Pretty light-hearted- help me consider a career change.

[Careeradviceplease1234]

Hi guys,

So I'm at a bit of a point in life were I am happy enough in my career but I feel like I want to plan towards a change. Where I am now:

Late 20s, no kids, no partner.

I have a psychology degree that I haven't used in any professional capacity. I only have a 2:2.

3 years experience as a software trainer (current role)

A CIPD level 3 diploma in learning and development and associate member.

2.5 years experience in recruitment admin.

A years experience as a disability support worker working with adults and children (loved this role).

Some other bitty work history in retail.

I don't plan to move on in the next 2 years but want to spend that time planning to change course. I earn around £30,000 a year so would like to stay around that (and obviously would like more and progression)

My passion in life is music. I play a classical instrument very well and am involved in lots of amature music groups but don't have any music qualifications (well grade 5 piano and grade 2 in my main instrument which I did many moons ago)

Other passion is dogs. I have 2 of my own.

Taking some or all of this into consideration does anyone have any ideas what I could consider doing?

I had someone working for me on 30k and they said they could make more money dog walking and set up their own business.

Use the psychology background and get a counselling qualification. Apparently there’s tonnes of work available for the next decades because of the effects of lockdowns.

I am not good at this though as my passion is reading and I work in finance 😀😀

I don't think I have the right temperament to be a councillor. That was actually the very original plan and I kind of realised I'm the sort of person to take everyone's problems home with me. Paired with a well managed anxiety problem I ruled it out.

You know dog walking has very much crossed my mind on more than one occasion. My only concern is longevity in the career like will I want to be out walking dogs in all weather when I'm 60. But then I could change careers again by then!

I think as a short term thing til you decide it could work quite well.

Also I know two people who did counselling degrees over covid and neither of them have made a penny from it. It seems to be a popular thing to do at the mo.

Agree. I also know two incredibly nasty and lacking in compassion women who became counsellors 😢

I'm sure there are lots of fantastic counsellors out there but my personal experience using them has been very poor too.

If you loved the disability support worker role, is that a field to return to? Or does it not pay well?

Software is a good field to be in (probably some well paid avenues) and training is a good field to be in, you already have a qualification and the skills might be very transferable to run trainings in other topics other than software if you wanted.

Check out job websites and LinkedIn for job ads that interest you, and look at the qualifications/ experience you would need to different types of better paid jobs.

If you are thinking of having kids at some point, it was helpful to me to find that I had a skill I could do freelance and/or part time when my kids were smaller.* Maybe software training could do that for you? or would you need to go more into something specialist?

• in my case that was fundraising for charities- lots of demand for fundraisers

I love playing music too but I'd keep that for pleasure. It's unbelievably difficult to earn a living from music.

If counselling’s not for you, then perhaps this isn’t either, but maybe a music teacher/therapist for those with additional needs or disabilities? Not too sure about the salary though…