Who Will Help You Get A Job As A Former Pastor? The 7 Types of People You Need To Reach Out To

Read Time: 3 minutes

Overview

Welcome to the Ministry To Marketplace Minute! Today, we’re talking about the best vocational jobs for pastors - and more specifically, how you can know what are good career options for you. Want to know what jobs you could possibly do as a former pastor? Let’s dive in.

Today's Ministry To Marketplace Minute:

Mindset Shift: What jobs can I do as a former pastor?
Strategy Shift: How can I figure out what job I should do next?
Do This Right Now: Get clarity for your direction.
Who Will Hire Me?: 5 ministry friendly organizations with jobs for ex-pastors.

Overview

Today's Ministry To Marketplace Minute:

Mindset Shift: What jobs can I do as a former pastor?
Strategy Shift: How can I figure out what job I should do next?
Do This Right Now: Get clarity for your direction.
Who Will Hire Me?: 5 ministry friendly organizations with jobs for ex-pastors.

Overview

Today's Ministry To Marketplace Minute:

Mindset Shift: What jobs can I do as a former pastor?
Strategy Shift: How can I figure out what job I should do next?
Do This Right Now: Get clarity for your direction.
Who Will Hire Me?: 5 ministry friendly organizations with jobs for ex-pastors.

LAUNCH YOUR JOB SEARCH

🧠 MINDSET SHIFT: What jobs can I do as a former pastor?

The job title is deceiving you.

One of the hardest parts of job searching is not knowing what the job you are looking for is actually called.

Because there are SO MANY NAMES for the exact same job.

So instead of focusing on the job title, focus on the job function.

The function of the job is what the person in a role does for the organization.

What problems they solve, what actions they take, what results they create - that keep the organization moving towards the mission and the goals.

I broke this down in How To Translate Your Ministry Experience For Corporate Jobs (part 1).

If you can identify the problems that you want to solve for an organization, then you can narrow down the type of job that you want to do next.

That is why when we talk about the job you want next, we don’t say “job title.” We say “job type.”

What can you do really well that solves a specific problem?
That’s the question you want to answer.

The job title is deceiving you.

One of the hardest parts of job searching is not knowing what the job you are looking for is actually called.

Because there are SO MANY NAMES for the exact same job.

So instead of focusing on the job title, focus on the job function.

The function of the job is what the person in a role does for the organization.

What problems they solve, what actions they take, what results they create - that keep the organization moving towards the mission and the goals.

I broke this down in How To Translate Your Ministry Experience For Corporate Jobs (part 1).

If you can identify the problems that you want to solve for an organization, then you can narrow down the type of job that you want to do next.

That is why when we talk about the job you want next, we don’t say “job title.” We say “job type.”

What can you do really well that solves a specific problem?
That’s the question you want to answer.

♟️ STRATEGY SHIFT: Who will help me get a job as a former pastor?

But that is still a really broad question, so where do you start?

We created an assessment for our coaching group that narrows down to the exact job title based on your skills, experience, and wiring.

But here, we’ll at least help you narrow all the options down by 66% by answering this simple question:

Are you offense or defense?

Organizations are like a team sport.
Some jobs are offense.
Some jobs are defense.

Some jobs are about winning.

More goals
More points
More revenue

Some jobs are about preventing losing.

Fewer points from the opponent
Less money wasted
Decrease in risk

So answer this question:
Are you an offensive player, or defensive player?

Do you prefer more, bigger, expansion, gains?
Do you prefer efficiency, structure, strong foundation, eliminating loss?

But that is still a really broad question, so where do you start?

We created an assessment for our coaching group that narrows down to the exact job title based on your skills, experience, and wiring.

But here, we’ll at least help you narrow all the options down by 66% by answering this simple question:

Are you offense or defense?

Organizations are like a team sport.
Some jobs are offense.
Some jobs are defense.

Some jobs are about winning.

More goals
More points
More revenue

Some jobs are about preventing losing.

Fewer points from the opponent
Less money wasted
Decrease in risk

So answer this question:
Are you an offensive player, or defensive player?

Do you prefer more, bigger, expansion, gains?
Do you prefer efficiency, structure, strong foundation, eliminating loss?

What roles does this look like?

If you are an “offensive player,” you’ll likely fit in roles like

Sales
Marketing
Account management

If you are a “defensive player,” you’ll likely fit in roles like

HR
Quality Assurance
Accounting or Finance

Or, you could be more of a midfielder.
Maybe you enjoy playing both sides?

Roles that will likely fit you are roles like

Operations
Product
Client Success

Understanding how you prefer to operate will help you to eliminate a bunch of roles that won’t fit your personality and skillset.

That way, you don’t have to waste your time wondering, “what if?” on roles that wouldn’t be a fit for you.

*Those lists are not exhaustive, there are way more jobs, but those are some of the primary functions in an organization.

You can approach it this way:
Which problem do you want to solve? How do you like solving that problem?

Is there a people problem that you can solve with coaching?
There’s a role for that.

Is there a lack of giving or donations that you can fix with conversations?
There’s a job for that.

Is there a gap in programs available for people that need them and you can create those with great planning?
There’s a position for that.

What are those called?
Hard to say. Everyone will call them something different.

But here are some ideas below.

Recent jobs landed from the Launch Point coaching group

To give you an idea of roles that are possible from a ministry background, here are roles that people in our coaching group have been hired for recently:

Customer Success
Executive Coach
Community Engagement
Account Executive (sales)
Marketing Manager
Director of Development
Account Manager
Career Coach
Project Manager
CEO of a local non-profit

There are many other roles that would fit someone coming from ministry, but these are some of the common ones we are seeing!

If you are an “offensive player,” you’ll likely fit in roles like

Sales
Marketing
Account management

If you are a “defensive player,” you’ll likely fit in roles like

HR
Quality Assurance
Accounting or Finance

Or, you could be more of a midfielder.
Maybe you enjoy playing both sides?

Roles that will likely fit you are roles like

Operations
Product
Client Success