A thread for those of us who tried who have a career change but didn’t manage to

[123stay]

I’ve considered writing this post for a while, and was finally inspired to do so by the thread about not being happy with where you’ve ended up in life.

Please bear in mind this is mainly a mental health and personal support thread, NOT a job hunting advice thread. Please don’t give unsolicited advice or tell me to update my CV or go on LinkedIn etc. I’m not interested any more.

The point of this thread is that when we’re hear about people having career changes, or studying or retraining to get a new job etc, we only hear about the successful ones. But I’m convinced there’s lots of other people out there who tried but failed.

After years of employers asking why I didn’t have a degree, I went and studied later in life. I did very well at uni, but was unable to get a graduate job because most employers just aren’t set up to deal with mature graduates, unless you want to be a teacher. I applied for so many things, went to networking events etc, the ones with application forms were too rigid for my non-traditional situation, a lot of employers want people with masters degrees now, and so many other barriers.

We’re constantly told that we can change our lives through education. There is a huge amount of privilege involved in telling someone that if you don’t like your job, go and get another one instead. It’s not that easy.

I still do the same type of work as before, because it’s all I could get. I just wanted to know that I’m not alone.

I’m studying social work and this thread has me worried. I will be over 40 when I qualify and I’m already anxious about how I will compete with the younger ones for jobs. Is anyone going to want me, am I wasting my time?

I tried a career change at 51. I have a MSc from 1993 in Statistics AND Decision Science and I was unable to get a foothold anywhere even working CV’s, networking, etc etc etc flat out for 18 months. Being treated like a fossil from another dimension was soul destroying. Still in the same place now mid 50’s. Sometimes it just can’t work.

you have my commiserations and a big hug

I recently invested a lot of energy and time into teacher training. I'm a good candidate, I was enjoying it and good at it. I failed however. I couldn't juggle family life (3 kids) with the pgce and placement. I felt like a 40 something complete idiot. DH was there for me and I can have a rethink. Made worse by it being my first thing to try after being a sahm. I feel very embarrassed. DH said it was important to try and my mum said I should be proud of myself even though I didn't finish it. It's nice to write it down as I haven't talked about it to anyone.

Exactly this. I guess I’ve learned my lesson. I just wish I could’ve realised at the time. We’re constantly told that studying or retraining will change your life and all that. I wish I’d known the full story beforehand.

Interesting thread. I trained for one career in my 20s, worked in-house before going self-employed to be around for the kids.
Having done more than 25 years in it, I’d like a change. I’m bored and in my early 50s I still have 12+ years to pension age - so I could do something different - and more worthwhile - for a good amount of time.

But it’s hard to make the leap because I’d have to earn very little for a year (kids are teens so not cheap) and then wouldn’t be sure of getting a job at the end of it. If I went ahead I’d be looking to apply in October for the year after so I am pondering till then, and am interested to read about your experiences.

@PinkShowerCurtain My MIL retrained as a social worker in her 40s and had a good career for 20 years. She specialised in older people - not sure if that helped.

this is an important thread and probably is relevant to a lot of people.

It should be taught by school and university career advisers that career change is not easy and we shouldn't fall for the lie that you can change career multiple time in a lifetime effortlessly with 'transferable' skills. Most careers are structured so that you earn more money with experience and pensions are tied in to length of service (as well as annual !eave). It becomes a lot harder to leave as you get older !!

Career change info is the staple of lifestyle and we'll being magazines as well as recruitment agencies. Please ignore the glossy marketing.

As an employer looking at candidate I know a question that comes to people's minds when hiring an older graduate is why did they leave!? Is this a red flag? What is their justification for accepting a lower paid job and does it stand up?

Maybe we have to make the best of what we have sometimes and it's a little bit shot 😟😟

@PinkShowerCurtain same. I think social work is different. I'm hoping so anyway!

@mids2019 I think it should be possible to have at least two different careers - working to 67 doing the same type of thing is a long time. If you have kids then you start to be more flexible only when they are in secondary school. Really we need a rethink of career paths as society changes - and people are expected to work for longer.

@Changed18

I agree but in reality it sounds a little utopian or at least the challenges of career changes aren't highlighted. It is generally given that career change is easy and indeed expected and I don't think this is the case. Also once you are off a career ladder it can be very difficult to get back on and again I feel people should be aware of this.

I do not want to discourage career changes but the challenges and sacrifice need to highlighted for balance.

@mids2019 You know what’s really upsetting is that a few years ago I went to an interview for my boring job, they asked me what happened, so I said I thought my degree would get me a career change but it didn’t work. It turned out the interviewer had been to the same university as me, also as a mature student, but she’d done a masters course there and had been very successful in getting a better job. So obviously she was very suspicious about that, and I didn’t get the job.

@PinkShowerCurtain worry not, lots of jobs in social work.. I qualified at 39 and nearly 4 years in at this point and stepping up to a Team Lead now.
Plenty of road in front of me too.

I think social work is an exception. You WILL get a job if you live in a city. I work in an allied profession in London, with various big boroughs, and there are always many social work job vacancies and a lot of newly qualified social workers about, almost all mature.

Whether you’ll want to stay in the job is another thing!

Wrong. It's because practically everyone male, female or giraffe or dandelion has them.
In 2023 grades alone aren't enough to secure a job, even for newly-graduated 20 somethings. Everyone has a load of extracurriculars, part-time job etc in addition to their grades. In fact many grads have run big projects with charities etc which is definitely of larger scale than just you running your household.

OP. Do not feel bad about yourself. I hire in an industry that has a lot of career changers and really, like any other jobs there are so many variables that determine success. What you did before, how long you've been out of the workforce, etc. And obviously you want to break into something that pays well, with an entry level wage commensurate with being older and having a family... well... you and everyone else.

Sometimes it's not even a 'career change'. Many people don't have 'careers' just jobs. So it's really 'getting a career'.

Yes. And as has been written earlier, universities are very good at advertising courses but the end of the day they’re not the people you’ll be approaching for employment.

I still receive an alumni magazine from time to time, and they’ll usually have a couple of little features with past students. There was one where a former student had ended up doing a PhD at Oxford or something, and I thought excuse me, are we talking about the same university here? It took me a while to realise that these people are in the minority, and most of the mature students didn’t, in fact, move on to better things.

There's a difference between people who have already achieved some degree of success in the workforce - leveraging it to change career. And people who haven't achieved much/been out for a long time, trying to immediately break into something lucrative enough to feed a family.

Unlike @mids2019 I don't apply the logic of 'wondering' why people are applying for jobs. After all a younger candidate might leave after a few years, they're no more of a risk than older. However many people think their 'transferable skills' are an asset, when they're really not. Getting a job isn't about how good YOU are. But how good the competition is.

Thousands of people change careers, but by just falling into it, not 'retraining' from scratch. In their 40's/50's, from middle management into something else. As very few people break into 'senior management'.

If you have very little work history, you're not just competing against fresh faced young grads but your more successful peers, who definitely have lots more in the way of actual 'transferable skills' than an employer might be interested in, Chief of which is managing pressure and dealing with multiple different stakeholders, all of whom have their own agendas and in turn represent several different agendas.

With all due respect people seem to think 'age = life experience' but that makes no sense. We all get experience because of the types of things we do. Merely existing and going through the natural ageing process doesn't magically bring wisdom.

I think it is possible to change career successfully but it depends completely on the industry, individual's circumstances and their adaptability. I'm fed up of hearing some of my fellow older students on my course moan about technology. I think they do it on purpose. Tech is here now, stop moaning about it. You're very unlikely to find a job where there aren't multiple teams calls, no people don't like to have endless telephone calls when an email will suffice.

If you're working in a related industry, it's obviously much easier to get into it at a higher level. Thinking about HCAs who retrain as nurses or OTs in particular. Then again these are not going to be hugely financially rewarding. I'm aiming to aim 7K more per year, it's not life changing amounts of money. I think a lot of people wouldn't bother.

@BeckyBloomwood3 I disagree with you a bit. Someone completing a degree with young kids or elderly parents, as a single parent is more impressive than an average 24 year old with no commitments doing it. Workplaces should recognise that. However they don't. All they see is a woman with baggage who might go off sick.

Thanks for the reassurance on social work and sorry to derail. I’m the oldest on my course which isn’t helping my confidence!
what is notable though is the younger ones rarely contribute to class discussions, hate speaking in front of anyone, don’t want to do presentations or service user interviews etc. There are times it is actually painful how they just sit there and refuse to participate. I get it, I remember being that age! But makes me wonder how they then go on in jobs. I would much rather hire a “mature” newly qual career changer than one of these nervous youngsters personally!

@PinkShowerCurtain oh god I agree! I'm not the oldest on my course though, not by far. I'm on a grad scheme, how about you? I'm hoping that being an 'expert by experience' helps me, I've been on UC, I've been skint, I've been at the mercy of the state. I hope employers see that.

I think you will be fine for social work. There are always jobs, local anuthorities are better most for being open to older workers, and greater life experience actually matters in social work.

You’ll be fine : )

@PinkShowerCurtain i think it’s the one career where life experience and being older is actually very useful.
In terms of younger students not engaging at uni, placement generally knocks that out of them. One started with us in September who was terrified to phone anyone/go on visits etc and by December she was flying. Just overwhelmed at the idea of it all and needed some confidence built up and encouragement.

I have successfully changed careers. I am 40 and have two young DC.

I did it by figuring out what the overlap was between what I already did and what I wanted to do, making a business case for what I could add in that area, and selling the hell out of it to everyone at my employer that I had to. All of my training has been funded by my employer in the form of apprenticeships, which I identified, wrote a formal business case for, and then convinced my employer(s) to support. I'm not going to say it's been easy. I've put in many, many additional hours. But what I had was the ability to understand what my bosses and their bosses cared about, and make that what I was talking about. I showed them how supporting me could help them.

It's not about age. Your boss probably cares about what happens in the next six to twelve months, max. Transferable skills can absolutely be a huge benefit, but they have to be specific, and you have to do the legwork of laying out exactly how what you've already done relates to what you're asking to do. Also, the easiest place to make a career move is within the employer you already work for; they have an investment in you, they know your work ethic, and the fact that virtually every employer is sitting on a big unspent apprenticeship levy budget means there is money on the table if you can figure out how to tap it.

I'm not going to claim that changing from X career to y career is always possible for everyone, ever. And of course sometimes your new career turns out not to be what you thought it was anyway. I'm saying you can set yourself up for the best chance of success by understanding what the people who sign off on hires and departmental budgets care about, and targeting that, plus trying to map a route between where you are now and where you want to be that is gradual rather than a plunge off a cliff.

Except that I wanted to work in a different industry, and the type of job I was interested in didn’t exist at my employer. It’s only large organisations that have funding for training schemes and apprenticeships etc. Most people don’t work for those sorts of organisations.

I did get in contact with lots of organisations in the industry I wanted to work in, went to networking events and so on, and it didn’t work.

My main issue with transferable skills is way they’re sold by careers advisors and people running careers and job hunting seminars, that sort of thing. Transferable skills are sold as this big thing that’s a route to a career change. It’s almost the latest buzzword. It’s just something that’s really oversold.