Career Change: Should I Consider It?
When you have been working in a particular field for a number of years, it can seem like a daunting step to change careers but it is something that many people do, particularly in their late thirties and early forties. There are many reasons for this. Some people will have been made redundant, some will want to pursue an interest that has been a hobby for many years, and others will just feel that their interest in their current career has slowly waned over time.
“Mid-Life Crisis”
Some see it as a “mid-life crisis” in that they have reached the midway point in their working lives and are evaluating whether this is what they want to continue doing for another twenty to twenty-five years of working life.
The traditional concept of a mid-life crisis tends to have quite negative connotations attached to it, with mental images of dramatically older men pursuing women that society would consider much too young for them. Either that or selling the family car and replacing it with a sports car in an attempt to recapture their lost youth.
In working terms, a “mid-life crisis” as a point of self-reflection and introspection is a good and healthy thing to have. It is the opportunity to look closely at where you are in your career and measure it against the expectations you had when you were younger.
Are you where you thought you would end up? Are you happy in your current position? What would success look like to you at this stage in your career? Can you see yourself doing this all the way to retirement?
These are all important questions and if you can’t answer them in a way that favours your current job, it may well be time to take your valuable transferable skills and move on to something else.
What Would You Like to Do Instead?
This is the part that stumps many people and prevents them from switching to another career. There is nothing that they want to do strongly enough to consider a career move, and that is entirely OK, changing careers mid-flow isn’t for everyone.
Other people base their decision on a side-hustle they have been wanting to make their full-time job for years but have never had the energy to put into it and make it happen while they have been working what they consider their “day job” as well. Many people are wildly artistic and make a variety of different things and sell them on websites like Etsy.
On sites like that you will find such an outpouring of human artistic vision that has seen people embrace everything from becoming part-time chandlers to painters, leather workers, glass blowers and jewellers.
Other people lack artistic abilities but have been running their side gigs for years in areas such as software development or website content writing. Many of these people have used dedicated freelancer websites in order to find their clients and these include Fiverr, PeoplePerHour and Upwork, to name but a few.
Yet more people haven’t quite figured out what they want to do but all they know is that they don’t want to keep doing what they are doing now until the end of their career. They maybe don’t get on with their colleagues and bosses, or feel that their ambitions have been thwarted one too many times.
Some people have realised that they developed a taste for remote working during the Covid-19 pandemic and their boss now wants them back in the office, which is something they want to avoid at all costs. This is a huge cause of people moving on to different careers and to different companies within the same industry.
Retraining for a Second Career
One of the biggest obstacles that many are finding is that they are unsure how to go about receiving the training that they need in order to apply for jobs in their second career. There has actually never been a better time to consider retraining options for a second career.
Online Training Courses
There are a vast array of online training courses available for nearly every discipline that you could imagine. If you are interested in software development, search engine optimisation or content writing for websites, you are particularly well-served.
Many of the websites carry courses that you have to pay for in order to access, but you can actually learn a lot about a great many jobs from content that is entirely free and available on Youtube.
If you do choose to go down the paid route, one of the best websites for credible and high-quality video tutorials is LinkedIn Learning. This offering by the business networking website LinkedIn gives access to a truly enormous library of content. This is unsurprising as they took over widely acclaimed internet training provider Lynda.com in 2016.
Accredited University Courses
If you would prefer to attend an accredited University course and achieve real world, tangible qualifications, the Open University has been at the forefront of distance learning solutions for decades. They offer a wide variety of courses and it may be worth contacting them and investigating if there is any funding available to you that might allow you to do their courses for free. This is a great way to take forward your second career and to find what the best fit is for you in terms of flexible learning opportunities.
Taking Advantage of UK Skills Gaps
In the UK there are skills gaps in many industries that are crying out to be filled and if you can figure out where these are in the industry you are considering moving to, you may be able to come in at a more senior level than would have otherwise been possible.
It is also important to remember that just because you are new to your second career, it doesn’t mean you need to start at the bottom. You have accumulated many transferable skills over the years that can give you the edge when it comes to finding a high-quality job in your chosen field.
Read some of our inspiring career stories?
