Career advice welcomed

eamon

I've been a beer tester for over 40 years and still haven't got the hang of it. I think more practice and shadowing is called for. On a more serious note I suspect that many people don't know what they want to do except earn enough to sustain their lifestyle. To the OP if you do get some professional careers advice don't be surprised if teaching is near the top of the list. Money can be a big driver and motivator for some people and not all these higher paying jobs/roles require degrees etc. For example my elder brother hasn't got a academic qualification to his name (hated school) but has always worked and done well financially. Currently won't get out of bed for less than £30 per hour and gets it. But I suspect that what he does is niche and not for everybody.

bugselet

You said you had contacted career advisors but had no success as they just directed you to their website.  I used one called Amazing people and it was really good, did an online test and had a full discussion on the results.  Basically seeing what your strengths and weaknesses are, it was quite illuminating.

Sorry cant post a link. I'm down as a newbie, though been on the site many years, just lose log in details!

Good luck and I tbink a lot of people jn their 40s get itchy career feet.

lostat40

eamon said:

I've been a beer tester for over 40 years and still haven't got the hang of it. I think more practice and shadowing is called for. On a more serious note I suspect that many people don't know what they want to do except earn enough to sustain their lifestyle. To the OP if you do get some professional careers advice don't be surprised if teaching is near the top of the list. Money can be a big driver and motivator for some people and not all these higher paying jobs/roles require degrees etc. For example my elder brother hasn't got a academic qualification to his name (hated school) but has always worked and done well financially. Currently won't get out of bed for less than £30 per hour and gets it. But I suspect that what he does is niche and not for everybody.

What does your brother do as a career? I did a stint in construction but living away from home was part of the job which didn’t appeal to me

lostat40

bugselet said:

You said you had contacted career advisors but had no success as they just directed you to their website.  I used one called Amazing people and it was really good, did an online test and had a full discussion on the results.  Basically seeing what your strengths and weaknesses are, it was quite illuminating.

Sorry cant post a link. I'm down as a newbie, though been on the site many years, just lose log in details!

Good luck and I tbink a lot of people jn their 40s get itchy career feet.

Just checked them..They are expensive...What do you do as a career?

lostat40

Manxman_in_exile said:

I did two degrees in law.

I started a course to qualify as a solicitor - hated it.  I got a job as a trainee accountant - hated it.  I got a job as a trainee Trading Standards inspector - hated it.  (In fact the circumstances of that job were so ridiculous that I could write a screenplay about it.  I don't suppose you've heard of a BBC TV from 30 years ago called "A Peculiar Practice"?  It was like that but worse and funnier).

I got a six-month fixed term job as a superannuation clerk at my local Health Authority.   After four months they suggested I apply for a substantive job as a management accountant at one of the local directly managed units (forerunner of NHS trusts).  I went from there into various management/finance/information analysis roles in the NHS.  Loved it and the people I worked with.  Could not have deliberately chosen a more enjoyable career.

The only downside is I never earned as much money as I probably could have done in either the public or private sector if I'd persisted in trying to qualify as a lawyer or a chartered accountant.  But money isn't everything (I know a lot of unhappy high-earning solicitors and accountants) and I really enjoyed my job.

I also moonlighted as a beer-tester.

[EDIT:  After graduating (1979) I wasted about ten years before starting with the NHS in that temporary job.  Whether you could still do now what I did then I don't know.  I do know that when I retired from the NHS it was a much worse place to work in than it had been.

Also, money has never really meant anything to me and I've never measured my status by reference to my salary.  Just as well actually!!!].

Accounting keeps crossing my mind but what’s it like? Am I not too old at 40 to look at a career change to this?

Manxman_in_exile

It's like any other job - which is probably not what you want to hear!  Ideally you'd need to like numbers and systems, be interested in business (although to a certain extent that depends on what professional body you decide to go for) and possibly be prepared to put up with longish periods of mind numbingly boring work interspersed with more interesting work.  Other people say accountants are really boring and I know some very good examples of this.  But some of the most interesting people I know are also accountants.  (Honest!).

EDIT:  You also need to be very methodical

I stopped being a management accountant in the NHS because I didn't like what was happening financially at the time.  This was at a time when the training of clinical staff in the NHS was managed at a county level, having just been transferred from a regional level, so I moved sideways to become a NHS training contract manager, responsible for managing multi-million contracts with local universities.  When this function was again returned to a regional level, I stayed with my host trust as a workforce planning and information manager.

Having had a chance to reflect on this over the years, I think it's the people you work with and the culture of the organisation that employs you that is important - more important than what you actually do.  I don't think I'd still enjoy working for my old trust.  (In fact I know I wouldn't.)

Forty is not too old.  I knew somebody at work who was an Occupational Therapist.  She left the trust when she must have been in her 50s.  Next time I saw her she was on the train returning from London.  She'd retrained as a barrister and was returning from appearing at the High Court in London.  I was very impressed.

MalMonroe

If it's any comfort at all I'm 70 and should be retired but have just registered as self employed. .   I graduated with a 2.1 BA Hons degree when I was 53 and have never had any idea what I wanted to do! I spent my working life as a PA but never found it fulfilling. I had a child to raise single-handedly though so had to stick at it. The pay was excellent, you see. I'd really have loved to be a commercial airline pilot but sadly women weren't encouraged when I was young. They aren't now, either! I also love animals but could never work with them. Not because of the low pay but because there's far too much cruelty. 

I do have friends who are radiographers though and another friend is a radiologist (and very highly paid at that). You could have worked your way up. I don't think diagnostic radiography is boring at all. And you could even switch to forensic radiography, once fully qualified. I think it's really interesting. 

But now I'm working from home, and enjoying it, strangely enough, being a PA. But I'm working for myself and that's probably what makes all the difference.

P.S. You're never too old! And now with the Equality Act 2010, employers aren't allowed to discriminate because of age. The world really is your oyster, right now!

Manxman_in_exile

MalMonroe said:

...
I do have friends who are radiographers though and another friend is a radiologist (and very highly paid at that). You could have worked your way up. I don't think diagnostic radiography is boring at all. And you could even switch to forensic radiography, once fully qualified. I think it's really interesting. 
...

 

Yeah - I'm concerned the OP may have a bit of a low boredom threshhold at work.  One of the contracts I managed at work was for Radiography degrees.  I saw it as my resposibility to learn as much as possible about the professions I was managing the traning contracts for, and I found all the AHP roles much more interesting than I had expected.  Also the people running the courses at university were interesting.  They took a very responsible attitude towards both the NHS and their students.  You don't have to "do" the job you have a qualification in, you can teach it.

People think lawyers must have interesting* jobs but one of the things that put me off after graduating was the vision that I might spend the next 40 years stuck in a back office doing ten identical conveyances every day and nothing else.  Aaaargh!!!  I'm sure accountancy is the same.

*People think they are well paid too, but it ain't necessarily so.  (There are ten or 20 times more solicitors and barristers now than there were when I graduated).  My niece is a lawyer and she advised her sons to become accountants not lawyers.  Neither took her advice - but they didn't become lawyers either.

eamon

lostat40 said:

What does your brother do as a career? I did a stint in construction but living away from home was part of the job which didn’t appeal to me

Civil engineering, the construction side and supervises dozens of people. He has tickets & licences for what seems like almost everything. Works all over the UK, recent projects include the Aberdeen by pass, M74/M73 Raith Interchange, M27 conversion to "Smart" M-way. Will probably also be on HS2 at some stage.

MrGorsky

I've seen a few posts like the OP's on here, and wondered if it would help to collate some career guidance / training levels..... I've started it off (accountant), so I started a thread to try and generate some information here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6173344/how-did-your-career-education-progression-path-go-along-with-ball-park-salary