9 Jobs You Won't Believe You Can Get Paid to Do

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Job seekers, open your eyes—and your minds.

You can find career inspiration in just about every scene of metropolitan life. Most fields employ a variety of workers in fascinating and underpublicized supporting roles that don’t require specialized training. That advertisement for nail polish? A hand model at work. The restaurant featuring a tasty new menu item? Thanks to a taste tester. The crime scene covered in yellow police tape? Someone’s got to clean that up.

We spoke with recruiting executives and industry hiring managers to identify lesser-known jobs emerging within broader fields. Workers who fill such atypical roles are “agile learners who take something new and quickly get good at it,” says John Challenger, CEO of the outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Some of the gigs in our slide show are growing occupations with thousands of current openings. Other jobs you’ll discover here are more rare, but perhaps inspirational nonetheless. After all, if folks can get paid to sleep—yes, we’ll tell you about paid sleepers—then imagine what else you could earn money doing. Take a look.

Meilan Solly
Intern, Kiplinger.com
Solly is a Kiplinger.com intern. She is a junior studying English and anthropology through the Joint Degree Programme between the College of William & Mary and the University of St. Andrews. Solly serves as the deputy editor of The Saint, St. Andrews' student newspaper, and an associate blogs editor of The Flat Hat, William & Mary's student newspaper.