Careers for a social butterfly

Working with people = eventual burnout. It's pretty inevitable. But the question is - how worth it is it to you? I'm a strong introvert and a high school teacher. The energy expense is totally with the student connection. YMMV

You would be surprised to hear this, but my job as a lawyer fits a lot of what you are looking for. To be fair, I am not a litigator - I don't go into court. I do administrative law helping clients before various agencies. I have lots of personal contact (usually via phone) and have been called on to be a combination of social worker, cheerleader, fire-lighter, etc. I really love what I do because I get to help people but I don't have to be on with people all of the time. I get to use my brain alot and be creative and I also get to hear all kinds of interesting stories (but usually not very depressing ones). Fits me pretty well.

I worked in a salon way back, and was very impressed by the nurturing/caring personalities of many of the massage therapists and estheticians - the really good ones had a true gift for the kind of customer interaction you're describing. You'd have to be interested enough in the field to get the training, but the courses are only about 3-6 months, I think. (There are probably lots of other fields that involve similar one-on-one with clients, this is just what sprung to mind.)

Are you willing to invest in further education? If the answer is yes, then maybe you could consider a career in nursing. There are countless paths within the field to explore (so as to avoid burnout) and you get all sorts of social interaction while helping people in the process. I'm smack in the middle of nursing school now and loving it (switched from a career in IT.) My clinical shifts at the hospital already surpass my happiest moments at a desk job.

You might like an industrial sales job. Your abilities to work with people would be valued, and the intensity of the job is "episodic," meaning you are not always "on," "on" being reserved for actual client interactions and meetings. Product training, client preparation, research, and traveling are generally activities you do alone, or with a small number of colleagues, where your analytic skills and personal attribute tend be more important. The one thing that most industrial sales jobs share, that causes turnover in these jobs, is a high travel requirement. Some people like business traveling, others come to abhor it. Personally, I always valued the independence and significant alone time that business travel provided, and I enjoyed the http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/consultative-selling.html, which I used with most clients. To be fair, I did a lot of that kind of work in the days before cell phones and WiFi hotspots; I have a sense that today's industrial sales reps are on a lot shorter leash from most home offices than ever I was, but even so, such shortened leashes are still orders of magnitude longer than most cubicle workers ever have. And frankly, in a down economy, most businesses really treat their successful sales reps as stars, because they recognize that such people have unique talents, and are http://www.investorwords.com/4024/rainmaker.html. If you are good at industrial sales, the money and opportunities for promotion come fast. And even if you are not a "star," but can plug along with steady results, you can easily find jobs in any area of the world you'd like to live, and have a pretty good standard of living.

I also wanted to say, that if you are really at sea concerning possible career alternatives beyond suggestions you get here, that you might want to pursue http://www.prager-bernsteingroup.com/common/11075/content.cfm?clientID=11075&QID=5789&homepage=0&titleimage=vocationaltitle. Sometimes, local community college student placement offices can provide low cost testing and basic counseling, that could helpfully shape your thought processes about future career paths.

You would be surprised to hear this, but my job as a lawyer fits a lot of what you are looking for. I'm also a lawyer. It's great for intelligent people with good social skills, especially if they can also write. Many cases will be resolved within a year (though some take much longer), and all of your cases will have different facts (though they will often be variations on a theme). Also, the law evolves. Within law, there are a lot of sub-fields to choose from. Most of my practice is criminal defense, but I also handle enough civil litigation to make for a nice change of pace.

If you are willing to get another graduate degree, speech-language pathology!

Have you considered development for a non-profit? The people I know in these positions all have excellent people skills and have the opportunity to interact with generally interesting people.