20 Best Jobs for People With Social Anxiety
- Featured in:
The job market is already stressful, but finding jobs for people with anxiety can be doubly so. Since so many jobs involve social interaction with coworkers, customers and managers, finding a job that fits your personality and work experience can feel overwhelming.
However, a few low-stress jobs and career pathways include minimal social interactions! The 20 jobs for people with social anxiety can help you avoid stressful work environments and maintain a healthy work/life balance. You’ll also find helpful advice to help you manage your social anxiety during your job search, interview and employment!
The 20 Best Jobs for People with Social Anxiety
Although most jobs require social interactions with coworkers, we found a helpful starting list of good jobs for people with social anxiety. Most of these jobs can be remote or with small teams, meaning you can gradually develop working relationships and minimize stressful social situations. Remember to prioritize technical and hard skills or social soft skills when writing your resume.
1. Accountant
Accounting careers are among the best jobs for people with social anxiety. You typically work in a remote office or dedicated accounting department with minimal interaction with other people. Your daily tasks usually include audits, budget preparation, and financial forecasting.
Median annual salary: $79,880
2. Animal caretaker
There’s a reason horse therapy, goat yoga and petting zoos are helpful therapeutic tools. Being around animals can help with stress and anxiety. Working as an animal caretaker also means limited social interactions with people. Your days are more likely to be filled with feeding animals, maintaining living areas, encouraging exercise and play, and keeping detailed animal care records of habits, behaviors and health concerns.
Median annual salary: $33,530
3. Computer programmer
Computer programming rarely involves working with others, making these positions ideal jobs for introverts with anxiety where you can work in your own space. Computer programmers manage the systems, provide tech support, and review and update existing programs. For this role, the top qualifications are strong coding and technical skills.
Median annual salary: $99,700
4. Content manager
You may do well as a content manager if you are good at task management, organization and independent work. Content managers find creative ways to build an online presence and require a quiet space to write, edit, proofread content, create strategies, and conduct analyses. Career requirements are a bachelor’s degree in communications, journalism, English or a related field.
Median annual salary: $156,580
5. Digital marketing specialist
Digital marketing jobs are great for people with social anxiety because they involve strategy and planning more than social interaction. These jobs require marketing skills to plan campaigns and promote brands, products or services. This highly creative role consists of reading and analyzing metrics to identify trends.
Median annual salary: $83,190
6. Fitness trainer
This job may be a good choice for those with mild to moderate social anxiety because it allows you to work only with individual, long-term clients. Your primary responsibilities include working with clients to develop individual training plans, guiding them through workout movements, and helping them plan meals. As a socially anxious person, your empathy can help you understand your client’s goals and become well-acquainted.
Median annual salary: $46,480
7. Graphic designer
Graphic design can include minimal face-to-face interactions with people and occasional remote workplaces, making them ideal jobs for social anxiety. Companies frequently look for graphic designers to create company logos, websites, or visual artwork for books, publications or video games. However, these jobs do include rounds of constructive feedback.
Median annual salary: $58,910
8. Information technology
This high-tech industry’s roles monitor and manage computing systems and networks and may diagnose and fix technical problems. You can thrive in this environment because most jobs require task-focused work and silence as you monitor daily operations, including server hardware, software and operating systems.
Median annual salary: $104,420
9. Librarian
Since most libraries offer a calm, quiet environment with minimal social interactions, they include jobs for introverts with anxiety. Although the check-out and reference desks involve minimal social interaction, most tasks involve cataloging and shelving books and lending materials, research, and planning community events for kids, teens and adults.
Median annual salary: $64,370
10. Mechanic
This job requires more sweat, hard work, attention, and less talk. As a mechanic, you are responsible for maintaining and repairing vehicles, and assembling machinery. You must be attentive to detail, examine machines, and oversee diagnostic tests to determine functionality problems. You can also start working after earning a vocational or trade school certification.
Median annual salary: $47,770
11. Medical transcriptionist
Although most people wouldn’t think hospitals have jobs for people with social anxiety, medical transcriptionists rarely work with others! Daily tasks include transcribing voice recordings of medical consultations and procedures, reviewing speech recognition transcripts for accuracy, and formatting transcription reports.
Median annual salary: $37,060
12. Musician
Music is therapeutic. As a musician, you can work creatively by writing lyrics and melodies, rehearsing or performing. Although some careers require live performances, interacting with fans and maintaining a social media presence can trigger your social anxiety. If that’s the case, consider hiring a media manager or applying for behind-the-scenes jobs like writing and recording themes and soundtracks for films, shows and plays.
Median hourly pay: $39.14
13. Paralegal
If you’re passionate about the law but don’t trust your presentation skills, you can help file evidence and documents behind the scenes as a paralegal. These jobs for people with social anxiety include conducting research, drafting legal documents, and filing with court clerks. Additional duties can include helping with trial prep, organizing evidence exhibits and participating in mock trials.
Median annual salary: $60,970
14. Pilot
Although pilots work long shifts and carry the large responsibility of safely flying and landing aircraft, this job includes minimal social interactions. Your social interactions are limited to your first officer, flight crew, air traffic control and the occasional flight-fascinated child or passenger!
Median annual salary: $219,140
15. Security guard
This line of work offers options with little to no interaction with the public. While some are responsible for recording visitors’ names and are on call in an emergency, other security guards patrol and protect buildings and property. Some may even work at night when facilities are closed to the public.
Median annual salary: $39,210
16. Statistician
Statisticians rely on math and data to accurately predict industry trends and revenue and need a quiet place to review statistical analyses, making this a perfect job for people with social anxiety. Your daily tasks can involve statistics, data science, mathematics, strategic planning and forecasting.
Median annual salary: $116,440
17. Translator
Many bilingual or multilingual translators work alone and away from people to translate texts and audio recordings. They avoid loud noise or crowded rooms to translate information accurately and contextually. As long as you are fluent in at least two languages, you may translate documents for people needing your linguistic expertise.
Median annual salary: $57,090
18. Video game designer
Game developers primarily work alone, making it a good job for people with social anxiety. As a game designer, you will design a game’s storyline and characters, animate characters’ expressions and movements, format the base engine, and test the game. Most game designer positions require candidates to have an associate degree, vocational or bachelor’s degree in software design, computer graphics and animation.
Median annual salary: $98,540
19. Videographer
A videographer works to plan, film and edit video content, allowing you to stay behind the camera or alone while you edit. This job is in high demand and is vital for successful advertising and marketing. As a videographer, you can document news and historical moments, film nature, scenes for a film or ad, and more. To become a good videographer, you must stay current on industry trends and master your craft.
Median annual salary: $61,800
20. Writer
If you self-soothe through reading, writing and processing information, try a career in writing. Writing jobs can involve little to no social iteration, and you can research and create content for multiple platforms, including blogs, books, magazines or websites.
Median annual salary: $73,690
What Is Social Anxiety?
Social anxiety can cause extreme fear, stress or discomfort in social situations. Employees with social anxiety might suffer from fear related to feeling judged, embarrassed or rejected by others during daily work interactions, including group meetings or individual touchbases.
How does anxiety impact your work?
Social anxiety can negatively impact the following crucial work skills:
- Communication: The fear of using your communication skills to make suggestions, speak up in meetings or interact with coworkers can negatively impact your projects or contributions.
- Collaborating: Shy interpersonal skills can hinder teamwork, career growth and networking opportunities.
- Fear of feedback: Fear of negative feedback can prevent career development and improvement, negatively impacting your salary and promotion possibilities.
- Task management: Your anxiety might lead you to avoid stressful tasks, reducing productivity.
- Overall performance: The resulting stress can lower your confidence and negatively impact your work performance and personal life.
How to manage social anxiety during your job search.
Since most job applications include multiple rounds of interviews, it can feel stressful and overwhelming to dive into your job search. The following tips can help you manage and navigate social anxiety as you meet and interview multiple hiring managers.
- Break everything down into tasks: Looking for a job can feel like opening a jigsaw puzzle — each task is a piece of the puzzle. Don’t look at the heap of pieces and feel discouraged. Create a list of manageable tasks like revising your resume, applying to one job, checking your responses, and researching job boards to help you approach your job search without getting overwhelmed.
- Prepare your documents: Use professional tools like an online Resume Builder to help you write professional resumes and cover letters for each job opening. Create a master list of your job achievements, education and specialized training so you can quickly scan and identify job-matching examples immediately.
- Practice common interview questions: We don’t recommend going into an interview with ready answers. You risk sounding rehearsed and insincere. You should read over common interview questions and create a bullet list of related skills, projects or notable wins. This keeps your accomplishments fresh in your mind, making remembering and highlighting essential information during your interview easier while giving you flexibility.
- Prioritize self-care: Don’t overwhelm yourself! This can trigger stress and social anxiety. Limit the number of hours you search for jobs, revise your resume or practice for interviews. After stepping away from the search, treat yourself to a walk, a show, a book or your favorite hobby as a way to de-stress and relax.
How to manage your social anxiety at work.
Working with social anxiety can feel overwhelming or embarrassing, but most people have felt shy or anxious before. Here are some techniques to manage social anxiety at work.
- Take small breaks: If possible, step away for a moment, get fresh air, or use a self-identified tool like fidget spinners or stress balls to reset.
- Try breathing exercises: Use deep breathing to calm and reset your heartbeat during stressful situations.
- Use task management tools: Avoid getting overwhelmed or distracted by assignments by using organization skills, tools and techniques to manage your workload and time.
- Identify a comfortable workplace: Whether it’s the staff break room, bathroom, rooftop garden or alley, find a place to step away from social situations.
- Rely on coworkers: Let your work friends or managers know when you need support or adjustments to manage your workload.
Pro tip: Workers with anxiety disorders fall under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protections. This means that you are not required to disclose your psychiatric disability unless you wish to request accommodations in the workplace.
Key Takeaways
Although you experience social anxiety, there are jobs with minimal social interactions where you can comfortably work and earn a living.
- Look for jobs with small teams, minimal collaboration or remote working setups.
- Focus on jobs in careers with independent work setups.
- Prioritize jobs that can be done with few coworkers. This can encourage gradual relationship-building without triggering anxiety.
- Use self-soothing techniques to manage your social anxiety when collaboration is required.
Learn About Our Writing Standards
Editorial Standards
JobHero has published in-depth career guides, resume and cover letter articles since 2014. We aim to share job-seeking tools and empower job seekers throughout their careers! Visit our Editorial Process to see how our authors research, write and revise our articles.
Rate This Article
Social Anxiety: Don’t Let It Get in the Way of Your Future
Last edited by: Ami Icanberry, CPRW, Manager, Content Editing, - October 25, 2024
Gabriela Barcenas
CPRW, Content Writer IIGabriela is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and career adviser. With 10 years of digital media experience and five years of resume writing expertise, her publication history includes fashion, education, travel, social justice, equitable design and career advice.
