Health and Human Performance Career Options

Key Takeaways

Diverse Career Options: Health and Human Performance majors can explore various roles, such as public health advocates, sports coaches, exercise physiologists, or corporate wellness directors.
Importance of Accreditation and Certification: Ensuring your program is accredited and obtaining relevant certifications can enhance employability.
Demand in Healthcare and Fitness: Due to constant demand, health and human performance careers are especially promising in healthcare and fitness.
Networking and Continuous Learning: Building a professional network and pursuing further certifications can open more career opportunities.

One of the most challenging things to do for a young person coming out of college is to transition successfully into a fulfilling, rewarding career. If you have been focused on getting your degree in Health and Human Performance, that task has likely taken up most of your time and effort in recent years. As you start to see that graduation isn’t too far into the future, now is a good time to look at your employment options and make a detailed plan.

This page will highlight some of the many great careers in Health and Human Performance. Whether your priority is to make as much of an impact on the world as possible, make as much money as possible, or land somewhere in the middle, the ideas on this page are sure to point you in the right direction.

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Seeing Your Major from a New Perspective

Up until this point, you have probably been thinking about your schooling mostly from the perspective of a focused student trying to get good grades and graduate. It’s necessary to have that kind of focus at the start, but as graduation draws near, you need to start thinking about health and human performance degree jobs and what options might be available to you with a diploma in hand.

Now that you realize that you are going to make it through school successfully and finish on your graduation day, thinking about job opportunities with a health and human performance major feels more relevant and important. After all, you don’t want to walk off the stage of graduation and into your future without a clear idea of what comes next. Fortunately, you’ve done yourself a tremendous favor by getting such a useful education, and the next steps should be as exciting as they are challenging.

A Few Career Path Options

So, what to do with a health and human performance degree? We aren’t going to be able to list every possible job that you could pursue with your education in this section, but we can provide a few sample job titles to help you understand the market and what is likely to be available around you.

Public health advocate. This type of position helps to improve public policy in a way that will benefit human health. Given the ongoing obesity epidemic in the United States and around the world, these types of positions have never been more important.
Sports coach. If you have a particular level of knowledge in a given sport, and now can add an education in health and human performance to that knowledge, you may make an excellent candidate as a coach. Generally, you’ll need to start out at a lower level – likely as an assistant coach – only to work your way up as you go.
Exercise physiologist. Create original fitness programs to help people or groups get into shape and maintain their fitness over time.
Corporate wellness director. More and more large corporations are hiring for this position to help their people stay healthy and happy throughout their careers. This could be a rewarding opportunity to work with people who will appreciate having you as a resource to improve their level of fitness and overall well-being.

Finding an Industry with Strong Demand

As you think about future careers in health and human performance, make sure you consider what fields are likely to have strong demand for years to come. Predicting this kind of thing is not a perfect science, of course, but you can make an educated guess based on current trends. While the employment options for health and human performance graduates are going to change as the years pass, some fields tend to remain strong in terms of demand over the long haul.

When it comes to strong demand, healthcare just might come in at the top of the list. Among the various health and human performance career paths you can explore, working in healthcare will offer a kind of stability and earning potential that is hard to match elsewhere. Whether it’s in a hospital, rehab center, clinic, or other location, it’s unlikely that these types of facilities will fill their tremendous need for qualified providers anytime soon.

Another sector that always seems to have a lot of demand but also a lot of competition is fitness and recreation. Since many people see this field as more “fun” than healthcare, it’s a common target for individuals with a health and human performance education. Working as a trainer or coach can be a rewarding, enjoyable experience if you are able to secure employment in this area.

Making Yourself Easy to Hire

One of the hardest “reality check” moments for recent college graduates is that there are many other people out there in the marketplace with the same education who are looking for the same jobs. It’s easy to think that you are unique for having graduated with a degree in health and human performance – or anything else, for that matter – but that’s just not the case. It’s an excellent accomplishment to secure a degree, but there is more work to be done before you can land a job you’ll love.

It helps to think about professional roles in health and human performance from the perspective of the hiring manager or owner of a business. What would you be looking for to differentiate one applicant from the next? If most people who apply have a degree in health and human performance, you can’t really use that to pick your next hire, so you have to go a level deeper. One good option is to seek out certifications that are relevant to your education and will add credibility to what you can bring to the job. Depending on what type of work you decide to pursue, this could mean becoming a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, a Certified Personal Trainer, or one of a number of other options. Most of these types of certification courses can be done online, so you can complete them on your own time, even after you have taken a job and started your career.

Building a Network and Creating Options

It’s important to remember that the first job you take after graduation doesn’t have to be the position you are going to stay in forever. One of the many health and human performance major benefits is that you have a range of career options in front of you, and your first position or title is unlikely to be your last.

As soon as you get started using your education to get a job, make it a point to network with other professionals in this industry. You don’t have to be intentionally trying to reach another career move at this point – you just want to connect with people, form relationships, and see what doors open in the future. Knowing others in health and human performance, even if they aren’t specifically in your current field, will only help you down the road. Consider joining relevant professional organizations so you can gain access to networking events and other opportunities that may expose you to new and exciting options.

It’s Never Too Early

Even with plenty of schoolwork left ahead of you to complete, exploring careers in Health and Human Performance is always a task that is worth your time and energy. By knowing ahead of time what job opportunities are available and which ones may be appealing to you, the employment market won’t be so intimidating or confusing when the time comes to send out applications. We hope this page has been helpful and wish you the best of luck in your new career!

What Can I Do with a Major in Health and Human Performance?