When Steve Menking started working on Wall Street in his early 20s, he thought he found a career for life.

Instead, shortly after his 25th birthday, Menking jokes that he had a “quarter-life crisis” while working as an equities trader at SMB Capital.

“I watched colleagues my age — or younger — excelling in their careers, but it was difficult for me to see people stay in the office until 1 a.m., and think that could be my future,” Menking, 36, tells CNBC Make It. “It just wasn’t the lifestyle for me.” 

When he asked himself what kind of job would make him happy, the answer had nothing to do with banking or the stock market — he wanted to teach. 

“I worked as a teaching assistant and tutor in college and, reflecting on it later, I realized that teaching brought out a more patient, purpose-driven version of myself. It gave me a deep sense of meaning,” he says. “I felt called to teach.” 

In 2014, Menking made the switch from finance to full-time tutoring, thinking it would be an “equally meaningful, but less time-intensive” path into education than pursuing a second bachelor’s degree to become a teacher.

Ten years later, that decision has paid off — in both career satisfaction and finances. In 2023, Menking earned more than $500,000 through private tutoring, a number he’s on track to match in 2024.

On average, Menking works 20 to 25 hours per week from his home in Connecticut, where he lives with his wife and three children.

He’s built a thriving career with two main income streams: contracting with Forum Education, a New York-based tutoring agency, and running his own online business, Menking Tutoring LLC, which he launched in 2020.

“It’s been better and more fulfilling than I ever could have imagined,” he says.

Here’s how Menking left finance for a career in education — and found a job that pays six figures and allows him to work from home.

After quitting his job in finance, Menking submitted his resume to dozens of tutoring agencies in New York and created a profile on Wyzant, an online tutoring marketplace. 

He set his rate at just under $100 an hour and leveraged his Wall Street credentials to carve out a niche helping high school and college students in math, finance and accounting.

As he gained more experience and referrals, Menking increased his rates on Wyzant and negotiated for a higher rate with the agencies he worked with. By 2017, he was earning about $150 an hour.

That same year, an acquaintance, Thomas Howell, the founder of Forum Education, reached out to Menking and encouraged him to work for the agency. That’s when Menking’s earning potential “really took off,” he recalls.

After joining Forum — and its far-reaching network of schools, students and families — Menking’s earnings more than doubled, from $95,000 to $200,000 a year.

He started working online with young people all over the U.S., including students at Ivy League universities like Princeton and Yale. Most of Menking’s tutees are in high school or college.

Right now, he works with a dozen students, the majority of whom are undergraduates pursuing bachelor’s degrees in finance or a related field.

He meets with most students at least once per week to help them work through practice problems ahead of a major exam, prepare for internship interviews and “demystify” some of the more complicated concepts introduced in college-level math courses.

Menking’s current rate is about $1,000 an hour. 

When Menking isn’t working with students one-on-one through Forum, he grows Menking Tutoring LLC, which provides online test prep courses and corporate training, like coaching entry-level investment banking analysts.

Menking’s schedule isn’t consistent. During the summer months, when schools are closed, he might work between 8 and 10 hours per week, but in the winter and spring, ahead of final exams, he works closer to 40 hours per week. 

He often works nights and weekends, as that’s when most of his students are available — but he saves a few nights each week to have dinner with his family and play with his children. 

Some weeks might be more stressful than others — he might get stumped on a homework assignment or receive the occasional panicked middle-of-the-night email from a student— but overall, “being a private tutor has given me an extraordinary work-life balance,” Menking adds.

Tutoring might be a lucrative side hustle, but if you’re patient with the long hours and inconsistent earnings the job can bring, it can be a rewarding full-time career. 

“There’s no substitute for waking up every day knowing you’re serving others in a way that aligns with your unique expertise,” says Menking. “It’s a career that allows me to be creative, to serve others, and to be entrepreneurial. … I love it.”

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Jessica Jackson always dreamed of working outdoors — now, she spends most of her days 300 feet in the air, atop wind turbines. 

Jackson, 37, is a wind turbine service technician at Vestas, a wind turbine manufacturer, in Bee County, Texas, and earns $73,000 per year. 

Her job requires technical expertise in hydraulics, electrical systems, and mechanical repairs — plus the stamina to haul 50 pounds of gear up narrow ladders in all kinds of weather.

Climbing the turbine tower “isn’t as scary as you’d think,” she tells CNBC Make It. The tallest turbine on the wind farm Jackson works on is about 350 feet above the ground. It takes her less than 10 minutes to get to the top.

“Once you’re up there, you get to see the best views: You’re watching birds fly, eagles, hawks,” she says. “You get to see planes fly by. You get to see as far as you can see. It’s beautiful.”

It isn’t a career for the faint of heart. Wind turbine technicians face one of the highest rates of work-related injuries, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Yet it’s also the fastest-growing job in the U.S., with employment in the sector expected to almost double over the next decade.

“Working in this field is hard, but it’s rewarding,” says Jackson. 

Despite the high demand for wind turbine service technicians, the profession remains “underrated and overlooked,” she adds, offering untapped potential for job-seekers who crave adventure and a competitive salary.

It’s “pretty standard” for employers not to require a bachelor’s degree for technician-level positions, according to Vanessa Benedetti, Vestas’ senior director of training operations and workforce development.

“What’s more important is that you have a willingness to learn, love to tinker and can get your hands dirty,” she adds. 

While you don’t need a bachelor’s degree to become a wind turbine service technician, some jobs might require you to complete a 2-year technical program or apprenticeship. Others, like Blattner Energy and Vestas, will provide on-the-job training for new hires.

Vestas’ training covers best practices for the turbine’s electrical equipment, technical procedures like bolt torque and tensioning, as well as first aid and safety protocols.

Before becoming a wind technician, Jackson, who has four children, spent a decade as a stay-at-home mom.

After she and her husband separated in 2019, Jackson decided to return to the workforce but was worried her opportunities would be limited without a bachelor’s degree.

Her ex-husband recommended her for a job at Blattner Energy, a renewable energy contractor in northern Texas, installing tower wiring. That job introduced Jackson to Vestas, where she started working in February 2020.

Jackson enrolled in college online part-time while working as a wind tech and finished her bachelor’s degree in environmental science from the University of Arizona in 2022.

Her long-term goal is to become a lead technician at Vestas, a role that pays about $100,000 a year.

The median annual salary for wind turbine service technicians is $61,770; however, many earn over $90,000 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“It’s one of those rare fields where you feel like you are your own boss,” says Jackson. “You get to decide how quickly you move up the career ladder and how much you earn.” 

Jackson gets to work at 7 a.m. and ends her shift by 5:30 p.m. She works five days a week. 

The hardest part of her job is the climb. Jackson has to scale a narrow, metal ladder inside the turbine and pull herself through a hatch at the top to access the turbine’s nacelle, which sits atop the tower and contains the machine’s main parts. It’s a vertical climb up nearly 30 stories.

“Cutting any corners with safety could be the reason why I don’t go home that day,” says Jackson, who wears gloves, glasses, a helmet, harness and other protective equipment on the job. “Once you’re up there, you’re in your office and ready to work. Everything else is easier.”

The job might be physically demanding, but Jackson says spending so much time outside on the farm — and climbing the towers — has helped her feel “stronger and healthier.”

Benedetti has seen hiring for technicians in the U.S. “ebb and flow” over the past decade depending on demand, production tax credits and supply chain issues. 

Right now, “we’re seeing a huge investment in wind energy technologies,” she says. Global offshore wind investment hit an all-time high in 2023, reaching a record $76.7 billion, according to BloombergNEF’s Renewable Energy Investment Tracker.

At Vestas, the average contract for a technician is about 13 years. “It’s a career that has longevity and gives people the opportunity to learn and grow within their careers, and also to stay and feel settled within their community, which is really wonderful,” Benedetti adds.

At least 2,100 technicians are expected to be hired every year over the next decade, per the Labor Department’s latest estimates, an increase driven by both new projects and the need to maintain existing turbines.

Jackson plans to work as a technician until she retires in her 70s, if not sooner.

As she climbs the career ladder — both literally and figuratively — Jackson hopes to inspire others, particularly women and those without college degrees, to consider becoming wind techs.

“My best advice would be to go for it,” she says. “I never imagined myself in this field, but I’m extremely grateful for my job and I love what I do. … You’ll never know unless you try.”

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Some bosses like to stick their nose into everything their employees are working on. Fawn Weaver isn’t one of them, she says.

Weaver, a 48-year-old self-made millionaire, founded Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey in 2016. Her Shelbyville, Tennessee-based company became the fastest-growing American whiskey brand in history, achieving a $1.1 billion valuation in May, according to Forbes and the International Wine and Spirits Record.

That growth didn’t come from micromanaging, Weaver told LinkedIn’s “This Is Working” video series last week.

“I have two things that everyone in the company knows,” said Weaver. “One is called HBU: highest and best use of time. So if it is not my highest and best use of time, it usually will not bubble up to me.

“The second [policy] is: If someone else can do it, then someone else should do it.”

It makes more sense for Weaver to occupy herself with high-level business duties than check over employees’ work multiple times per day or dictate how people should complete their tasks.

“Micromanaging does not work,” Weaver said. “I have built this entire company on ‘intrapreneurs.’ Everyone owns their jobs. They own their descriptions fully, and I don’t bother that. I hire the best and I get out of their way.”

Weaver’s mindset echoes that of billionaire tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban. Earlier this year, Cuban wrote that while new employees may require some hand-holding to understand company flow and culture, afterward, you should let them do their jobs. If you’re micromanaging, something’s wrong, he added.

“Micromanage early. Trust the process or fix what’s broken if you always have to micromanage,” Cuban wrote in March, on social media platform X.

Seventy-three percent of workers consider micromanagement to be the biggest workplace red flag, saying it contributes to negative and anxious feelings, according to an August 2023 survey from job platform Monster. Forty-six percent said they’d leave their job because of it.

If you’re unsure of how to handle your micromanaging boss, try over-communicating. Anticipate what concerns or questions they may have and answer them before they get the chance to ask, according to bestselling author and New York University professor Suzy Welch.

“Swamp them with evidence of your competence and character,” she said in 2019. “Tell them what you’re doing all the time. Eliminate every possible surprise. And most important of all, don’t screw up.”

For Weaver, running a company is already like “slaying dragons,” and worrying about other people’s duties would just add stress. Being a good boss means putting the best, most-qualified talent in place to handle the rest, she said.

“What comes to me are only the things that no one else can do,” said Weaver.

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IT support might not be one of the most glamorous tech jobs, but it’s a smart path to consider if you’re looking for a career that pays well and offers strong job security.

Often overlooked as a behind-the-scenes job, IT support offers competitive salaries, diverse opportunities and flexibility that many fail to recognize, Lisa Gevelber, a vice president at Google and founder of Grow With Google, tells CNBC Make It.

With more companies moving online — and adopting new technologies, including artificial intelligence and cloud computing — the need for IT support has become more urgent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the number of IT support jobs will grow at least 15% in the next decade — more than three times faster than the average for all occupations.

There are more than 300,000 unfilled IT support jobs in the U.S. right now, Gevelber points out. 

On Google, searches for “IT support jobs” and “IT support skills” hit an “all-time high” in 2024, since the search engine started tracking such queries 20 years ago, she adds.

Here’s how to land a job in IT support — and where to find the best opportunities:

Companies are increasingly hiring people without bachelor’s degrees to address critical labor shortages in IT support. Most IT support jobs require at least a high school diploma or GED, as well as the completion of an online certification or training. 

Google offers an IT support certificate as part of its skilling initiative, Grow with Google, which Gevelber founded in 2017. One of the programs in this initiative, the Google Career Certificate Program, provides lessons and certifications for in-demand skills including IT support, cybersecurity and data analytics.

The IT support certificate can be completed in as little as 3 months and costs $49 monthly. Other organizations, including Amazon Web Services and CompTIA, offer comparable certificates.

Some of the most popular jobs in IT support include computer support specialists, help desk analysts and IT support technicians. 

Although the day-to-day responsibilities differ between each role, the core skills are consistent across jobs, says Gevelber. 

IT support professionals should be adept at diagnosing and resolving a technical issue, whether it’s a malfunctioning server or a software glitch.

Strong communication and customer service skills are important. 

“You need to be both a techie and a people person,” Gevelber explains. “It’s a problem-solving role that requires active listening, understanding the problem at hand, communicating and documenting your findings and the solution to people with different technical comfortabilities.”

If you can nail both those technical and soft skills, “you’ll really excel in this field,” Gevelber adds.

IT support professionals are needed across all industries, but there’s a strong demand for talent in the manufacturing, health care, education, tech and business fields, according to recent research from Lightcast. 

Besides Google, companies like Wells Fargo, Verizon and Dell Technologies have all hired graduates from Google’s IT support certificate program directly, Gevelber adds.

The average pay for several IT support jobs exceeds $100,000. According to Glassdoor, the median salary for system analysts is $135,000, while the median salary for database administrators is $118,000 a year. 

You can find dozens of remote IT support jobs on the market, too, some of which pay upwards of $150,000 a year.

Ultimately, “you want to go into a career field that’s growing and where there’s an absolute need in the organization for what you do,” says Gevelber. “That’s IT support — it’s an incredibly important, rewarding skill set to have, and that’s going to continue to be the case for a long, long time.” 

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Living in Florida with a decent $108,000 salary, Brooklyn Karasack can generally afford to buy brand new clothes. But the 27-year-old has found a hobby she loves in making her own.

What started as a money-saving hack for Karasack has become a wonderful creative outlet. “I wasn’t getting enough out of just being able to be creative with the fashion I was buying,” she tells CNBC Make It.

“I started with making stuff for music festivals, and then it quickly snowballed into making just about everything that I wear.”

Karasack soon realized she could keep costs even lower by skipping the fabric store and buying secondhand items — existing articles of clothing, bags, shoes, curtains — and using those materials instead.

She’s a regular at a nearby Goodwill and the chain of Red, White and Blue thrift stores, and she frequents local secondhand shops. Sometimes she just makes minor alterations to some of her finds, and other times, she completely re-envisions how to use the material.

When she sews, Karasack doesn’t use patterns, she says, and is typically “winging it.” She uses her measurements to make silhouettes and adjusts as needed.

Whether it’s reimaging a dress you find at your local Goodwill or just wearing it off the rack, shopping secondhand is way to save money and shop more sustainably. “I think that it’s really fun to take the character that’s in something from the thrift store and turn it into something new,” Karasack says. “To take something that would probably go to a landfill and give it a new life.”

Here are Karasack’s best tips for a successful thrift store haul.

Most thrift stores are a hodgepodge of people’s unwanted items. It’s overwhelming and it can be difficult to walk in looking for a particular item or style and walk out successful. Karasack encourages hopeful thrifters to go in “with an open mind.” 

Though it may help to have a strong creative vision and some sewing skills, Karasack says her most impressive thrift flips happen “when I take something that wasn’t a shirt and turn it into a shirt.” 

The saying “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” often rings true when it comes to secondhand shopping. Karasack pushes things a step further by turning some items into completely new pieces.

“I’ve taken a pair of broken heels and made it into a corset. I’ve taken some purses that were stained and pretty gross on the inside and turned them into skirts,” she says. “I think that’s fun when it’s something you wouldn’t expect.”

In a similar vein, Karasack is a huge proponent of styling items in unexpected ways. “Try a shirt on backwards, try it on upside down, and you can have a lot more fun and find new ways to wear things,” she says.

Karasack tries on her finds at the store, which some people may feel weird about. But “I think you really need to try things on to see all the possibilities with it” before buying, she says.

Since you’ll spend less at a thrift store than you would at other retailers, it can be tempting to shop more frequently. 

“It’s very easy to over-thrift,” Karasack says. She used to run into this problem by going thrifting without a specific event in mind. “Anything [with] a cool pattern I would buy, and the next thing I know, I have a thrift store in my closet,” she says.

It got to a point where Karasack wasn’t really saving money anymore because she was thrifting so often. Now, “I usually shop for things for specific events, so I’m never just shopping for the thrill of shopping,” she says.

Except for when she buys swimsuits, shoes and some accessories, Karasack has been able to rely pretty heavily on shopping secondhand for almost all of her clothing needs. “I haven’t shopped at a store other than a thrift store in about three years,” she says.

“I thrift just about everything and it definitely has helped me save a lot of money.”

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