Careers suited for ADHD?

[pragman]

Curious to find out if anyone has a life and career that they enjoy? Reason I'm asking is that I feel there are certain types of jobs and careers that are better suited to folks with ADHD, and I'd like to uncover those options

[truthseeker7]

I would love to know the answer to this as well so if you uncover anything let me know please. I hate my job as a Financial Analyst sitting at a computer all day!! I survive by playing games on my phone, listening to music, and watching YouTube videos in between getting work done of course. I'm a hard worker and get stuff done quickly.

[pragman in reply to truthseeker7]

agree with you on getting through the day lol, in that sense, WFH was great for me!

[ChillPillPlease]

I’ve found cosmetic tattooing great! Different skins, different colours - always challenging - keeps me interested and on my toes

[pragman in reply to ChillPillPlease]

Yes, I always felt that creative careers are great for folks with ADHD

[smendrick]

While a specific career direction is difficult to prescribe, I suggest a book (and they have several that could useful) called Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. This book will provide insights that are probably otherwise hidden to you. To obtain maximum benefit from this material take seriously their ideas about prototyping and brainstorming options. This material is useful for people at any age, even an old man like me (I'm 75). I've suggested this material to many people and they have found it useful and in a few cases life changing. Good luck,

[STEM_Dad in reply to smendrick]

One of those authors did a TED Talk, and I loved it! I wish I'd known that info when I was just out of high school. Que cera cera!

[Sunshinegrl25 in reply to smendrick]

Just bought it! thanks!

[Gettingittogether]

I'm a teacher, but not at a regular school. I get to stand and move around at work. I have no paperwork to fill out for my job except for an annual review.

I have freedom to make last minute changes in how I teach.

Basically ADHD jobs will be jobs without tedious paperwork, that allow some freedom to move around. Jobs with adrenaline can be good for lots of people. Jobs that allow you to outsource paperwork and details to others ....

For example, I once read someone who said politics can be a great job for someone with ADHD. Why? Because politicians have staffs! The staff gets the name of the constituent and follows up on the situation. Staff can even be in charge of scheduling and getting the politician from place to place on time. Now, this isn't a recommendation for politics per se. Rather, thinking of this example can help us imagine what kinds of jobs are good for people with ADHD.

For example, ER medicine if you're interested in medicine. Firefighter jobs, police officer ... salesmen who go on the road to meet with people ... My sister was a nurse with ADHD, untreated. The job and the worry about getting doses right and on time and filling out paperwork just right just wore her down. She'd come home from work utterly spent. Now, the people interaction was good for her. And the movement during the day. But for a job like that, you really should hire a coach if you got ADHD. Or you got to get help with paperwork.

I mentioned I didn't have much paperwork in my job, but I still hired a coach, who pointed out all kinds of ways I could simplify my job and record keeping.

One big obstacle in finding a good job is that people with ADHD have such embarrassment that they don't brutally look at what they can and cannot do well. That shame can ironically prevent us from asking the basic question: how can I make this simple? How can I make the tedious work easier? It took a coach who was incredibly well organized--and seemingly naturally so--to point out all the ways I was being too passive and not creative in simplifying my record-keeping work. When you have ADHD, you have to be brutally, shamelessly bold in looking for ways you can avoid tedious work. Trade off tedious work with a colleague ... pay an assistant to help you with paperwork ...

[Shnookie in reply to Gettingittogether]

The problem is that for someone like me who is on a tight budget and can’t afford a life coach.

[Gettingittogether in reply to Shnookie]

Can you afford therapy? Do you have insurance? I basically found a great therapist that I used as a coach (and as a therapist). Roughly coaching is day--to-day tips on everything like getting to places on time ... how to set up a planner system ... and so on ... and therapy as anxiety, depression ... harsh self-criticism, panic and so on ... Most of us benefit from both.

[Shnookie in reply to Gettingittogether]

I’m on Medi Cal Medi Caid in other states and talk to her every 6 weeks for about 25 minutes a time. We talk about things like balancing my meds and my everyday challenges. I do have a day planner and journal my thoughts

[S4h4]

Customer service. Quick interactions generally, flexible hours (though routines and structure can be important), lots of variety.

[Stonesfan]

Audio Engineering (music) and later Music production (in recording studios) was good for me with a lot of variation / different acts all the time - however I struggled with working on long "album" projects as I found they usually only had 2 or 3 great songs and the rest were so called "interesting tracks" (filler tracks IMHO) which I found very boring to work on. I only wanted to work on the 'radio' songs and struggled to focus on the (ahem!) "interesting" (yawn) tracks.

[pragman in reply to Stonesfan]

Thanks man, I can really relate to this. At my workplace I'm only there for solving "tough" problems....once I've solved a problem...even if its just in my head, it instantly becomes boring and I dont want to "waste" any more time on it. The good thing is I am able to solve problems that others cant, which keeps me on my job...maybe thats the kind of stuff the ADHD brain is best suited for

[Gettingittogether]

Paradoxically we can take the flexible structure thing too far. It helps to have a job with some structure, some regular arrival times, regular due dates for work and supervisoin and so on. Then the ADHD person can improvise off a structure ...

I once found a job without such structure (so much flexibility) and I was improvising off of improvising. Total chaos ... If I'm running late all the time, having a job with extremely flexible arrival times wasn't good for me ... My schedule became totally chaotic ... Had to add back some basic structure to the job and then I could get back to safely improvising in the moment.

If I'm not feeling that the structure isn't a bit of a pain, then it's not enough.

[pragman in reply to Gettingittogether]

I agree that we need structure, I'm binary when it comes to that. Its either total chaos or structure for me, so I stick to a schedule and go strictly by my calendar....usually my meetings are shorter than the calendar time-slot so i get time to do random stuff in-between. A tightly-packed schedule drives me crazy too, so I avoid that

[Gettingittogether]

Yeah, breaks between meetings ... or tasks ... absolutely important! ...

[HyperfocusedSquirrel]

I have been in tech-related jobs for the last 20 years. Analyst jobs seem to really work well for me. Anything with scheduled meetings and strict start/end times does not play nice with my flavor of ADHD.

[pragman]

Interesting....I guess there's a lot of diversity in ADHD as well

[TheDoctor904]

I work as an audio engineer and technical director. Plus doing I.T. all three involve new random problems every day to figure out but are somewhat scheduled. gives me a bit of routine but still lets me do random stuff.

[STEM_Dad]

I believe people with ADHD can work in any career field.

I like the novelty of problem solving, which is why I work in the customer support area of Information Technology. I also did well at retail sales and mathematics tutoring. The only similarity was that I was helping people (my primary work motivation) and problem solving in some way (because novelty-seeking activities like that hold my attention).

What I personally am bad at is project management, but I believe at least one person I know who is great at project management also has ADHD, my current manager. (He's undiagnosed, but thinks he has ADHD. From getting to know him, I suspect that he has the Combined Presentation.)

[pragman in reply to STEM_Dad]

I'd suspect that routine jobs would be terrible for ADHD. Especially operationally intense stuff. I hate paperwork for example. And I know that a lot of us don't. I think someone mentioned being a nurse. I know that I'd be one nervous wreck if I was a nurse...I'd be double or triple checking everything I did to make sure I was doing the right thing and I'd be anxious all the time.

Personally I think we need variety and complexity to keep healthy levels of dopamine flowing through our brains, and so, any career or job that offers that keeps us happy. It keeps me happy anyway lol.

[Lyssabear]

This might sound counterintuitive, so hear me out 😜

Organizational Development. It is basically business psychology and here is what I have found that makes it wonderful for those that have ADHD:

- Psychology Aspect: I like to introspect a lot and learning now tools or methods to motivate people to reach overall goals is fascinating. You're always learning something new, never board!

- Creativity: Since you're constantly finding ways to fill gaps in inefficiency or productivity, our ability to think outside the box or abstractly is extremely beneficial here. It is also rewarding to have that outlet.

- Hyper Focus: When working to solve a problem, you do have to hyper focus and it is actually fun because you're trying to solve a problem and you want to see the impact afterwards.

- Changes: The role and position and challenges are ALWAYS different so you never get board because there is always something new and interesting you want to try and figure out.

- Closure: If you're a consultant, once your project is done, you get to move onto another company and another problem so you never feel stagnant.

- Results: I am not sure if this is an ADHD thing but when I am working on a project, I want to see that the solution is effective. Maybe this is where the dopamine high comes into play where I keep chasing the dopamine until I solve the problem and then it's gone.

Let me know if you want more information! I love this field.

[Toocreative in reply to Lyssabear]

Hi Lyssabear! I’m very interested in what you do. What kind of training or credentials are necessary for this kind of work? Thank you!

[pragman]

I couldn't agree more.... I'm super effective at what I do as well, bringing deep insights and value to the organization i work at.... We should probably connect. Id love to exchange notes.

[Gladiator100]

I'm a journalist, with daily deadlines. My neice is an ER nurse. Both of us work better under pressure. The diagnosis came later in life for me and with it the answer to the often asked question " How can you be so good at your job and so disorganized everywhere else??"

[pragman in reply to Gladiator100]

That's brilliant insight Gladiator100 and very true in my case. It just went completely unnoticed because my family did not put pressure on me to conform with everyone else. I'm working hard on taking care of myself.

[Evawing]

I enjoyed a&e nursing. It's fast paced and totally appeals to my ADHD side.

I am now an ITU nurse. It does not suit me at all.

[Mkkell]

I'm a professor and I LOVE my job. Teaching gives me the continual dopamine hit I need and keeps me on my toes so I don't get bored. I get to hyperfocus into research and lecture prep, and I can structure my time to make room for whatever creative project has my attention for the week. It totally feeds the curious and creative parts of my brain while requiring a lot less executive function than previous jobs I've had where I'm balancing task lists and answering emails all day.