The Best Jobs for College Students aren’t just about the money but it helps.
Too often, college jobs are the worst paying, waste of time you can imagine. It’s too bad because it should be a great opportunity to test your new skills and prepare for the future.
I’m revealing five high-paying jobs perfect for college students, jobs that will not only pay the bills but will give you skills to impress any recruiter.
These aren’t the typical college jobs like waiting tables or uber but jobs that pay $25 an hour and set you up after graduation.
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What to Look for in a Good College Job
So if you’ve been looking for college jobs on YouTube or the net, you’re probably tired of the easy, no experience stuff like working as a waiter or transcriptionist or driving Uber.
Do you really need someone to say that you can make money as a waiter?
I’m not saying these aren’t legit jobs but it’s not what you should be thinking for a great college jobs. Sure, they’ll help pay the bills but will do nothing to help launch your future and make more money when you graduate.
So for this video, I’m revealing five jobs for college students that will not only pay the bills but will give you that head-start on your resume. We’ll start with what to look for in a great college job then I’ll show you the five highest-paying opportunities.
Stick around because then I’m revealing three secrets to getting any job you want at the end of the video.
So while we’re working through that list of high-paying college jobs, I want you to think about a few ideas here. These are things that every great college job needs.
First is that obviously all college jobs need flexible hours to fit your schedule but they also need to allow you to be creative.
You might be able to jump in your car to Uber anytime you want but there’s not much to do here except drive. Your creativity is limited to which foot you use for the gas and brake pedals.
Of course, location and pay are going to be important as well. A job close to home or even better, one where you can work some hours from home will save a lot of travel time. Also, unless you’ve got all your bills paid, you’re going to need a job that pays as well.
Let’s just get something out of the way here. An unpaid internship is not a good college job. I don’t know what a-hole dreamed up this idea but even a job that opens you to a great career needs to pay something. That employer is getting your valuable time and they need to respect it by at least paying you minimum wage.
Beyond these basic criteria though, and this is something we’ll see in every one of the jobs next, is that a great college job is one that is going to impress recruiters looking at your resume.
It could be in a non-traditional type of job or it could be an ordinary job but one with the flexibility to take a project from start to finish. That’s the important part. When you’re talking to companies, whether it’s for one of the jobs in this list or others, you want to talk about a project you can manage that will be solely yours.
That’s how I launched a career in investment analysis, through a paid internship as a commercial real estate analyst. The job didn’t pay much, just $9 an hour back in 2003, but I was in charge of creating a database of properties. Within this, I included automatic formulas for investment analysis and other features and I had something I could show recruiters after I graduated.
If you don’t find a great job idea from one of these five, check out this video for five high-paying jobs you can get without a degree.
Best Jobs to Get in College
Using the same Bureau of Labor tools I used while working as a Labor Economist for the State of Iowa, I’ve picked out five high-paying jobs that are perfect for college students. There might be some other jobs depending on your career goals or major but these are some great ideas for any student.
Our first college job here is private investigator with a median pay over $50,000 or $24 an hour.
I guarantee any HR recruiter will have to pick their jaw up off the floor after seeing this on your resume and it’s going to start a conversation. Now you’re not starting at that fifty grand a year. You’re probably working for $15 an hour under a licensed investigator but you’re learning valuable investigative skills that can be used in any job.
You’ll learn how to interview people, how to research and collect evidence. You might even make some contacts if you’re looking to work in law or criminal justice.
Now one of those three secrets to getting the job is really going to come into play here. There aren’t a lot of private investigators and they might not be looking for assistance when you need the job so stick around for those tips on finding and getting the job.
College Jobs that Turn into Careers
Our next job here is paralegal. Now while this one technically requires an associates’ degree, the industry is all about negotiating so they’re going to appreciate someone that can come in and talk themselves into a part-time internship.
Full-time paralegals make over fifty grand a year and the growth rate in employment is three-times the average job so they’ll always be jobs available.
You’ll be conducting legal research, drafting documents and organizing case files for lawyers. These are skills needed in any career so you’ll be starting off right.
College Jobs that Turn into Businesses
Our third high-paying job here is social media manager. This one is really new so there’s no formal requirements but it’s a little like a public relations specialist.
The social media manager helps their clients manage profiles across Instagram, Twitter and other sites. Take it from someone that operates three Twitter accounts, two Facebook pages, plus social profiles on three other platforms, managing all these can be a major pain. It’s 21st century marketing and I along with tens of thousands of other businesses and influencers want to outsource our marketing department.
This is a great one for that flexibility and the opportunity to really manage a project. Even if you’re not planning on going into marketing, this job is going to teach you skills in design, business, sales and the marketing ideas that all businesses need.
You can work for individual influencers or for companies here and can usually work from anywhere.
Traditional College Jobs
Our fourth great college job is a more traditional one with tutoring and an average salary of around $25,000 according to Glassdoor.
Now this might not seem the opportunity of the others but I love it because it works on a couple different levels.
First is that being a tutor is going to teach you how to teach. That’s a powerful skill that a lot of people don’t appreciate but employers will. Also though is that you can use the information you’re tutoring and turn it into a book or a course to sell.
That turns this part-time job into a full-blown side hustle that can produce passive income every month. We’ve got a complete playlist of videos here on the channel on how to self-publish a book and this is by far my favorite passive income idea so I’ll leave a link to that in the video description below.
College Jobs Freelancing
Just one more college job idea before we get to those three secrets to get any job you want. This one is going to be to become a seller on Fiverr.
Now I’ve got mixed feelings about this one. I would prefer some of the more traditional jobs above where you’re working for someone and getting some instruction but this is also a great opportunity to start something from scratch.
Fiverr is a freelancing platform where you detail specific jobs you can do for a flat rate. This is everything from graphic design, software, marketing, just about anything you can think of. I like this one because you’re basically creating your own company and selling a product. The hours are completely flexible and I know freelancers that make thousands a month working part-time on their Fiverr gigs.
This is going to go way beyond just creating that product. It’s going to be the management, marketing and everything that goes into starting a business so these are skills that will translate anywhere. The great thing about Fiverr is that these are small projects and something you can pretty much create once and then reproduce for multiple clients. That means it’s less work that being a consultant or other types of businesses.
3 Interview Secrets to Get Any Job
So we’ve covered five ideas for great college jobs that will teach you skills to put on your resume. Now I want to reveal three secrets to getting a job, secrets that will work whether you go for one of these or any other job.
First is that you’ll notice that some of the jobs above require an associates’ degree or some type of beyond-high school degree. That’s great, that’s what you’re looking for because those are the ones that will give you the experience you need.
Before getting your degree though, that’s going to mean you need to do some negotiating to sell yourself into these jobs. You can’t just walk into HR and apply for a job because you’re not qualified. You need to do some research on LinkedIn to find a specific manager in the company and approach them directly about a project idea. That means talking about what you can bring to the company, what your project idea can provide and why they should create a special job opening just for you.
Next is you need to start early with reaching out to managers and contacts. Find out what jobs the company usually hires for and how you can work a project idea into that. The idea here is that they might want a full-time worker but you can sell them on the idea of creating that part-time position because you’re going to be doing more than just those regular responsibilities.
Also remember here that a rejection just means you need to start negotiating. This is not only going to get you a job but will also develop some great sales and negotiating skills. Think about potential rejections ahead of time and have an answer, actually write down rejections for a running list, counter with reasons until you get to yes.
I’m not saying spend all summer back-and-forth with one company. Be negotiating with at least 3- to 5- companies to give you a better chance at getting to yes with one.
These college jobs are perfect for the student that needs a flexible schedule, good pay and is thinking about their future. Don’t settle for the traditional college jobs that leave you tired and poor. The best college jobs will pay you to set yourself up for success!