Some of the worst and weirdest jobs in history

Many of us fall into our careers, only to realise that the career we are in does not meet our needs. As a careers coach I meet a large number of clients looking for a new career as they dislike their current or past job roles, feeling they have greater career potential. Many do, I once met a client who cleaned chicken droppings off eggs and is now employed as an accountant.

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People often tell me about past job roles and I am constantly surprised with the amount of unusual job roles on offer. Throughout history, there have been many strange and horrid job roles people did and I have listed a few for you to read. After this you may change your belief about your current job and how “bad” it is.

The Mud Lark

Mainly young children; a mud lark worked on the banks of the Thames in the Victorian times collecting scrap metal and coal to re-sell. In the Victorian times, the Thames would wash the London sewage out to sea and the Mud Larks, would often gain infections after cutting themselves on the litter. This job worsened in the Winter months.

Whipping boy

Another job for young children; In the 15^th century, a prince would have a whipping boy- a boy who would be whipped as punishment for the prince when he was naughty or when he fell behind with his studies.

Knocker up

Before alarm clocks how did you when it was time to get up for work? A Knocker-up would come around in the morning carrying a large pole that he would use to knock on your bedroom window to wake you up. He would stay there until you were awake. But who woke him up?

Potato chip inspector

A more recent role, standing on a production line looking for over-cooked potato chips to dispose of.

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Dog Food Taster

To carry on with the food theme; a dog food taster will taste dog food and write a review about it. I was told about this role from a colleague and still have my doubts.

The pure collector

“Pure” meaning Poo; The pure collector would find and collect animal faeces off the road and sell it to the leather works. The lucky ones put their collection in carts while others may carry their findings in a sack. The “Tanners” in the leather works would dip hides into a smelly lime solution and soak them with the animal faeces that the pure collectors had amounted over the course of the day. Many of the Tanners lived on the periphery of society as their stench left from their job was unbearable to the people of the town.

Crime Scene Cleaner

If squeamish do not apply-this job can be mentally disturbing, cleaning up after crime scenes; blood, loose remains and decomposing bodies.

Fuller

Similar to the Tanner job role, a fuller would dip wool often used in hat making into urine to get rid of the grease (Lanolin) to stop the wool from falling apart.

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Snake miler

A dangerous job, collecting venom from snakes to make anti-venom.

Navy (Georgian Times)

We owe a lot to our Navy, but to be in the Navy in Georgian times was one of the worst jobs in history. Due to a lack of volunteers civilians may have found themselves waking up one morning travelling out to sea with the Navy after being banged on the head and smuggled aboard the night before.

To keep discipline, the Navy would hand out server punishment for any slight disobedience.

A Top Man would climb the rigging to the top sales know as sky scrapers, in stormy weather using no safety equipment.

Monkey boys would carry bags of gun powder to the cannons during battle.

Many sailors would die during battle, through cannons, splinters, gun fire, drowning and during on-board 'life saving' surgery.

Which careers suit your personality?

As you may well know most of these roles no longer exist. As industry and technology changes so do jobs and careers. Some of the jobs we see today will not be around in the next 10 years, as a job hunter and career-person you need to know what jobs the future holds and which of these jobs will suit your skills and qualities.

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I need careers advice

Careers Advice

How can careers advice help you? With the age of the internet it is easy for job hunters to find job vacancies and to find information on CV writing, completing application forms to help you gain employment.

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A career advisor can support you with your CV, Interviews and job hunting, but a good career advisor will can do more than this. When with a career advisor they will help you explore your skills, qualities, strengths and personality and match these against a career you will enjoy and excel in, helping you choose a career that is right for you.

A careers advisor will look at the barriers stopping you gaining employment and help you overcome them; they will ask questions around your present circumstances and what you currently do to gain employment. From this a career advisor should be able to see what part of the job hunting sequence is a barrier to you, as an example if you keep sending your CV off to apply for advertised jobs and you never receive an interview, than it is likely you need to edit your CV. If you want a different result, do something different.

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The advisor model will look at where you are now (and what you have learnt from the past) where you want to be and help you plan how you can get there.

Career Coaching

With most, you will already have a good idea of the career you want to gain, this may just be a dream, you may say to yourself “I can’t do this...I’m not good enough” this lack of self belief is a common theme with many of us. Without self belief, job hunters will remain unemployed for a long time or gain a job they don’t enjoy only to leave this job a later date. A careers coach (and advisor) will ask questions to help reframe your belief systems, by helping you realise your true potential.

As an example of a “solution Focused” technique used often in a careers advice and coaching sessions, answer this question “on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest, how likely are you to gain employment?”

“What can you change to be the next number up the scale?” “What else?”

As you have just found, these simple questions, among others will help you think about the solutions to overcoming your barriers and will help to change your beliefs about yourself. At employment king we use a mixture of techniques to help you achieve your dreams, changing Your Life, Your career, Your future. These techniques include NLP, solution focus and IAG.

How to move forward?

A career advisor and coach will first be someone who will listen to you, and look at ways to move you forward. Instead of telling you what you should do, a good advisor and coach will ask you focused questions to ensure your goal and the outcome from your goal will work well for you. The questions asked by a careers advisor-coach will help realise your ambitions and how you as an individual can achieve them.

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Examples of what a career advisor-coach can do:

· Matching job roles to your personality

· Complete Mock Interviews and help you prepare for interviews

· Increase your confidence and self belief

· Help you access your own resources to overcome barriers

· Tell you if your career will be required in the future

· Plan a programme of change with you

· Be honest with you, keeping your goals realistic

By reading this, you have already made your first step and your career coach will help you realise, than achieve your dreams quicker by giving you focus. With this new focus you will see yourself moving forward quicker than you can believe.

You can also coach yourself, The secrets of Employment is full of interactive techniques on choosing a career, goal setting, action plan setting and confidence building to help you with your future career.

Space Jobs

Space - the new JOB frontier

The government have planned to expand Britain’s space industry, creating a £40 billion business. This will have a positive in pact on Space Industry jobs, creating a predicted 100,000 jobs over the next 20 years.

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The space sector is set to grow over the next 20 years; the future of the space industry is unpredictable as the fast pace of new technology can change the direction of this sector.

Space will be the earth’s eyes and ears with satellite observation and telecommunications.

Under UK plans, space-based observations will be used to monitor activity in war zones, deforestation, policing greenhouse gases. Employers will be able to monitor projects such as construction without having to leave their office.

With a high demand for high-definition and 3D television via space as broadcasting via satellites reduces our carbon emissions and is more cost effective, shows the increasing need for space communication.

The UK launch industry is set to rocket, as this will be one of the first space industries to see an increase in job demands.

Manufacturing industry also benefit form the space industry, as we create and test goods and tools to be used in space. Manufacturing job roles will be highly skilled jobs.

He private sector is already a success story for British Industry, growing at a steady rate of 9% since 1999. It has been forecast that Britain could take 10% of the global market, which could be worth £400 billion by 2030. First the government needs to invest in this industry to ensure we are not left behind by other world leaders.

Who knows, in the near future our tourism sector may also change in direction with space holidays and space airports. The jobs of the future are changing

Learn how to gain employment - quickly

What we know is that the Space Industry will be creating new jobs and new careers, these will, in the main be skilled roles:

Space Science
Sat comms
Manufacture industry
Space observers
Satellite Broadcasting
Telecommunications
Earth Resources
Navigation
Launch Industry
Astronomy
Planetary Science
Space engineers
Support Staff

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How to gain work

Knowledge is Power

Successful job hunters make every effort to ensure employers know they are the right person for the job. Once you see a career or job you want, put every effort into getting it.

· Spend time researching the industries find out which skills, qualities and qualifications employers are looking for.

· What industry jargon and terminology do employers use?

· Which websites do companies from your sector advertises on?

Remember No-one owes you a job; you have to make yourself employable by selling your skills, qualities, experience and attitude to a potential employer.

Timing is everything

On average job hunters spend 3-4 months from looking for work to gaining employment. IT DOES NOT HAVE TO TAKE THIS LONG! Let’s break this down a little:

Often job hunters spend 6 hours a week looking and applying for vacancies (less then 1 hour a day) this is a short amount of time and if we doubled this, we could be employed within 2-3 months, what would happened if we spent 3 hours a day job searching? Even job searching for 3 hours a day will leave you with enough time for all the things you want to do in your day!

Many different factors affect the time it takes for an individual to gain work and it is not possible to know exactly how long it will take you to gain employment. All job searches need to plan their week and decide how much time a day/week you give yourself to job searching….then stick to it.

If you want something different, do you something different

Successful job hunters are adaptable and will changes tactics when needed. If you can’t gain employment ask yourself why? Can you find jobs to apply for? If not, do you use the same job websites every time you job search? Most people do, if something doesn’t work, change it. If you send your CV to 10-20 employers and you don’t gain an interview, then you need to change your CV.

If one person can do something, other people can learn to do it

Do you know someone who has recently gain employment? Do you know someone who works in the industry you are applying for? If so, you need to ask them what they did do to gain employment. Sometimes our best resources are the people around us, lets learn from the successful one’s and then we too can be successful.

Gain detailed intelligence; if they sent a CV ask them what information they recorded on their CV. During an interview; what did they wear, how did they sit, what answers did they give. It’s always the small details that give you an edge over other job hunters.

If you feel like a job hunter, you will be a job hunter

See job hunting as a full time job; get up at 9:00, wash, shower and dress in your casual business wear. Now you will start to feel like a job hunter. Have a diary of all the tasks you have to complete in the week (research, preparation, strategies, networking) and carry them out. Take breaks at the same time every day and at the end of the day or week review what you have achieved. You will feel like a Job Searcher Employee and this will motivate you to gain full time employment.

Planning your finances

Job searching is not expensive, successful job hunter will plan their finances ahead. First look at your income and/or savings and work our how much spare money you have after paying for the essentials of living. How much do you have leftover?

Now make a list of all the items you need to spend money on to gain you employment; Interview Clothes, Transport, Stationary, etc.
*Depending on your situation you may be entitled to financial help.
Some items you will need to buy in advance, while others can wait until you move forward with your job searching. Be aware many people gain invitations to invites with only a short period of notice.

There is no failure, only feedback

How do marathon runners keep on going, when after 18 miles their muscles ache and their chest is tight with pain? Determination! We can all achieve anything we put our mind to. Most job hunters give up after the first week or two (or after the first rejection letter) as they thought gaining employment would be easier than they thought it was. Step back and ask yourself-

· What am I doing well?

· What can I improve?

Successful job hunters reflect on a daily basis and find their personal feedback helps them achieve their goals.

Think outside the box

Successful job hunters will have several job goals they are looking for, they will all have similar duties and responsibilities, by widening their job search successful job hunters will be able to find more vacancies.

Successful job hunters will look for advertised vacancies and will also contact employers who are not advertising – Research has proven that there is a 40% success rate in applying for speculative applications!

Do I need qualifications to gain work?

The top 10 in demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 1994, in the next 10 years there will be very few UK none skilled jobs, and an increase in highly skilled UK jobs. The world we live in changes at a rapid pace, it wasn’t too long ago when mobile phones didn’t exist! Job hunters need to be moving with these changes.

Employment King has been researching the jobs of the future for the UK; job hunters need to know which careers will be in demand in the next 5 – 10 years and the qualifications and experiences employers will be requiring you to have.

· The pace in some industries is moving so fast, that students can be studying a subject only to find by the graduation date the industry has already moved on.

The UK job market is set to change; our research has shown that there will be a demand for highly skilled jobs while low skilled jobs will be in decline. We can already see signs of this happening now, with Petrol Stations and Supermarket already started to use self-service check outs and a large amount of low skilled manufacturing jobs has been moved abroad.

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Skills and Training

Lord Leitch, released a skills review in 2006 stating that the vision for the UK is to be a world leader in skills by 2020.

Employers of the future will be looking for highly skilled employees; to help with this the government are funding a wide range of courses and training opportunities.

Employers, working alongside the government to increase the UKs skills shortage, will be looking for employees with a minimum of level 2 and 3 qualifications.

· If you like many others have not yet achieved these qualifications you would benefit by accessing the funded training below:

Learn direct offer funded Numeracy, Literacy and ITC courses

You can gain funding to gain NVQ qualifications while working through an apprenticeship and Train to gain

Qualifications and What they mean.

Having recognised qualifications and industry skills help make you more attractive to employers, helping you gain employment and succeeding in your career.

There is a mixture of qualifications you can gain through education establishments and in the workplace, below you will find a breakdown of UK qualifications and what they are equivalent to.

NQF level Examples of qualifications

Entry Level Entry level certificates

English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)

Skills for Life

Functional Skills at entry level (English, maths and ICT)

Level 1 GCSEs grades D-G

BTEC Introductory Diplomas and Certificates

OCR Nationals

Key Skills level 1

NVQs at level 1

Skills for Life

Level 2 GCSEs grades A*-C

BTEC First Diplomas and Certificates

OCR Nationals

Key Skills level 2

NVQs at level 2

Skills for Life

Level 3 A levels

Advanced Extension Awards

GCE in applied subjects

International Baccalaureate

Key Skills level 3

NVQs at level 3

BTEC Diplomas, Certificates and Awards

BTEC Nationals

OCR Nationals

Level 4 NVQs at level 4

BTEC Professional Diplomas, Certificates and Awards

Level 5 HNCs and HNDs

NVQs at level 5

BTEC Professional Diplomas, Certificates and Awards

Level 6 National Diploma in Professional Production Skills

BTEC Advanced Professional Diplomas, Certificates and Awards

Level 7 Diploma in Translation

BTEC Advanced Professional Diplomas, Certificates and Awards

Jobs in the Future

Having a highly skilled workforce is effective for a healthy economy, ensuring that the UK has a sufficient supply of labour, with the skills needed for employers to increase the supply of outward services and the receiving incoming business from abroad. The job market is global; the UK competes for work against the world’s leading countries.

We will be seeing an increase in jobs over a wide number of high skilled sectors and a decline in low skilled job roles:

· Areas such as care for the elderly and nursery nursing will be both looking for an increase in staff throughout the UK, with level 2 and 3 qualifications.

· With several new power stations being built in the UK we will soon be looking for skilled engineers.

· Low Carbon industry will create 1 million jobs with a wide mixture and skilled roles.

· A new wave of jobs will be created with the 2012 Olympics, creating a wide range of apprenticeships and trained jobs – leaving a skilled workforce in the UK.

· The Digital sector is a fast growing industry; the government has already spoken of the need to invest in new opportunities to support the UK to compete against other countries. “This will mean new jobs in environmental technologies, digital industries, the creative sector, in advanced manufacturing, in pharmaceuticals and healthcare industries and in education itself," said Brown 2009.

Click for More future jobs information.

It time to look towards the future, where do you want to be? Will your career be here in the future? Do you know which industry you can transfer your skills to? Don’t get stuck, this is time to be proactive. Employment King can help you choose a future career that will suit you.

This is the time to look at your skills and qualifications, how employable will you be in the future? With the large amount of funding available to re-skill, this is time to think about the future and your future career.

Choosing a Career

Let your personality choose your career

Are you stuck in a career you hate, a job you find depressing or a position that makes you want to stay in bed on a Monday morning? Do you feel there is no way out, that you’re stuck in a lifelong job you will hate for life? If you have answered yes to any of these questions then you need to look at your career choice.

Many people fall into careers, without any thought only to later find the job role they have does not match their personality and doesn’t inspire or motivate them – why work 40 hours every week doing something you hate, something that makes you depressed, a role that is harming your health?

Successful career professionals are successful because they have found a career they enjoy, a job they are excited about a position they naturally love and I would add you can find a job you will naturally love because all you need to do is match your personality to a career.

• Once you know which career will inspire and motivate you, you will be able to make that move from your current depressing job to a new inspiring career, and I would add this can happen quicker than you believe is possible.

How would you feel, if you could wake up every morning WANTING to go to work? Imagine you were totally motivated in your job, finding every challenge and task a new opportunity, what difference would you enjoying your career have on your career progression, your life and even on your loved ones?

If you’re happy in your job you will live a happier life, gaining all the benefits that come’s with a perfect work/life balance, all you need to do is understand your personality type; what motivates you and what stresses you and which careers naturally suit YOU and your personality.

Click the link below to understand your personality

Only 4 Questions to fully understand your personality type.

Applying for Jobs Online

Online job hunting is increasing everyday, as many companies advertise and recruit via the Internet. The days of walking through cold miserable streets, handing in your rain soaked CV are going. While armchair job searching is rising. * With certain industries such as retail and hair dressing, handing in a CV by hand, face-to-face is still recommend .

Finding online jobs

There are a large number of job search engines, this is a great place to start job searching for advertised vacancies. Use the most popular ones first as they advertise the largest number of vacancies for obvious reasons.

The government job website is a great place to start, as are search engines that merge results from a verity of job search engines all on one page, helping you find all the vacancies in one quick search.

It is rare to find a company without their own website and many employers to save cost, will advertise vacancies on their own site. Look at the top or bottom of the websites home page a click “recruitment” “jobs” or “contact us” and more often then not you will find company vacancies.

Use directories to search companies contact details and send speculative CVs and cover letters-A great way to quickly increase job applications.

For more details on Job Searching, letter and CV writing, click here.

How to get your e-mailed CV seen

As the government promote “paperless” offices, employers are often asking for job hunters to apply online or to e-mail a CV.

When sending a covering letter, cut and paste this into the body of the e-mail, as many people have concerns about receiving viruses from opening unknown attachments.

If you add a CV as an attachment, clearly state that the attached document is a CV via the attachment label.

CV writing Service

Be aware that not all computers can open documents in a readable format, this is because old computer software cannot always recognise new software programmes. If unsure telephone the employer and ask which word package they use.

Receive job offers via the web

Many of us will be tempted to use the Internet and “copy and Paste” to quickly send hundreds of CVs in minutes. First research each company and add this information into your covering letter, instantly individualising each application. - A must for all serious job hunters.


As tempting as this may be to quickly send out e-mails, ensure you record which companies you contact, as you need to follow up each application - this will make a big difference in the amount of job interview you are offered.

All the secrets to gaining every job you apply for all in one book.