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Community services is a field that offers many benefits and advantages, but often it’s an overlooked industry among job seekers and those searching for a chosen career path. Perhaps there is the assumption that most roles in community service work are volunteer and unpaid. While there are certainly people working voluntarily in the industry, most job positions in community services are paid positions and some can even be quite lucrative.
Let’s take a look at some of the top reasons why you should consider a rewarding career in the community services industry.
#1 – Community Services Can Be a Lucrative Career Choice
While your chosen career isn’t all about earning money, receiving a good income is vital if you want to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle at the same time. Not every community services position is going to be a lucrative one, but there is certainly an opportunity to attain the qualifications and skills required to secure job positions that pay rather handsomely.
Never erroneously assume, as some people do, that most community services jobs are volunteer work and unpaid. This is far from being the truth.
How much you ultimately get paid will depend on your job position, but once you’ve commenced a career in community services, there is always scope for career advancement, and with that will come an increase in salary.
#2 – Job Roles In Community Services Are Varied
Possibly one of the coolest things about community services is the industry encompasses such a broad range of fields, offering the ultimate in job variety, as compared to some other industries. It’s an industry that is focused on people and is all about helping others in one form or another. Those who are most suited to a community services role are individuals who are people-centric.
If you performed an online search to discover just how many job positions come under the umbrella of community services, you would be amazed by the variety and how many career opportunities there actually are.
Let’s list a snapshot of just a few of those job roles:
- Parole officer
- Social work
- Caseworker
- Community services manager
- Crisis worker
- Practitioner of child care
- A career in aged care
- Counselling
- And so many more…
#3 – Community Services Is a Rewarding Lifestyle
A career in community services is far more than just a job. It’s a lifestyle and a very rewarding one at that. We’ve already established that you can earn a good living working in community services but, being in a role that is largely focused on helping others, each and every day will give you immense job satisfaction. This is just as vital as earning good money, as having a career you love and the fact that you enjoy going to work, means you’ll be experiencing a much happier lifestyle.
There’s nothing worse than having to get up each morning and drag yourself off to a job you hate. It’s quite the opposite when you work in a community services role. Some of the most contented people you could ever meet have rewarding careers in a community services position.
Being an industry that offers so many possibilities, you can change job roles regularly with some extra training. This adds even more variety to your life and you’ll never get bored or stale. In fact, there are not many industries with as much scope for career advancement as community service work.
Getting Started In Community Services
If you’re interested in getting started in a career in community service work, you’ll first need to acquire some official and recognised industry training. The starting point is Cert 3 Community Services.
This Certificate III course is an entry-level course that gives you the basic training to get you going. You can use successful completion to move onto Certificate IV In Community Services and other training to enable you to secure certain positions within the industry.
Once you’ve completed a certificate course, give some thought to the type of work you want to focus on and take things from there.
In Conclusion
Community services careers are extremely rewarding on a number of levels, so if you’re not yet sure of the career path for you, give community services a try.
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