I have a master's degree in philosophy. The only work experience I have is as an administrative assistant. I don't want to teach; I'm not a people person and prefer working independently. What career would you suggest I pursue?
Around 1950, author Sidney Fine postulated the concept that workers prefer using their transferable skills primarily with one of the following: people, data or objects. Most jobs require some combination of all three, but one is usually predominant. For example, a counselor works mostly with people, a computer programmer with data and a mechanic with objects.
It sounds like you prefer working with data such as information, ideas and concepts. Knowing this is helpful because when people try to perform jobs that don't focus on their primary orientation, they often find themselves unhappy and unproductive.
Most people might think the only job for someone with a master's degree in philosophy is teaching, but that isn't the case. When we used the search engine google.com and typed in "jobs in philosophy," we came up with several useful results. The best was a link to philosophical-services.com, which offers listings for jobs in over 50 different areas including bioethics, globalization, organizational development and strategic planning. We suggest you check out this site and others like it for more listings. They should help you see the different possibilities available to you.