JOB / CAREER CHANGE IN LATER LIFE

geek84

Hi Folks

Most of my working life has been involved in doing admin/finance work.

I am in my mid 50s now and thinking of making a change.

Where do you think I should start in choosing a different career?

Should I take a skills test or talk to a careers advisor or something else.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

elsien

Why are you thinking of making a change, because that may well guide where you go next.
What do you think your skill set is? And how long would you want to spend retraining and what would you want to pay?

DullGreyGuy

geek84 said:

Most of my working life has been involved in doing admin/finance work.

I am in my mid 50s now and thinking of making a change.

Where do you think I should start in choosing a different career?

Should I take a skills test or talk to a careers advisor or something else.

Why do you want to change? What do you hope to achieve?

You dont say what your salary is nor what you need your new salary to be. This can be a roadblock for many because they've got to a good salary and then cannot afford to either drop to entry level income or worse to 0 whilst they do education. 

What do you enjoy? What motivates you?

The challenge in the UK is we are heavily experience driven which creates the vicious circle when trying to change roles. If you still want to do an office job then look for a more sideways move into IT Admin or Marketing Admin, get exposure to the new target area and start learning from colleagues and making noises about hoping to more from Marketing Admin to running a PPC Campaign for some area of the business etc. 

If you want a total change and fancy becoming a grease monkey then it may be more school time but also chatting to the locals... a guy just got his first job as a plumber after 30 years as a lawyer, didnt need the money any more and just fancied doing something hands on for a few years before retiring. 

Marcon

geek84 said:

Hi Folks

Most of my working life has been involved in doing admin/finance work.

I am in my mid 50s now and thinking of making a change.

Where do you think I should start in choosing a different career?

Should I take a skills test or talk to a careers advisor or something else.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

At the beginning, which in this case is asking two simple questions:

• why change?
• why change now?

If you're in your mid-50s, you should be able to evaluate your own skill set with a fair degree of accuracy.

Then do some googling and you get a whole heap of helpful links, including this one: https://www.skillsforcareers.education.gov.uk/pages/adults?utm_medium=Search&utm_source=PaidSearch&utm_campaign=SfL&utm_term=ALPnew&utm_content=2425&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAqpLaszEEizULVFjYJIVtAREFvZmq&gclid=Cj0KCQiAire5BhCNARIsAM53K1icUPvvWg776T7kYzsAHQFeUfvgB8PakUMebU8lkvzn_r-OzdeP1FoaAhHzEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Savvy_Sue

Is it career, or line of work? I spent my working life in the Third Sector, not sure how well I'd have thrived in a more profit-driven area.

DullGreyGuy

Savvy_Sue said:

Is it career, or line of work? I spent my working life in the Third Sector, not sure how well I'd have thrived in a more profit-driven area.

Depends what area you work in... many back office functions are about cost mitigation which I would imagine applies equally to many of the organisations in the third sector

Savvy_Sue

DullGreyGuy said:

Savvy_Sue said:

Is it career, or line of work? I spent my working life in the Third Sector, not sure how well I'd have thrived in a more profit-driven area.

Depends what area you work in... many back office functions are about cost mitigation which I would imagine applies equally to many of the organisations in the third sector

True, but it's partly about who your colleagues are, and what motivates them. It's not all sweetness and light in the Third Sector, but it can be inspiring when you're surrounded by a bunch of people who want to make the world a better place (rather than make as much money as possible for themselves / the company).

Clearly, it can also be very irritating to be surrounded by a bunch of people who want to make the world a better place, but are completely incapable of correctly and promptly completing an expenses form; and would just keep getting answerphone messages from the IT support team "because he's got such a lovely voice" rather than answering the call to enable the necessary upgrades to security to be implemented.