I discovered when I retired that I have virtually no marketable skills.
I ran a prison. I may have supervised over a hundred employees but it was in an environment that doesn’t easily transfer skills to a different workplace. Due to the differing laws and procedures, I wouldn’t even be qualified to run a prison in another state.
This. In spades. For almost all of us.
There’s what you know how to do, and there’s what you know how to do to a professional level and with enough recency to get hired into that job.
The OP isn’t asking how many different things you could stumble through if you were starting up your own personal service business. Or how many places you might get hired for temporary no-skill-required minimum wage McJobs.
E.g. I’m a fairly handy homeowner DIY guy. I’ve got a good tool set, a good basic skill set and years of experience maintaining and improving my residences. My brother is a self-employed pro carpenter, fabricator, and builder. He does mostly remodels of boutique retail stores and one-off restaurants. He works mostly alone or with a small crew of regulars he contracts in for certain specialties.
He laughs loud and long at my pitiful amateur attempts to do stuff within his expertise. Somebody like him would only hire somebody like me if he was A) stupid and B) desperate.
That’s the difference between “I can work on electrical stuff” and “I’m an electrician.”
Somebody upthread said “I do a lot of shopping so I could work retail”. Not really. Sure, you could get a no experience required job at a store. But don’t think you’d be offering any sort of experience that would put you ahead of any other warm body.
Me? I’ve got two no kidding professional level do-it-for-money skill sets. One of which is rapidly atrophying for lack of current use. Plus general management / business owner experience that might, on a good day, get me past the laugh test for a white collar office job.
Based on the OP’s question, I put 3 (skills that present a decent chance of getting hired). I’m including 5 skills in my list, but I’m only confident of the first 3 landing me a job.
Programmer – avionics, controls, some simple robotics, guidance and targeting systems, and some sensor stuff. I have multiple degrees (with “engineering” in the title) and a few other letters following my name. These make it fairly likely I’d get rehired in my current field.
Commercial pilot, current with 135* minimums. Due to the current pilot shortage I get occasional letters from the airlines, inviting me to either interview or attend a job fair. I’m pretty sure I could at least get an interview.
Truck driver. I did this back-in-the-day before the current CDL requirements. I assume I could quickly attain a modern CDL and climb back in a truck cab somewhere. Ditto for bus driver (did that back in the day as well).
Crane operator. Again, back-in-the-day there were no certifications, so I didn’t count this one as a sure bet. It might be impossible to resume this without spending years working up to it (on a construction site).
Oilfield/Pipeline work. Beveler, welder’s helper, stocking machine, anchor hand and a variety of other (probably outdated) skills in this field. Might get lucky but probably too far removed to get hired.
*typically the minimum experience to be eligible for airline hire.