The Best Must-Have Jobs For Introverts
*Asterisks set out in this article relate to advertising and they indicate that the author receives a small share of sales through the related link.*
Shout out to my fellow introverts…I know how you feel.
There are jobs that you can do from home, that I will share with you in this article – the best, fun, well paid ones that I have done and love.
After a few years of working from home after having a baby, I’ve got even worse and just want to stay in my pyjamas in my house typing away at my keyboard and not having to make small talk with anyone.
Isn’t small talk the worst? It’s crazy to think that when you work a typical 9-5 job, the majority of time that you spend with people, is with your colleagues.
You spend more time with your work colleagues than with your partner, family or friends! If you are lucky, you will work with some amazing people, but unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case for many that I hear complaining about their colleagues or manager.
What about those of you out there who suffer from anxiety or depression, and literally cannot stick to a rigid schedule every day, but have a lot of days where you are full of energy and enthusiasm for doing some work?
I personally got an extra part-time job in an office when my daughter started school, but it was for the simple reason of earning some extra money (although I did want to get out of the house, as I was beginning to forget how to have adult conversations!).
I am incredibly lucky in that the people that I work with are lovely and make working there much more enjoyable! It does help that it’s part-time of course, but they let me pick my hours and are very flexible, which I am eternally grateful for.
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My dream though, is to make a consistent, reliable income that would mean that I would no longer need to work there and could work purely from home.
Since starting blogging, and other money-making means, I have earned more money than I previously thought was possible and used it to pay off my debt, afford some treats for myself and start to grow some savings.
However, it is not consistent enough for me at the moment to rely on – there are others who have quit their jobs and gone the whole hog into their blogs or business, and whilst I would love to do that, I don’t have the support system in place, and I have anxiety about not having enough money again as I did in the past.
If you are feeling any of these same feelings, don’t worry – you definitely aren’t alone!
There is absolutely nothing wrong with being an introvert – and more and more people are starting to ‘confess’ that they are one, and just don’t like being around other people all of the time.
It can be draining, and you need time to recharge.
With this in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to think of some job ideas for my fellow introverts to do.
Blogger
Of course, I had to include blogging! It is a booming business, with literally millions of people running blogs nowadays, and yes, some may be more successful than others, but that doesn’t mean that your new blog couldn’t join them one day.
I adore blogging, and I recommend it to everyone, simply because I wish that I had started sooner, and I know that 99.9% of other bloggers wish that they had too.
It has such a small start-up cost with the potential to earn you a lot down the line.
Bloggers make money from a variety of means, but it generally boils down to:
- Affiliate marketing. This is basically where a product is recommended, and if a reader clicks through and purchases, you get a commission of the sale.
There are a variety of things that you can recommend, such as clothes if you are a fashion blogger, money making sites if you are a personal finance blogger (hello!), baby toys if you are a parenting blogger, baking utensils if you are a food blogger…etc.
You can either sign up with a company direct (just google the company name and ‘affiliate’ or they may have it at the bottom of their site) or you can sign up to affiliate companies that have thousands for you to share.
An example is Awin* which has tons of brands such as Asda George*, Missguided* and many more. - Sponsored posts. I see so many bloggers do really well with sponsored posts – especially parenting or fashion bloggers – but these are of course open to all bloggers.
A sponsored post is where a company pays you to write about them. You can either contact them yourself if you have an idea for a post, or they will contact you.
There are networks that you can join such as Get Blogged*. - Adverts. Putting ads on your site is an easy thing to do to generate money from early on, but you will need to have a lot of page views in order to earn a decent amount just from ads.
Popular networks for beginner bloggers are Google Adsense and Media.net. Once you get over certain page view thresholds, you can start to apply for bigger ad networks such as Mediavine.
It’s unlikely, but not unheard of, that you will earn money in your first month blogging. For me personally, I added an affiliate link in my 2nd month and I made my first commission from that in my 3rd month – with little promotion or effort to do this. I was quite shocked, to be honest!
Blogging can definitely be a slow burner, but if you work hard on it and are focusing on creating helpful content and a community, the money will come.
There is a consensus that you need millions of page views to make money, but that is not true.
Of course it helps, and the more people to your site the better (especially from an ads point of view) – but there is no point in having all of that traffic if no-one is buying anything from you.
Freelance Writing
This sounds awfully similar to blogging I know, but please bear with me! If you set up and run your own blog, this is an excellent advertisement for your writing skills, but it is not essential to becoming a freelance writer.
You can still set up your own website for freelancing only and advertise on social media too.
To get started with freelance writing, you will need a portfolio of work, so it may be worth writing some guest posts for relevant sites, and making sure that you write stellar content for them, as you will be using this to show off your skills.
If you are waiting to find jobs from the websites/brands that you have in mind already, you can boost your income by signing up to freelance writing job sites – they are not very highly paid but they can keep you going financially whilst working towards the higher paying jobs.
Check out these sites to start off with:
Social Media Manager
Before I started blogging, I had no idea that this was a thing, and such a big industry to boot! When you have a blog of your own, you will quickly realise how much you have to do if you want to be successful.
The general rule is that you spend 20% of your time creating content (writing blog posts for example) and the other 80% promoting your content. The main way of promoting your content is by sharing on social media.
There are lots of different social media sites that bloggers use to promote their content, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, Flipboard, and many more.
All of these sites are quite fast moving (especially Twitter) and therefore require you to be on them a lot if you want your content to be seen.
If you are starting out blogging on the side like most people do, it can be hard to find the time in your schedule to fit this all in, as well as writing and networking, so it helps to have some help!
Have a read through this article about how to become a virtual assistant.*
Once you start blogging more seriously/spending even more time on it (for example if you go full time blogging) you will find that surprisingly, you have even less time to spend on social media each day, as blogging is something where you learn new things to do and try every day (which is great, but you can end up never getting stuff done!), so having a social media manager is something very helpful, and you will find the majority of the ‘top’ bloggers will have some help.
If you wish to be a social media manager, you don’t need to have a blog of your own, but it will certainly help.
You can showcase your skills to other bloggers, and they will especially be interested if you are skilled at growing followers or click-throughs on particular sites – especially the elusive Pinterest.
You could set up your own blog specifically dedicated to your social media management services, and offer them out in a non-spammy way in blogging Facebook groups.
Another term for a social media manager is a virtual assistant. If you want to find out more about how to become a virtual assistant, check out How To Become a Virtual Assistant*.
Airbnb Host
Currently, there are 2.9 million hosts on Airbnb worldwide, with an average of 800,000 stays per night. It’s safe to say that Airbnb is popular, and if you have a spare room you could be earning lots of extra cash.
Not only that, but you could rent out your whole property, or buy properties with the intention of renting them out.
This is great for introverts because there is minimal interaction on your part as the host – you just need to make sure that you have a clean, welcoming space for your guests to stay in.
Sign up to Airbnb today to get started hosting (or to find a place to stay yourself!)
Cleaner
Cleaning is a perfect job for introverts because you don’t have much – if any – social interaction, and can just get on with the job in hand.
You will have specific things to clean each day, and as long as you do a good job, you shouldn’t have much interaction with anyone else in the company.
Look for cleaning jobs on job sites such as Gumtree or Indeed – I see them all the time – and actually the company that I work for part-time employ a lot of cleaners and there is high turnover – so cleaning jobs are always available.
If you don’t want to work for a company, you could start up your own cleaning business, but this will probably mean a lot more interacting with potential and current clients, as well as anyone that you employ.
It all depends on the level that you are happy with, but if you work for a company as an employee, it can be a great job for you. There are some cleaning jobs that are very well paid if you look out for them.
Dog Boarder
Dog boarding is something that I do on the side, and I love it. You do have to obviously meet people beforehand, and when they drop off and pick up their dog, but there is minimal interaction required – they just want to meet you and check that your house is ok for their dog before committing.
You don’t have to be overly loud or confident – as long as they can see that you are a nice person and love dogs, you are good to go.
I have a post where I talk through how I get my work*, and it can be a job where you make a lot of money. I’ve heard people be surprised when I’ve said that, but if you are able to take more than one animal at a time, and are good at what you do, you can command high rates.
When people see that you do a good job with their animals, they will also be happy to book you in for repeat visits in the future. I love it so much when people come back to me!
What a perfect job though, don’t you think? Looking after gorgeous dogs all day, what could be bad about that?!
As well as dog boarding you could also offer services like dog sitting, dog walking, cat sitting, small animal care. If you are doing it full time, you could offer them all together!
Transcriber
This is something that I want to look into myself because it would work perfectly for me as something that I can do from home.
Transcribing is the practice of writing out what people are saying – so like when you are watching a TV programme with the subtitles on, that is done by a transcriber.
There is a free 7-day email course that you can sign up to, to get started. Click here to sign up.*
Gardener
Again, this is something that can be perfect if you don’t necessarily like dealing with other people all day long and means that you can be outside and doing a creative job.
The company that I work for also employ gardeners who we rarely see, because they are busy doing their job and it doesn’t require them to pop into the office often.
Gardening is something that can be highly lucrative as well, if you are good at it. Make sure that you enjoy gardening before starting though! It can be hard manual labour at times, but also enjoyable in terms of designing and looking after peoples gardens.
Affiliate Marketer
Have you heard of affiliate marketing before? If not, you may have heard of referrals.
Affiliate marketing is when you recommend a product or service to someone, and if they use your link or code to sign up you will get a commission from the company to say thank you for pointing that customer in their direction.
It’s important to only promote things that you know are good, and you can use real-life experiences, such as if I said to you I have just finished reading the book She Means Business* and I love it – I recommend it to any woman who is starting or wanting to grow a business. Get your copy by clicking here*.
This is an example of affiliate marketing, because I have recommended a product to you and included my affiliate link. I do actually love the book by the way!
To do affiliate marketing successfully, you will need to set up a website and research the best affiliate networks for your niche. To get you started I recommend:
- Awin
- Max Bounty
- Impact Radius
One of my fellow money bloggers earns a lot of money with affiliate marketing, and has a course to help you learn her tips and secrets for making money with affiliate marketing*.
What job would you recommend for an introvert?
Ways To Make Extra Money Now:
- Start a blog with Siteground! This can start off as a fun side hustle, and have the potential to turn into a huge full-time income (which is still fun!). Yes, you CAN make money blogging, and it’s the best thing that I ever did. To get started, read my post How To Start a Blog.
- Answer simple questions on survey sites! This is a really easy money earner and I love it because I do it when I don’t need to really think too much e.g. Netflix on in the background. Sign up to the best survey sites over here.
- Matched Betting – you don’t need to be good at maths, it’s not gambling, it’s tax-free, it can be done at any time of day and earn you thousands extra per month. All explained here and you can sign up to my favourite site that will guide you through the steps.
- Mystery Shopping – I always thought these were a scam or a pain to do until I got started! Since then, the free food and other items (e.g. clothes for me and my daughter) have convinced me otherwise! My favourite legit sites are rounded up for you here.
Absolutely interesting, thanks for sharing!
Thanks!
This is so me. I’m a complete introvert at times. I do work from home in my actual paid job and I’m so thankful for that, they keep banging on about team building meetings though, I’m really hoping they don’t actually do it!
Haha! What’s your job?
Fellow introvert here! Great suggestions. I’d probably also suggest something in the arts like photography or making videos. I’ve come across a lot of people who would probably never talk to you in public but – man- can they take / edit some great looking photos!
That is a good idea! My friends husband is an amazing editor.
I have an online acquaintance that makes six figures blogging. She did exactly what you recommend. She guest posted for like a year to build a portfolio, and also had her own money blog during this year of guest posting, anyway she now makes six figures blogging. So you’re right the opportunities are out there. ^_^
You’re so right Lila!
Love this! Social media manager would be a fab job for me! And totally workable. I’m onethat struggles with anxiety and let things get to me that is totally out of my control and if I don’t have structure I’m done!! that’s why I started blogging; aomething I had control of and me and only me effected me (if that makes sense!) love the idea of social media manager tho!
Yep it totally does, I know a couple of bloggers who started because of their anxiety. It can be so flexible which is the best thing. Lots of bloggers offer social media management on the side – you should definitely go for it! 🙂