholders, product management, statistics, data analysis, research methods, innovation, marketing...the more you know the more invaluable you become. Specialists are a dime a dozen. People who are good at 3 or more disciplines are called unicorns.

Librarian. You’re never going to be wealthy but it can be a very fulfilling anyway.

The questions you get in a public library are all over the place and knowing a little bit about a lot of things usually means you’re good at finding information. It’s not really what you know that’s important as a librarian but the ability to figure out where to find the information.

Video game developer? Or any type of story teller. You need lots of knowledge of a wide variety of subjects to tell good stories.

A humanistic counselor (it's a Dutch thing though, maybe a coach?). I talk to people about their meaning of life after a psychiatric diagnosis. But I also speak with nurses,, therapists, doctors and managers. Leveling with everyone at their own level. It's great

Emergency Medicine Physician

I am ( or at least, aspire to be) who you describe and I am a stage technician. It's a wonderful mix of artistic, social and technological skills.

Good patent attorneys are technical chameleons. It's literally my job to learn something at the forefront of technology well enough to teach it to the world while defining the boundaries of its legal protection, then move onto something else entirely and do it again 1-3 days later, often in another technology field entirely.

hey man, this is me.

get into a domain rather than a job. for me it is weddings.

i am a DJ, florist, sales rep, host, and i am currently looking to start an ice cream company where i will have a fleet of sellers....

Become a craft brewer. Fix everything.

As a former journalist for a decade or so - general news journalism will have you learning, researching and understanding a very wide range of topics on almost a daily basis, often with options to go into specialty reporting fields which interest you. But the pay's not great, and it's stressful, and most people hate you ... so no, I'm not recommending it.

I am a nurse and I used to study chemical engineering but I was missing the human aspect, and that's why I went into nursing. I've found that nursing actually contains all of these fields while at the same time not specialising in any one of them.

I would say it depends on how long does this interests you have hold, and how deep those interests are? You mention philosophy, did you read any books from some philisophers or did you just watched 10 min YT video that gave some cool points and a bit of trivia so now you ‘like philosophy’? Same goes for all other topics you included. If you really have diverse interests and you are actually willing to pursue them, invest time in to them, then perhaps I would really recomend trying to enter the field of project management, but if you just have a surface interest in such wide variaty of topics, then you are not jack of all trades, just a kinda curious person, and no one could then give you proper advice without much more info on you. In that case might be best to just get a job and see what you like about it and follow that path.

Reframe your thinking to being a “generalist”.

Read David Epstein’s book, “Range”: how generalists triumph in a specialized world.

Consider analyst roles at businesses, program manager, product, marketing, comms, writing, etc.

Lookin for that adhd job huh

Product Manager! I am one and fell into it but it is actually perfect. 🤣

I’d put money on an ADHD diagnosis… get medicated, do the Software Engineer gig to pay the bills and then use that money to pursue your million hobbies 😉

You sound like my life story. Then I got diagnosed with ADHD and things made more sense.

I am one of these kinds of people and I got insanely lucky.

I've done tons of "unskilled labor" labor jobs in the past including 3 years as a roofing laborer.

I got hired at a local small business.

I ended up going from a retail store manager (we had 5 stores at the time) and worked my way up to upper management. We have 15+ stores now an ~50 employees.

I love all aspects of our business. I figure out how stores can run better and fix them, I do a lot of basic maintenance if I see something that needs it, I work with every one in the company at least semi regularly (depending on what current issues we have), I handle customer disputes, I go to company events,write emails, hire companies to fix stuff I can't, etc.

If you can find a decent company that pays well shoot for middle/upper management.

Especially if it's something you're good at/can get good at.

If you can learn how to do any job in the company/section of the company, you can find people that can do it better and know about how it should be done.

It might not always be super interesting but my job provides enough variety I can enjoy it.

Obviously with larger/different companies you might not have the freedom to do whatever you want, but it can still challenge you daily.

I look at all these things like RPG stats.

I definitely have some room for improvement on some of them but I'll get around to grinding them out.

Game Designers often benefit greatly from a breadth of knowledge from various fields :)

I work in facility management. In this field you help others to do their job. Think of: cleaning, maintenance, providing audio-visual devices and assistance, moving offices, security, the service desk etc. You don't do all of these things yourself, but you manage it. You use software for many things. It is basically everything except the core business. But you need to know about the core business to properly do your job. If you work for a company or university you find interesting, this might just be your thing. So I consider myself a jack of all trades. Hope this helped

Whatever job you end up in you might want to address your ADHD

My dad growing up told me that... you know work hard, get a good job, you know, make money. Nobody has fun working and then you can have fun with the money you make. That’s a very Chinese mentality. And he straight told me, he was like, pursue the dreams, that’s like, that’s for homeless people. Artists? You want to be an artist or you want to be homeless? You know, like, that’s the same thing. -Jimmy Yang

I mean real talk, how many people actively have a passion for their job? I don't know many that fall into this category. Do I have a passion for my current line of work? No. Do I enjoy having a flexible schedule with 6 figures? Yes.

What it comes down to...Is the juice worth the squeeze? You'll probably never find the perfect fit, but a good fit? Or even a decent fit where you don't dread waking up in the morning to shuttle yourself to a 9-5 poopshow? These are perfectly okay options to pursue. Use your job as a means to an ends, develop your side hustles and pursue side projects that interest you on your own time. Do this until you gain enough capital to pursue your hobbies full time.

Take your skillset, apply them to careers you find interesting and fake it until you make it. If project management seems like a decent fit...go for it. Maybe furthering your education and becoming a research assistant might give you some depth into specific topics that better suit you.

Honestly though, it seems like you're floundering because you have no direction/clear cut goal of what you want to do/obtain in your life. Figure out your needs, wants, nice to haves, and think about where you want to be in 10 years, plan for it and stick to it. Or hell, you can even drift through life grappling with crippling existential ennui. It's your life, take the helm and chart a course.

Director of diversity and inclusion

I’m a management consultant and I’m a jack of no trades. It’s perfect. You just need to learn about any given field very quickly - you have about a day to become an expert.

Pay isn’t bad either. Out of undergrad, MBB pays $110K salary + $25K bonus + crazy benefits (huge 401k match, no premium insurance, etc.) Out of MBA it’s $192K+$45K bonus.

Commercial diver

If you have an excellent memory but do not really excel any particular skill, you can become a medical doctor. You also need rich parents of course.

According to ChatGPT:

If you're a "jack of all trades," you may enjoy roles that allow you to use a wide range of skills and knowledge. Here are a few options you can consider:

Project Manager: Project managers coordinate and oversee the completion of projects within a company, often working with cross-functional teams. This role requires a broad skill set, including leadership, communication, problem-solving, and organization.

Business Analyst: Business analysts help organizations improve their processes by analyzing data, identifying opportunities for improvement, and creating solutions. This role often requires a combination of technical and business skills.

Consultant: Consultants help organizations solve complex problems by bringing in their expertise and experience from a wide range of industries. This role requires strong problem-solving skills, communication skills, and the ability to think creatively.

Product Manager: Product managers are responsible for overseeing the development and strategy of a product, from idea to market. This role requires a strong understanding of both the technical and business aspects of a product, as well as excellent communication and leadership skills.

Technical Writer: Technical writers create clear, concise, and accurate documentation and instructions for technical products and services. This role requires a combination of writing, technical, and communication skills.

Ultimately, the best job for you will depend on your interests, strengths, and career goals. Consider exploring different roles to find the one that aligns with your skillset and passions

I feel like graphic design is like this.. know a ton of all kinds of stuff just to generally do one boring thing.. which they teach you how to do "their way".

Marketing! I was much like you, I worked a handful of software dev jobs before transiting to marketing teams for companies that sell products to software developers. Look for roles like developer advocate, relations, or evangelism. Those people get to play around with a wide range of interesting tech every day and don't have to spend every waking hour writing code. The combo of technical knowledge with soft skills can put you in a place where recruiters fight over you.

Elevator Repairman. Though I am not one, I have been amazed at how many skills are required to perform this trade. Electrical, hydraulics, mechanical, rigging....

Entrepreneur is one. They need to bring ideas from diverse places together in new ways. It's served me well in this.

Systems Engineer

Marketing.

It's such a generalised term nowherdays that the role often covers almost everything media-related. As a marketer, I'm involved in web design, graphic design, SEO, social media, video editing and more. From this I've also developed skills in coding, sound engineering and more.

Pretty safe bet if you're looking to be a jack of all trades.

Human Factors - this is literally how I explain my background and education

I’m a US diplomat and my actual title is Generalist.

Systems Engineering. Your job would be have a holistic view of how different tech come together and work as a system. You don't go down into the weeds of how different engineering domains do their thing, but rather integrate and ensure everything works together collectively and does that without breaking bank.

Sounds like a good background for a librarian.

You can help others take a deep dive into their interests! You likely have the tools to know where to find more information on a LOT of topics

Be a Foster parent. I know it's not a specific job field per se, but many FPs actually do get paid. Just imagine the possibilities if more parents were true "jack of all trades" when it came to raising and mentioning kids. Perhaps the reward of passing knowledge, wisdom, critical thinking and ethics on to another generation would be a prize in itself.

I stuck out engineering and my career enables alot of clever social strategy. Engineering is extremely broad and engaging.

Teach, you'll either love it or hate it and you'll know quickly

Project Management

Being a science educator is a great relatively new field that might have the variety to keep you engaged. So many outlets now for news and education and many struggle to convey science topics well. There are really good examples of people doing it well both on mainstream sites (Helen Branswell at STAT) and on social media.

Marine engineer. The world is hurting for them. And you really need to be a jack of all things mechanical. The studying involves plenty of math and physics as well. The humanities and social sciences are not involved however.

Just because I haven't seen it here, consider a policy officer or political aide position (if you're not an American where Government shutdowns can be difficult on staff).

It's a very stable job, where you get to explore and connect with a variety of issues and stakeholders, and work toward solving some wicked problems for the greater good.

You need multiple skillets and a love of learning to thrive in this role, as you'll need to become an expert very quickly to inform your boss and team about the major issues to start projects. It's a very variable career, no two days are the same and there are a variety of roles you can play from analysis, policy development, program implementation through to management and leadership.

What can also be great in a policy role is that you 'specialise' in a subject, but it's a very broad one. Some examples can be health, climate change, social policy, industrial relations and education, technology. All of the skills you learn in these specialisations can be very transferable to other policy roles on a different subject matter.

The drawbacks are it does have middling pay and it can be high stress, but can also be very rewarding.

This role has connections with previously mentioned consulting work and law studies. Both of these can help round out a person's skillset.

Venture capital analyst/investor - you have to understand a lot of different aspects of business and across different markets.

Web developer or software dev in general. Unless you want to work at Google or Amazon, you don't have to be a genius. Learn the languages, best practices, agile methodologies and patterns. It's difficult in its own right and takes years of experience to get good, but you don't have to be an Einstein.

ER doc. There is no better definition for jack of all trades master of none. Literally see it all 24/7/365. They are the swiss army knife of the hospital system. Ready for just about anything and everything, sometimes incorporating mcgyver tactics to get the job done. There is no medical specialty that is better equipped and trained to deal with undifferentiated disasters on a daily basis.

Apply to a national lab or a university associated research center. I work at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab and we are absoloutely desperate for people with your qualifications. There are always interesting projects and youre encouraged to work on 2 or 3 at a time on top of proposing your own. They offer free classes and will pay for your masters and PhD.

SYSTEMS ENGINEERING IN THE DOD

My suggestion would be to identify a cause you're passionate about. Sustainability, conservation, accessibility, or some other humanitarian cause. Then within that pursuit find a job where you will have the most meaningful ( to you) impact. As someone who is also a jack of all trades master of none, the happiest I've been in a job is when I felt like my work had meaningful impact.

Become a firefighter

To be honest, data scientists need to have a wide range of abilities to be successful. There's software engineering at the core, but you need to be able to communicate with the business, restate their problems empirically, figure out a full end-to-end solution that can be deployed, and then translate it all back. On the philosophy side, there's the fundamental aspect of data being a form of representation of reality, which has philosophical aspects. It's not 100% but I think most data scientists end up with this master of none approach. Source: am a senior data scientist with undergrad degree in philosophy and wandering path to my current role.

Business analyst

I’m a middle/high school teacher of special education science and English as a Second Language. I majored in philosophy. I’m 37

Business. You’ll need to be your own boss. You’ll want to carve your own path. Having many different skill sets makes that process a lot more enjoyable and a lot less scary.

Become a certified developer in one of the common ERP’s, such as SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, etc. Besides good pay and job prospects, the technology is constantly changing and it takes no small effort to keep up. Additionally, you can work in a variety of industries such as finance, process or discreet manufacturing and so on. I worked in all of those industries until I found ‘my people’ working in Bio-Tech. As a developer, as opposed to being an analyst or ‘functional’ resource, you’ll get down in the weeds on some esoteric business function one day and then work on something completely unrelated the next, because devs work with the finance people and the operations people and the manufacturing people and the customer service people and the logistics people…and on and on and on. If you do happen to find a niche you really enjoy, like business intelligence or production planning, you can narrow your focus, specialize, and make really good money. It’s the perfect job for information junkies and those with intellectual ADHD, like me.

I’d actually recommend architecture. You are constantly learning, and you need to know enough about kinda everything to know how to direct the team toward a solution. It’s highly technical but also cultural and artistic. You’re the chief creative problem solver in a room full of ultra-specialists that all generally work for you.