Changing to a non-academic job

[BookishKitten]

Hi, colleagues!

I wonder if any of you know anyone who's made the transition into a non-academic job in Arts&Humanities? I work in a Languages Department in a Russell Group University, and having worked here for the past 7 years I'm considering leaving academia.

I think the great reason for this is the impact on my mental health. It's been awful, I'd suffered from depression before but was OK when I started off, but it's been truly awful. I've been nominated a couple of times for a move up on the salary points, but with a pregnancy and PND thrown in I've simply not yet made it to Senior Lecturer.
Quite frankly, I'm overworked and overtired, and despite my best efforts to say no etc, I seem to get landed with the admin intensive posts.
The impact of this has been that I've lost nearly all will and drive to do research, and despite my love of teaching I just can't find that renewed love for the profession anymore.
I get along with some colleagues, and I'm well-liked and respected, but I don't think it's feasible to continue here.

Do you know of anyone who's hired a consultant or similar to change careers? I'm approaching the dreaded 40 (!), and I'm just used to the salary and I go through the motions.
I think I'd need a serious chat with someone who knows the realities of the job marked, I've only every done editing and translation and other language related work, but I want a career in something different.
Part of my problem is that I don't know what's out there and I don't know where to start.

Any recommendations or ideas will be most welcome!

I was in the sciences and left academia 3 years ago. Joined the civil service in an area similar(ish) to my research area. Its a huge change, workload is intense, but I have never regretted it! I was really worried before hand that it would turn out to be a mistake, but it definitely wasn't. Also got a substantial pay increase and a lot more responsibility.

@Imicola did you get your weekends back since leaving? I have.

Yes, total switch off at the weekend and evenings for me (although they're are some colleagues who don't). It's nice to feel less personally invested in my job... I'm still invested, but it feels so much easier to leave behind at the end of the week! Not sure why, I think it's the research progress, funding applications etc that felt like they were always in my mind before. Things that mattered more to me than others, not sure if that makes much sense!

Oh, thank you! I’d like to get weekends and evenings back too!
May I ask how you went about doing the transition? How long did it take you?
Was your research profile relevant to the role you started off at when you changed jobs? Or was it other critical skills that were of use?
May I ask whether you went through tests and panel interviews or whether it was a different recruitment process?
Thank you! :)

I was looking at mainly academic jobs, but then spotted a non academic one I thought sounded interesting and had a go! I went through a 'pool" recruitment where they interview lots of people, and those successful go into a pool, and are offered jobs as and when they come up. Took about 9 months. Not sure how common that is - they do it more for technical roles where there are also specific exams included (I had a presentation, stats exam interview and group task). More general roles are much more straightforward processes. I joined the department which was most relevant to my research area, and then was lucky to end up in the part of it which was most relevant! But many people come in and work in area s they have no experience in. So for me, my research was very relevant to getting into the organisation, but not necessarily for the specific role I got, that was more lucky! But I work with plenty of people that have come from unrelated roles. Hope that helps!

Not humanities but moved from scientific academic work to research management, within the university sector. It’s basically like running my own group again, except I’m not responsible for the actual work. It helps that I’m in a location with lots of very large research grants operating which absolutely do need proper management oversight. Uni terms and conditions, flexible working and part time options with final salary pension.

I do wonder why it took me so long to move (misplaced sense of loyalty to my old group, perhaps). Far less stressful but still super interesting job. I did a project management qualification in my own time and at my own expense to help things along.

Hi!
Thank you both for your answers!
I’ve met a couple of people from science departments who have made the transition to research management and they both said they loved it. This field in the Humanities is ridiculously small and often it’s the post docs who end up doing a lot of the paperwork and management side of things... our research budgets are very small compared to those in the sciences.
I would very much like to try the civil service sector and I’ve created an account to browse through their vacancies but I’ve got very little idea of where to start having always worked in an academic environment with little direct application to non-academic sectors.
MoltoAgitato, you mention a project management qualification: is there a gold standard diploma that would open most doors or is one qualification very much like another? How long did it take you to complete it ? Were you working full-time or past-time? Thanks!

I'm an IT project manager, transitioned into the field after a PhD in social sciences 10 years ago; the gold qualification is PRINCE2, it's a five day course and most organisations will want you to have it (even thought it has very little to do with actually running projects but that is a different story...) but actual project management experience will be much more important.

Thank you so much, coffeemonster28. I really appreciate it.
Did you use any experience of managing teams and projects in academia to apply for jobs?
I’ve had admin posts where I oversaw and implemented curriculum changes etc. Would this do to get started?
I guess my question is how do you get on the first step of project managing if you can’t demonstrate involvement in non-academic projects?

Thank you

I work in a university IT department, ended up in project management somewhat accidentally- the progression was: research assistant >research fellow > project manager on redeployment (couple of fixed term contracts at a different uni, then made redundant)> IT project manager. When I was research assistant, I worked directly for a project manager who suddenly left and I took over for a couple of months so that gave me the experience. I then got PRINCE2 and more experience in more projects im different areas and this is how I finally landed in a permanent role in IT and this is where transferable skills were very important as I have no IT background but can talk to academics and non-academics about complex subjects and can learn very quickly. So it wasn’t a very well designed career path but it sort of came together. Feel free to message me if you have any more questions