Jobs after getting your master's in counseling

After getting my undergraduate degree in psychology in 2013, I knew that I wanted to go back to school for a graduate degree. I never changed my major in school because I always knew that the mental health field was what I wanted to do with my career. Since high school I had chosen my college major and even when all my other classmates were struggling to make a decision, or the juniors in college had changed their majors twice already, I was on track to graduate on time. Once I was in my last year, I started to feel the pressures of preparing for graduate school. Everyone that I talked to in my cohort had already picked their grad programs, had gotten letters of recommendation from their professors, done internships, applied for scholarships, and sent in their applications. I was already behind and I didn't even know I was supposed to start yet. I quickly became overwhelmed and discouraged about my future. My grades in my first two years of undergrad weren't the best, and although I had pulled my g.p.a up by senior year, I just kept hearing how competitive all the programs were. I didn't know where to start, and so I never did. I thought I would just work in the field for a little while before applying for school again and earn a little bit of money in the process.

Essentially every job related to the mental health field I looked at listed "master's degree preferred" under the job requirements. If I did find a job that didn't require that, it paid very little, and I had student loans I had to start paying back soon. I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere with the job hunt, so I lowered my standards again and said, I'll just find any job, I have a bachelors degree so it shouldn't be too hard, and once I start making money I'll start applying to some programs. The job hunt was equally as hard even applying to non-mental health related jobs. The only interview I received was for a job working in the mall, I was hired and worked there for over a year. After a year I hadn't applied to school yet, but I did find a job working in a clinical mental health facility. I didn't do anything mental health related. I helped take care of our clients that had physical and mental handicaps, but I wasn't allowed to do anything other than help distribute meds. Still, I was working in the field and although the hours were not ideal, I enjoyed being in a helping profession. After about 7 months my husband was offered a better job opportunity in another city so I had to leave my mental health/non-mental health job behind.

I was now in a new city, on the job hunt yet again, hitting the same roadblocks as before. Every job I looked into only wanted Master's level clinicians, so after 3 months of not working, I took another job outside of my field. This job worked with children, which I really loved, but over time, I began to feel unfulfilled. I had put my dreams of going back to school on the back burner because I was completely burnt out. I didn't realize how hard it would be to go back to school after starting to work, not to mention I wasn't making a livable wage, although I had a 4 year degree. So, I found another job that made significantly more, I had to make sure those student loan payments were still being paid. I won't go into too much detail about this job, I could write a book about the harassment and terrible treatment I received from my boss and upper management, but long story short, I became very depressed from working there and ended up quitting after another 7 wasted months. I was so disappointed with where my career had taken me up until this point, but it had given me just enough discontent to finally make a decision to start studying for the GRE. I had purchased the book at least a year prior, but I think the actual volume of the material, coupled with all the other factors that discouraged me 5 years prior, had led me to continue putting it off. Finally, I had reached my breaking point. I'm going back to school.

In the meantime, I did get another job. This was probably the best job I had ever worked at. The hours were great, my co-workers were amazing, and the pay was standard. I started working in corporate America, and life was good. Although I was still studying to go back to school, I was actually enjoying my work for once. I remember thinking to myself, okay, if I don't get accepted into school, at least I'll have a decent job that I actually like. Then, the craziest thing happened, I got accepted into a counseling program. After putting it off for so long, I was pretty much sure I was just applying at this point to finally put an end to this crazy dream. I couldn't believe that after 7 years, I was going to get my Master's degree in marriage and family therapy. I won't go into the details of how hard it was to work full-time and go to school full-time, but at the end of the day I made it to graduation. It was finally time for me to leave my wonderful job, to find an even more wonderful career. The one thing that I didn't really account for was that it had been about 7 years since I had tried to get a job in my field, and things had changed a bit.

Imagine my horror when after going online to find a job with my new Master's degree, I noticed a trend. All of those old jobs that used to say "Master's degree preferred" now said "seeking fully licensed clinicians" under the job requirements. I felt like I had been duped. Never did I think that the bar would be moved. I was in the same position I was in all those years ago, only now with even more student loan debt to pay back. What is everyone that I graduated with doing for work, I wondered. Someone has to be hiring at the associate/intern level somewhere. There were some that were hired on from their internship sites during grad school, some were lucky enough to find work at a private practice, but I know there were a number of people that had to find jobs outside of the field. I had done that before and I decidedly wasn't going backward. I made the decision that if I couldn't find a job, I would make one.

In August, 2024 I began my private practice as a licensed marriage and family therapist intern. I had never owned my own business before, and there was a lot of work that had to go into it before I could just start practicing, but now I set my own pay rate, create my own schedule, work in a career field I enjoy, and most importantly, I get to help people. There are still some factors of owning a business that I have to continue to work on, such as marketing, but even after taking 7 years off of school, working 5 different jobs, going back to school for 2 additional years, and getting denied multiple jobs, I would still choose this path to finding fulfillment in my career if I had to do it all over again, maybe just a little bit sooner.