Posted by Brian McCullough
Careers can be faddish things. 2-3 years ago, ResumeWriters started getting a flood of resumes from fields we hadn’t had many clients in previously: mortgage agents and brokers. And the number of people with freshly minted real estate licenses on their resumes more than doubled. I remember in late 2004 we had to hustle to hire more writers with a Real Estate background.
Well, you can imagine how that has turned out. We still get a flood of mortgage and real-estate related resumes, but now these are people struggling to transition out of the industry.
The bursting of the housing bubble has left a lot of people looking work in other industries. But in a classic example of why-didn’t-I-think-of-that, the solution might be starting a career on the flip side of the industry. According to this article from CNN.com the real growth is in Mortgage Counselors, not Mortgage Brokers!
The upside:
- According to the article, they can’t train new Mortgage Counselors fast enough.
- A salary in the range of $30,000- $50,000 a year.
- You’re helping people in a real, tangible way. You’re helping them afford to stay in their homes.
- There are “no minimum job qualifications”
- But clearly, previous real estate and lending experience is a plus… so you really could transition from one side of the coin to the other!
The downside, according to the article, is that this is a very stressful job. The friggin title of the article is “Counselors stressed out by desperate clients” and the guy in the photo doesn’t look too happy. The article goes on to describe a work environment where having overstretched lenders break down and cry in your office is pretty much a daily occurrence.
Still, given the fact that the housing bust has only just begun, peak ARM resets are going to continue for years, and when you get a good case, you’re actually helping people restructure their financial lives … this might not be such a bad gig. And it’s in the definition of a growth industry.
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