If you retrained in your 30's

[GraciousPiglet]

And you didn't retrain to be a teacher or a nurse... What did you do and how did you do it?

Give me some career inspiration please so I can live vicariously through you all and decide if I should take the plunge.

@Labobo that sounds wonderful, but how did you get the job with a literary agent in the first place? it sounds like a very hard circumstance for the rest of us to emulate by retraining. I have a literature degree but no contacts or experience in that industry, and no idea how to get into it. Googling just brings up lots of adds that start “Must have at least 2 years’ experience...”

I was a teacher and I wanted out. It’s a truly terrible job and if I’d known how bad it was I’d never have got involved. But I didn’t know - and then I got trapped for 12 years. So at 36 I wanted a new job - and I would have taken any job, even shovelling manure, to escape from teaching. The problem was, I didn’t have the money to retrain. I already had a degree and didn’t have the time or money to get another.

So what I did was, I took an admin job with the council. It allowed me to escape from teaching and tbh I didn’t care if I had to live on beans on toast as long as I didn’t have to teach any more. The good thing about the council is that they do a lot of in-house training and they’re pretty flexible about you sitting at the back and learning, as long as they don’t have to pay you. So I gained access to a variety of training courses, unpaid and uncertified of course. I discovered I quite liked planning and design. So I studied further, independently and in my own time, online and from books.

Later I tried to transfer into the planning office at the council but I didn’t succeed. So in the end I left and worked for a small renovations company who valued someone with planning knowledge and good organisational skills. Of course then Covid happened and I was forced to resign so I could stay at home to look after my DC. But that’s the field I’m hoping to return to after Covid.

My advice is this: in most cases qualifications are useless bits of paper. Unless you’re in a field where the qualification is essential (eg medicine) then most employers are more interested in your actual skills and abilities than your bits of paper. Plus a qualification is very academic and what you want are practical skills and knowledge. Learn what you need to know from wherever you can learn it. Get to know the right people and appear knowledgeable and valuable. And if possible do something with the potential for self employment so you’re not restricted by the gatekeepers refusing to employ you, which unfortunately can happen a lot when you’re older.

Midwife 😂 not a nurse

Also an occupational therapist.
Began my training at 32 and I'm now in my final year at 37. This includes an access course. We are the only allied health professionals to be duel trained in physical and mental health, this along with the lack of night shifts was what attracted me to the profession. I've loved the training so far, despite covid. And can't wait to start work in a couple of months.

I couldn't imagine doing anything else ☺️

I've done admin jobs for 20 odd years. I'm 40 this year and training to be a counsellor which is challenging but also very rewarding

@WhatAreWordsWorth

I’d love to retrain in occupational therapy or speech and language therapy, but the costs are too much and I feel completely stuck in my current job

I’d love to take the plunge, I just have no idea how it’s possible with the costs involved!

@WhatAreWordsWorth have you looked into an OT Apprenticeship? I’m not sure what the costs are now doing the traditional degree route as when I did it the course was bursary funded.

I did AAT one day a week for two years, I already had a degree so just did level 3 and 4 you can do it in the evenjng too, now considering whether to do CIMA or recently found out about the HR qualification mentioned upthread. I'm not massively mathsy (B at gcse) and I was fine, but I do HR as part of my role at the moment and it interests me, definitely going to do more studying though.

Early 30's I changed career from Levite / ops management to HR. Did my CIPD Level 7 at uni in the evening, 2years part time (but can be 1 year full time). In 7 years I've climbed the ladder and tripled my salary (even with having 2 years off for 2 x maternity leave) .... turns out I'm quite good at it!

@lightbulb23 that’s interesting. Can I ask if you found it difficult to find your first HR role? I have a friend interested in retraining in HR (currently an accountant but hates it), but is worried that after investing in the qualification it may be really difficult to find that first job?

@RubaiyatOfAnyone - through a friend. Look for a connection, however tenuous, through FB, LinkdIn, neighbours of relatives, friends of friends, uni mates you've not seen in years etc and just see if any of them are in the business. I had a few brush offs - to be expected, and a few coffees about potential openings that didn't work out. And i had a miserable, humiliating couple f weeks doing work experience in a major publishing house where quite a well-known commissioning editor just treated me like shit and I spoke up about it. No job offer there. but valuable experience nonetheless.

But then someone came along who was immensely busy, needed an extra pair of hands for a while and I was happy to be that on very little pay. It's also a fairly intuitive skill that you either have or don't. Once it was obvious I could do it, no one cared that I had no experience, they just let me get on with it.

I retrained as a counsellor and worked in a college and then a university and did some private practice. I also went on to teach counselling in various places. I did the training whilst working and had to use some holiday for placements etc and paid for it myself but it was worth it

I’ve been an administrator in a couple of sectors since I was 17, settling in Higher Education admin at 22 (now 30). Last year I started a PhD and my hope is to eventually get a lectureship, though I’m under no illusions about how competitive an arena that is.

So far I’m enjoying the academic side of HE far more than the admin. I never quite fitted in with any admin team I worked in (I was called ‘odd’ and left out of any cliques) but with academics, I feel like I’m really valued.

Currently doing an access course with a view to studying diagnostic radiography- I’m 36 this year

@mangoandraspberries

My original post was supposed to say Leisure / Ops management. By my mid 30's I had done a lot of people management, administration management and customer service roles in the hospitality & leisure industries. I was also a senior manager in the business I worked for so dealt a lot with the people issues - performance management, employee relations, disciplinary hearings etc so I had a good working knowledge of some typical HR roles.

I self funded my CIPD level 7. It was hard going! It's masters level. I already had a bachelors degree from 15 years earlier but it was still hard. I loved the different modules, especially employment law, but also strategic HRM, talent management and ER.

Armed with my previous work experience and a very clear goal to change roles and industry I put myself on the market, spoke with agencies and tapped up any contacts I could find.

I had a stroke of luck with someone else on my course - lots of them were already employed in HR roles so I made it known I was available for work. Through one of those contacts I had an interview for a junior HR role (think HR assistant- 1 level up from the bottom) and got a foot in the door of an international company with head offices in London.

I took a pay cut but the sacrifice was worth it. I worked hard and my previous work experience showed. I went for a couple of promotions in successive years so jumped up the ladder quite quickly. I have moved employers since then but am now at Director level and love it.

There are lots of 'career HR' professionals who have no idea what it's like to be a line manger and they're advising purely from what they learnt from a text book and following employee handbook policies. I find this one dimensional and Unrelatable so when I recruit I look for people who have alternative experience of roles other than pure HR.

I Now have a varied role - overseeing compensation and benefits, HR strategy, transformation and change management (restructuring), employee relations, engagement, learning and development, workforce planning and resourcing.

My current role is what you would call a generalist role but I expect in a few years I will move to a specialist role focussing in one of those areas that I find interesting.

My advice for anyone wanting to move into HR would be to get an agency on your side to promote you. If you have no HR experience then potential employers will not look twice at your CV, especially in the current competitive market. If you can get an agency to put you forward for roles then your CV Will at least get seen and considered. Even better if your agent can see your potential!

I'm 46 and I'm retraining as a Copywriter, its a Level 4 diploma. Hoping to be done by the end of the Summer. I've worked as a Secretary and more recently as a Merchandiser/Mystery Shopper. Hoping it pays off. I also did a voiceover course last year and hope I can make some money from that at some point, I did do one job at the beginning of the first lockdown

@Darklane I would love to do that but haven’t a clue. Do you have your own farm or do you manage?

I quit teaching to retrain as a pharmacist. I definitely gave up teaching at the right time!

@Octopus37 tell me about the voiceover course? I've always thought I'd be really good at that and have had people suggest it. I guess it's a decent side gig?

@gigi556 I did an introductory workshop with Inter Voice Over in February last year. I've been a bit all over the place about next career steps over the last year, but I'm hoping its something I can pursue again when things get back to normal. I really enjoyed the workshop and we were told at the time that its a growing area.

@Octopus37 I'll look into it!

Probably not academic enough to be classed as retraining but at age 33 I couldn't face the monotony boredom and dullness of my career in financial services.
When the time came for me to renew my exams I just thought fuck this appled to an airline cabin for a cabin crew role.
Had always fancied it but had been poo pooed about it all my life with the old "trolley dolley" jokes.

I never looked back for 14 years. Loved it. Absolutely loved every minute. Money was a fraction of my previous job. But life is too short to get up and and go somewhere every day that makes you feel like you're dying inside.

I met loads of people, travelled all over, worked for 4 different airlines, so retrained 4 times. My heart sung every single day.

Sadly it all came to an end last March and it's all I want to do, and there isn't any real prospect of any jobs in aviation any time soon.

I became a lawyer - was a civil servant for the ~6yr period it took to retrain, spanning my late 20s and early 30s. Now a civil servant lawyer 😆

I was a lawyer and retrained via a civil service graduate scheme.

Oh I love this thread, lots of inspiration.

I'm early 30s and feel in a complete hole, I don't have what I'd call a 'career', I've just meandered my way through retail & now feel stuck. I change my mind too much about what I want to do, I'd wondered about HR but not sure if I'd be cut out for it.

Accounts! I'm shut at maths too but you have calculators! I've not been tested in my times tables yet 🤷‍♀️