Please come and help me change my job/career - have you done it?

[makedoandmend]

I'm due to go back to work but work two hours away. I hate the idea of being so far from dd (dh also works the same distance). Putting dd in nursery near work would mean taking her on commuter train in morning (please no!) so she's in nursery at home.

So I'm looking to change job/career (I'm a trade journalist). No jobs that I can see in journalism around here (Worthing) - too many journalists in Brighton for there to be any jobs there! Oh and there is no freelance around - even my work has cut freelance budgets by 70% so that wouldn't be reliable enough.

What should I do? Change career (but to what?), get a temporary job on the tills to tide me over for a few years? I'm 41 so no spring chicken but don't see why I couldn't re train.

Bar teaching are there any jobs you get paid to retrain for? (probably not I know!)

What have you done? I'm really stuck so would love any suggestions as to what I should do as well as hearing your stories.

[Blackduck]

yes have done it (at 35) and in the middle of trying to do it again...... look a this website www.careershifters.org.uk (can't bearsed to do a link )

[makedoandmend]

Thanks for the website Blackduck will investigate further

I'd be really interested to hear from anyone who has changed jobs/career because of children.

[makedoandmend]

bump

[makedoandmend]

I have thought about teaching 33k - my dad was an art teacher so I think that puts me off (he didn't have great things to say about it)

It's a possibility - do you get paid to retrain or do you have to pay it all yourself? It's changed since anyone I know has done it.

[Blackduck]

can I add a voice of caution - I am an ex teacher and I hated it. It isn't for everyone, (regardless of the long hols and believe me, now I have ds I have seriously given it some thought). Another good book is What colour is your parachete? Cr*p title, but good for the pacticalities of a making a change (like a sideways change etc.). I am doing it (for a secondtime) because of DS, I am an IT contractor and simply donot want to work away anymore. Funnily enough I have been offered a job I would love to take but with a two hour commute! I am seriously thinking about it, but suspect it is a big NO.....

[fourlittlefeet]

me too.. am an it contractor, but just started selling my own product in an eshop I set up as couldn't face teaching! all my family are teachers (esol type, not school) but still, I've done enough IT in schools and sat in enough staff rooms to know its not really for me!

[changenameruk]

i've done it. I was an accountant working in london. iretrained to be a teacher because i wanted a local job. If you are a graduate you could get on the graduate training scheme (£16k) you teach 4 days a week and get 1 day off at college.

I am glad i did (currently on hols with ds 9 and dd 7) i am on 23k as i am not ambitious and am happy to go to work and teach but not take on extra responsibility at the mo.

shop around some schools are better then others. I get to do lots of my planning/ prep at home when kids in bed so am in school 8-4.30 so plenty of time with the dc but not all schools are like this!

[oneplusone]

I'm also looking to retrain. I was a solicitor pre-DC's but never really enjoyed it. I am now interested in becoming a psychotherapist/psychologist but feel quite daunted at all the studying i will have to do whilst also looking after the DC's and running the household etc. I'm not particularly good at it now so I can only imagine how things will fall apart once i add something else to my plate!

I've been a full time SAHM for 6 years. DD is going into year 2 this september and DS will start full time school in Jan 2011. So the earliest i could start studying would be sept 2011.........2 years away.....sigh....

[FfreckleFface]

I'm about to do it. Was in publishing before having my daughter 17 months ago, and have been freelancing for about 8 months.

Financially this can't go on indefinitely, and I found that the more I thought about it, the more I didn't want to go back to my old job. I wanted something that I was happy to go and do every morning, not something that was just ok.

So, I did some research, Bloke and I did some sums, and in six weeks I start my law conversion course. I can't wait!

Good luck with whatever you decide.

[reikizen]

I've recently done it but not because of children, just had a passion for it (midwifery). Bloody hard work and had another baby during the course but I'd be brain dead now if I had stayed in my old job. Feel the fear and do it anyway as the self help manual says...

[oneplusone]

reiki, i am certainly feeling the fear but i am determined to gp for it!

good luck freckle, am sure you will love it!

[nouveaupauvre]

if you are a trade journo, PR for a company or public sector body working in the field you specialised in? i know quite a few ex-hacks who have done this....would depend what your specialism is as to how likely it is to find something like this locally.
teaching/lecturing in media studies? again i know someone who did this from journalism (local papers)

[MrsMattie]

I've sort of done it - or at least made a halfway move into a new career. Worked as a journalist and in radio for years. Did a bit of teaching of media to 16-19 yr olds (as a visiting lecturer - didnt need a teaching qualification), and off theback of that I got a job in the educational dept of a big media company - running training, outreach projects, mentoring etc. I'm planning on doing a masters next year which will qualify me to work in the social care/youth work field.

Obviously it's not been a huge career change - 'I used to be a policewoman and now I'm a nurse' , or whatever - but I have moved bit by bit into a line of work that is more interesting and more flexible.

I say 'Go for it'.