Halloween: the 5 spookiest jobs we could find

Emma Finamore
28 Oct 2015

Definitely not for the faint-hearted...

With Halloween just around the corner, we’ve peered into the shadowy basement of the job world, pushing back the spider webs (eeeuw) and stepping over the creaky trapdoors, to bring you the world’s scariest jobs. Read on at your peril…

Gravedigger

Is there anything spookier than a good old-fashioned graveyard? Imagine having to spend every working day in a cemetery, and spare a thought for the world’s gravediggers, who can range from low-paid ad hoc labourers to well-trained professional careerists, taking care of landscaping and tending to mourners.

Embalmer

Perhaps more gruesome than digging graves, embalmers prepare bodies for burial. They wash and sterilise corpses to prevent deterioration or infection, clothe the deceased and apply make-up to restore a lifelike appearance. It's definitely not a career for the easily spooked!

Police diver

Police divers carry out essential but grisly work: searching underwater in lakes, rivers, canals, sewers and cesspits…usually looking for human remains. Going for a dark, cold dip in unknown waters isn’t for everyone, especially if you don’t know what you’ll find…

Forensic entomologist

While the police have the easy (and fairly clean) job of checking fingerprints, forensic entomologists look for murder case clues by investigating what lives inside corpses. The maggots, flies, and other creepy crawlers that have taken hold since a person's death can give away a surprising amount of detail about how they died. If you can stomach it of course.

Cryonics technician

Cryonics technicians freeze human bodies with the hope that scientists will one day be able to bring them back from the dead. Cryonics technicians may be rare, but there really is a niche market for people who want to be frozen after death.

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