I’m getting tired of the constant traveling and inability to maintain a remotely normal/healthy lifestyle. However my skills and experiences are seemingly so unrelated I feel like I’m a walking red flag and have been instantly rejected from 99.5% of my \~800 applications in the last year (this includes walmart). Hoping someone can either give me ideas or kick some common sense into me. Quick rundown on the background:
**Me:** Late 20s male, psychology BA from top 50 USA Uni last year, published in decent journal as third author. Using a parents house as my perm address but I don’t really “live” anywhere.
**Current role:** insanely niche but I’ll just call it “professional whistleblower”. 60-90k/year, all living expenses covered besides my car insurance. Full time travel. Report writing, qual/quant research, budget management. I don’t hate it but I really want a place to call home and like, make friends and date and stuff.
**Past roles with years:**
* Enterprise SaaS sales 22-23. hated every waking moment of it but was a top 10% performer making roughly 40% of OTE (\~65k). Actually enjoyed the research side of it but everything corporate just melted my brain. was in new territory development so i built everything from scratch with minimal support from my company.
* Data analyst lead 21-22. Unofficial, unpaid role while finishing undergrad but I managed a team of \~10 people and did most of the work while giving them credit, wrote a lot of code in python/matlab, this is what I’m published for. Also did QA for course development with a professor, helped with lit reviews, and wrote a ton of collateral on github collaboration and data collection procedures.
* Marketing lead 21-22. Again unofficial and school related. Managed a 5 person team, owned survey development, distribution, and analysis, as well as very rough mockups in photoshop/illustrator.
* Defense contractor 20-21: again, have to spare details per the contract, but I got sent to some random place, worked \~90hr weeks doing pretty much nothing but watching movies. “managed” 10 person teams and handled a lot of contract paperwork. BSL-3 environment, wrote some javascript to supplement the ancient systems we were using. Rinse and repeat in some other random location. merit based promotions, I started as a tech but got promoted in like 3 weeks. this actually paid so much (\~150k if you include per diem and housing coverage) that I would do it again.
* Wildland firefighter / contractor 18-19: contractors aren’t highly regarded in this field but when I left I was FAL 2 and FFT1/ICT5 qualified (ie i could fell moderately complicated trees and lead a squad of 3-5 people and/or command a small fire incident). I reached all my quals quicker than most through merit. \~120 hour weeks at $11/hr
* Everything else: worked in family restaurant since I was a kid (\~2005-2017), construction/concrete finisher, grocery store stocker, warehouse worker for major retailer, kennel tech for animal shelter, solar technician putting solar panels on houses.
**Goals:**
I really just want something normal-ish, aligned with my diverse skills and experience, and not a corporate circle jerk. Or if I’m to continue down this weird path of odd jobs, I want it to pay so much that I don’t care about not having a life. Throughout it all I’ve only gained FEMA and NWSA certifications, and some useless sales framework certs. I’m not a people person (in the corporate/customer service sense), nor a people pleaser, so looking for more isolated roles. Prioritizing gov/non-profit orgs. Most of my applications have been for data analysis, research, nonprofit development, operations management. Reached late stage interviews in development but never offered. I really like the idea of grad school but that would be a year or two out and for either counseling/social work/environmental science as those are my general interests.
Ultimately seeking something for the next 1-2 years that I might enjoy and benefit me in eventual graduate education while allowing me to rent an apartment.