The 10 strangest and most peculiar but well-paid jobs

There are special jobs that do not fit into the classic professional categories that we know. These are types of jobs that are considered bizarre, but are almost always well paid.

Browsing around the world, for example, you can discover that there are people who smell paper napkins for a living, those who stand in line for you, those who taste ice cream and even those who participate, for a fee, in the funerals of strangers.

In many cases, "different from the usual" jobs are a way to supplement your salary in your free time, but often they are well-paid jobs that allow you to easily make it to the end of the month and guarantee a good standard of living.

With the prevalence of the most sophisticated information technologies, linked to AI for example, special professional figures who know the most enigmatic secrets of the web and its codes are also emerging.

Here is a list of 10 Weirdest and Highest Paying Jobs in demand around the world.

Dog Food Taster

Food testing is a fairly common job around the world. In this industry, there are even people who are paid to taste pet food.

Dog food brands hire people to test their products and judge their smell, taste, nutritional value, texture, and packaging. Luckily, most tasters chew but do not swallow the food. Regardless, these roles are very well paid: the income of a dog food tester is around $40,000 per year (almost 38,000 euros).

Quality rater

The gigantic machine of the most widespread and powerful search engine in the world, Google, also moves thanks to an army of quality raters.

Who are these particular professional figures essential for the proper functioning of the SERP, or web searches? They are experts in charge of evaluating the quality of the results provided by Google when you search for content.

In essence, quality raters check whether the SERPs comply with the specific guidelines compiled by Google and the quality criteria set as essential requirements, so that users have a truly useful service.

Be careful, quality raters do not interfere with the positions of the results in SERP. They have the task of checking whether the search algorithm works perfectly.

According to an official Google document from 2022, the company employs 16,000 professionals around the world for this quality control. The salary seems to be around 13 euros per hour.

Ethical Hacker

In the IT field, there is the professional figure of the ethical hacker. What does he do? As the name suggests, he is a web pirate, but with good intentions compared to the hackers we know.

The issue of cybersecurity has become a priority for companies, often dealing with attacks by hackers who are also very sophisticated and therefore highly damaging to the security of sensitive data and the functioning of operating systems.

Many companies, therefore, decide to hire an ethical hacker who has the task of testing the ability of the IT infrastructure and the digital system of the company to defend themselves from a possible attack.

This professional is therefore an IT expert, with the authorization to simulate illegal and harmful actions precisely to evaluate how efficient the company is in terms of cybersecurity.

If he has experience, an ethical hacker can earn up to 100,000 euros a year.

Tissue Sniffer

The paper tissue sniffer, the ones we use to blow our noses, deserves a place on the list of the 10 most bizarre jobs that pay the most.

A very strange job, it must be admitted, but you are lucky if you manage to get it (they say it is easier to get a part in a Hollywood movie).

All you have to do is smell the tissues and make sure they do not give off strange or bad odors before they are sold. All for a "modest" fee of 1,000 euros a week.

Living mannequin

You may have seen, especially in the windows and shops of luxury brands, real models instead of plastic mannequins. A job that can be boring since you have to stand still for hours. Real mannequins can earn a cool $100 an hour.

Line sitter

Hate standing in line? You can hire a professional coder or line sitter, a person who will stand in line for you.

For those who do it, this job may seem really boring, but sitting in line for other people doesn’t require any effort or special skills. Line sitters average $20 an hour, but some have earned $1,500 for standing in line at the Apple Store for someone who wanted to buy the latest iPhone.

Crime scene cleaner

This particular figure is responsible for cleaning and sanitizing environments that are at risk of biological hazards or that have been involved in a crime.

Professionals can earn approximately €40,000 to €75,000 per year. Although a degree is often the only requirement, specialized training and certifications are essential to succeed in this field.

Social Media Listening Manager

The social media manager is a well-established figure in companies. However, there is a more specific professional who is often hired by companies that focus heavily on marketing.

This is a Social Media Listening Manager, whose job is to listen and read the comments that users communicate on the various social channels regarding the brand or the company’s reference sector.

In this way, the person in charge will have a complete picture of the opinions relating to the company’s brand and its competitors and will be able to direct the company’s marketing.

Body Parts Model

You don’t have to have the perfect body to make a living as a top model: the demand for people willing to have just some parts of their body photographed is growing.

Think about photo shoots to advertise products such as jewelry, makeup and shoes: in these cases, images of hands, feet, neck, face are requested. This activity allows you to earn from a few hundred euros up to 5,000 euros a day.

A very common profession in Middle Eastern and Chinese cultures, with a history dating back thousands of years. Clients ask professional mourners to increase the number of attendees at a funeral when the deceased has only a few friends and relatives to pay their last respects.

Funeral Attendee

A very common profession in Middle Eastern and Chinese cultures, with a history dating back thousands of years. In practice, these professionals serve to increase the number of attendees at a funeral when the deceased has few friends and relatives who come to pay their last respects.

The grieving professional must meet the client in advance, to learn the details of the deceased’s life and relationships.

You must have good speaking skills, a good memory and be able to speak naturally and confidently about the deceased. You earn about 50 euros for a day’s work.

Original article published on Money.it Italy. Original title: I 10 lavori più strani e particolari ma ben pagati