How do find a job or career where compassion, sensitivity are assets?

Compassion and sensitivity =/= having a thin skin. There are plenty of careers (which are addressed in great detail by answers upthread) that value compassion and the ability to be sensitive to others' needs and wishes, and where loving/caring individuals flourish. But those careers, just like other ones, are still going to be fraught with their fair share of interpersonal issues, ranging from personality conflicts to stress. Two compassionate and sensitive people can easily dislike one another and struggle to work together. To succeed in the workplace - in any workplace - you need to find a way to toughen up a bit. That doesn't mean you have to give up or squash your more emotional side, but it does mean letting some workplace issues roll off your back, because a workplace where everyone hugs and ... get[s] along and feel good while we try to make the world a better place by being loving, caring, emotional people and sharing that with others does not exist anywhere 100% of the time. Even the most loving, caring emotional people will sometimes experience conflict with one another at times. Having a skin that is thick enough to deal with those complications is key to success. Also, some non-huggers are compassionate and sensitive and loving/caring...and some huggers are jerks. I strongly caution against using hugging as your metric for a good workplace.

I want to be able to go into work and give everyone hugs and have all of my coworkers get along and feel good while we try to make the world a better place by being loving, caring, emotional people and sharing that with others... is that too much to ask for? Yes. Work is not set up to foster the kinds of things you say you want from it. I agree with the person above who said that getting close to what you want will be more about finding a good fit regarding where you work than it will be about finding a profession that caters to it. I'm a social worker, and I can tell you without a doubt, that the "helping professions" are not for the thin skinned. I had a dear friend who loved her job working with young children as a Head Start teacher, until her new principle made her life hell and she had to resign.

If I may be frank (and I just may be), the issue you describe is not a surfeit of sensitivity or empathy, but a dearth of emotional resilience. Increasing that, and the degree to which you're able to rely on yourself for emotional equanimity, should be your greater goal. Otherwise, what schroedingersgirl said.

As a fellow thin-skinned person, one thing I have found to be crucial is having control over my hours. This might mean being self-employed or working part-time. People who are "thin-skinned" are usually Highly sensitive, meaning we respond more intensely to stimuli. Therefore we will get overwhelmed before the average person, with lesser degrees of stimuli. So te average work day and hours is usually just too much stimulus and we go into overload- even for a person of average sensitivity it is often too much. Check out the book, "Making Work Work for the Highly Sensitive Person", or the book "The Highly Sensitive Person". I am self-employed, and while I don't make a lot of money, controlling my schedule and work situations has been invaluable. Don't think being sensitive means you can't work with people. It just means you need to have more control over the amount of contact vs. breaks, which means that an ideal job would be getting to set your own hours so you don't go on overload (getting that is not an impossible task).

Most of the answers here are not distinguishing enough between the "clients" (e.g sick people, students, etc.) and the other staff (co-workers and those above you in the hierarchy). The OP seems to be talking more about the latter than the former. I want to be able to go into work and give everyone hugs and have all of my coworkers get along and feel good while we try to make the world a better place by being loving, caring, emotional people and sharing that with others... is that too much to ask for? Yes. I'm almost 64 years old and have worked in some of the huggiest fields there are (mental health and substance abuse), and yet, I have never been in a work situation where my co-workers were looking for hugs from me. And I am not looking for hugs from my co-workers (although, since I now work alone, if I did, it would mean that I'm delusional). It's not too much to ask for a work environment in which everyone respects each other (or knows how to fake it), but I think you're looking for something else, something that isn't generally part of a work environment. Work, with its issues of control and authority, is a loaded issue for many (most?) people. You might be the most benevolent leader in the world, but there are going to be people who resent your position nonetheless. Maybe they want to be the leader and feel you're in their place. Or they want to be a leader but feel they can't lead and hate that and project that hate onto you. Or think you're just fine but would prefer you keep your arms to yourself. In a family and in your social life you try to work out this stuff because you want the intimacy. But in a work situation, you want to do a good job and collect your salary. It's great if you get along with your co-workers, but you have not chosen those people to spend your days with. If I found myself in a job with a high hug expectancy because of the leader's emotional needs, I'd run for the hills.

Your personality sounds like my mother's. She started as a kindergarten teacher and now also has mother-child groups for toddlers/pre-kindergarten age. I'd guess you would need a thicker skin in healthcare (people die in hospitals, after all) or therapy (people may talk about traumatic events) than it seems at first, so working with children and families might be a better choice. The "leadership" part you seek: You help parents be better parents (my mother has many, many new mothers who thank her years later for the advice) and teach children values (rather than facts and knowledge like a school teacher).

Do you need much money to get on? Outside of nursing most of the jobs with your emotional skills pay peanuts. I would prefer you to think of your "thin-skin" as a plus rather than a Failing. We have all the heartless pricks we need right now and could use a few more people with a little more compassion in our lives.

It's a tricky one, as jobs where those attributes are an advantage in some areas (e.g., healthcare) will also require a very thick skin in others. I work in a hospital and you get ward politics, lots of conflict all the time and patients who tell it like it is. Or even worse, patients who tell it like they perceive it to be, which can have very little to do with reality. You may find value in healthcare though, and that may make it all worthwhile.

Do not do healthcare. I repeat, do not do healthcare. You really can't be ultra-thin skinned in healthcare or you will burn out in a minute. You have to be able to detach from the situation. For one, sick people are often unpleasant because they are having the scariest time of their life. You have to not take that stuff personally. People die, or they get bad news and if you are a thin-skinned person who can't detach it will eat you alive. There are some healthcare jobs I think you could do. These are more concerned with quality of life than life or death. Occupational therapists, physical therapists, and speech therapists. I've worked with children with special needs. It's great on one hand, but on the other, I've been a part of a team that has had to call child protective services, and those parents who really can't take care of their kids, probably happens more often than you think. And wanting to hug them all the time? That's really an impediment to giving them as much independance as possible. I hated when the other staff would coddle my students because it was not age appropriate. Learned helplessness is a real problem in the field of special needs. I think you could be a good teacher for young children. You could have a strong impact without having to deal with all those other pesky details of being a leader. I think the issue is you want to be a leader. I do not know any leaders who are thin-skinned to be honest. Being a leader means making choices that other people will hate and not understand sometimes. Take it from someone who has worked in the schools - it is exceedingly common for people to dislike their administration. I think you should admit to the type of person you are. You probably aren't going to be happy in most leadership roles. Instead you can be a quiet leader - by supporting things more behind the scene, or impacting people's lives so they can go and accomplish things. I am a really sensitive, thin-skinned type too. I would never do leadership-y things for that reason, because it would mess me up. I prefer individual interactions where I improve other's lives. That is who I am.