How many of you have successfully made a career change?

abernathy

As title really..

How many of you have successfully made a career change to a completely different job or industry later in life?

I'm 32 and after a long period out of work due to redundancy (and a short period back in work) I'm considering a completely different career to the one I spent most of my twenties doing.

Very much considering the idea of transferring across to the leisure/service industry, perhaps working in hotels. I have several years of line management experience dealing with housing/benefit fraud, and wondering whether that would be enough to get me into a junior management role within a hotel with some extra study on the side.

Anyone care to share examples of career changes they have successfully made? Thanks!

jackieblack

Since when was age 32 classed as 'later in life'? :huh:

Or do all young people think life ands at 40?

flea72

Youve been in one career for about 10 years, you have about 40 years til retirement. As already said, you are a long way off, being too old to change track.

However i did change career in my 40s (still not later in life haha). My new job did involve gaining a degree though, so going back to f/t study 25yrs+ after leaving school was difficult, but it has been so worth it

agrinnall

I changed career in my early 50s. If you already have a degree (other qualifications may work too) you could consider doing postgraduate study in the tourism field, which should make you more marketable in the career area you are interested in.

trailingspouse

Twice - once aged 37 and again at 52.

The secret is to just get on and do it.

FredG

I was in training until the age of 28, ended up in a job where the salary nowhere near matched the responsibility I had. £18.5k and responsible with one other for mandatory training of nearly 900 people. Switched to IT and was in a 3rd line position on £40k plus overtime in 3 years with much more reasonable 35 hour weeks, better holiday allowance and much greater job satisfaction.


Sometimes you just need to give yourself a push.

aife

FredG wrote: »

I was in training until the age of 28, ended up in a job where the salary nowhere near matched the responsibility I had. £18.5k and responsible with one other for mandatory training of nearly 900 people. Switched to IT and was in a 3rd line position on £40k plus overtime in 3 years with much more reasonable 35 hour weeks, better holiday allowance and much greater job satisfaction.


Sometimes you just need to give yourself a push.

Fred , can I ask what training you did to get the IT job ?
Thinking of making a similar move myself but confused by the options

Sncjw

I was training to be a nurse but due to hearing issues I had to leave the course. I worked part time in retail . I found an admin job which I have been for two years.

FredG

aife wrote: »

Fred , can I ask what training you did to get the IT job ?
Thinking of making a similar move myself but confused by the options

I initially had nothing but an outside interest in IT. As part of my training job I ended up designing the company's E-Learning resource because we had a distinct lack of budget at the time and couldn't get an external contractor in to do it.

The manager of our IT department noticed it and he ran a small team of 4 staff and needed another and offered me the chance at a Helpdesk role. Because of the team being small I got exposure to projects and technical tasks way above a first line level. Career sort of progressed from there.

Now work 3rd line in a company with 10,000 IT users which is a huge step up for 4 years work! I will point out that I did a lot of self learning on Pluralsight and resources like that.

abernathy

flea72 wrote: »

Youve been in one career for about 10 years, you have about 40 years til retirement. As already said, you are a long way off, being too old to change track.

However i did change career in my 40s (still not later in life haha). My new job did involve gaining a degree though, so going back to f/t study 25yrs+ after leaving school was difficult, but it has been so worth it

Wow that is commitment. Can I ask what degree you did? Did you commute in or live in halls? How did you get on with other students?

Always had an urge at the back of my mind to just drop everything and head to university if a career change demanded it, but hesitant because of the lack of income and being a mature student amongst people mostly 19-21.

Well done for going for it.

dawyldthing

abernathy wrote: »

Wow that is commitment. Can I ask what degree you did? Did you commute in or live in halls? How did you get on with other students?

Always had an urge at the back of my mind to just drop everything and head to university if a career change demanded it, but hesitant because of the lack of income and being a mature student amongst people mostly 19-21.

Well done for going for it.

There were people on my teacher training course who were in their 30s and 40s. i think it was more of a juggle with childcare etc but if it's what you fancy doing go for it.