to think I will never work again

[LEMmingaround]

Unless you lot give me a kick up the arse and help me find a grip.

Im 43 sahm but my dd is 9 and it is yet another summer holiday. I love being at home with her but I need to get a job.

Is it soooo unreasonable to want that job to be stimulating and challenging but without stress? ( I have anxiety).

I guess with such a break I need to discount my qualifications and my confidence is rock bottom.

When I was looking before I signed up for email alerts but I was just receiving the same emails all the time. Clearly agencies.

I have skills but don't know how to demonstrate it and I don't know what I want to do.

Please mnet you have to help me......

Inilkley more dont yoh have to have an acredited degree though? My first degree is biochemistry but Its not medically biased

Inilkley more dont yoh have to have an acredited degree though? My first degree is biochemistry but Its not medically biased

Fwiw it sounds like you have a huge amount to offer. Far more than lots of sahms. It' just about believing in yourself. To start with, anyway.

Thanks for the positive comments. I know it is like im fishing for compliments. Im not. Just trying to evaluate what skills I have.

Can anyone suggest where to look for jobs?

Local job sites seem to be full of agencies with non existent jobs.

Job centre site much the same.

I taught at fe college but buckled under the pressure. (Dp says it wasn't my fault as they piledon too much responsibility with too little support) but that and the teaching threads on here have put me off teaching. Also its a bit late for me now

it is not too late. I qualified as a teacher at the ripe old age of 42 and love it. I hadn't worked full time in a 'proper' job for over 10 years. I wouldn't say it is without it's pressures but you may find a school environment different to a FE college. Most local schools would be happy to facilitate you observing for a few days to get a feel for things. Would be worth a try, if for nothing else other than to totally discount it as a possibility?

Op, if you did fancy going into the nhs side of things,Ulster University do an online graduate cert in biomedical science which can bring your qualifications in line with an accredited degree.

I'm in the same boat as you, PhD in biology, but only did a post-doc for 8mths before going off for a year travelling (had great plans for my career when I got back). I got pregnant with ds1 while away and have never made it back. When ds1 was a toddler I did the course above thinking I would make the switch to biomedical sciences but then ds2 came along so I've not done anything with it yet (don't want to work full-time while they're so little and that's all that's came up so far).

In the meantime I've applied for a couple of part-time jobs here and there just so I'm back in employment but haven't gotten anywhere cos I'm so overqualified. I'm not to worried yet as the kids are still tiny but once they're at school I'll absolutely want to get a career back. I'm feeling pretty unemployable at the minute - overqualified and underworked.

Sorry, I'm probably not helping much here op, just wanted you to know you're not alone,hope you find some thing soon.

Not too worried that should say

LEM, not sure what you mean by an accredited degree, but there are lots of jobs where you don't have to be qualified as a doctor/dentist/radiologist/clinical scientist etc.

I work for a related public body and we advertise our jobs on NHS jobs.
As an example, we have recently advertised for a trainee professional position and because the pay is quite poor for the role, we only got a few applicants and almost anyone with any science degree, a bit of common sense and confidence in public speaking would have a good chance of an interview.

We've also recruited a few science technician type roles and the chance of anyone with directly relevant experience applying is quite low, so we'd interview almost anyone who had expressed an interest and put together a well written application. We've recruited at least one long term SAHM in the past who didn't work much until her DD started secondary school and she's been great.

Something like this or this - don't require specific qualifications and could be a stepping stone back into the workplace if nothing else.

Obviously have a look on the website for jobs in your area.You can search by distance from your home and I would suggest restricting the search to band 4 and below in the additional filters section to restrict to entry level positions and weed out all the qualified clinical scientist etc.

HTH .

www.daphnejackson.org/fellowships/

It might not be what you want to do, to get back into a scientific career, but these are great fellowships if you are interested in returning to a STEM position. Might be relevant for you Weelors too.

I got pregnant just before my write up year . Writing with baby in bouncy chair like a sewing machine pedal was interesting!

Will look into the online course I think.

My phd was stupidly specialised (drosophila genetics). The are no fly labs in the university now and of course post doc work snapped up by recent graduates. I tried to get a daphne jackson fellowship which you might like to Consider butr I simply couldn't get funding despite being accepted onto the scheme. The thing that scuppered me was lack of post doc experience and only one publication. Id dearly love to go back to that field but know it just isnt possible. :(

Lem, write a big list of companies you could see yourself working for. Write a cover letter explaining who you are, and what you are looking for.

Send it to everybody, vacancies or not. I got a job in a similar position to you by doing this.

They appreciated by get-go, and because no vacancy was advertised, I was the only candidate.

Thena. Crossed posts :)

Ooh, thanks thenapoleon, I've bookmarked that site for a closer look

Those jobs look interesting onilkleymoor. Id definitely be interested in both of those.

Um it seems you are very educated but have a huge gap in your work experience. A PhD itself is hard to turn into a real job. I know because I have one and then did 4 years of postdoc. I retrained myself out of academia in a similar field with out of hours self study (computer science into software development).

Stress is a hard to define thing. I cope really well with stress apparently. But it is mostly because I don't care that much if I finish something or not at work. Or that my field is really not that stressful. So it's hard for me to gauge what you can cope with.

With your qualifications you know the most obvious choice is to retrain as a science teacher. But that you say would stress you too much. Would that be only for teaching secondary? How about teaching reception? A friend is a qualified maths teacher. She taught a few years in either GCSE or A level maths but now teaches reception. How about working in a nursery? My DD previous key person is a qualified teacher. She worked for the nursery for like 10 years. She just left the nursery to teach reception at a primary school.

How about admin? The receptionist at my work was a teacher too. She left and worked for a nursery for over 10 years and just started as a receptionist at my work. She works only 3 days a week. I guess you go temping to get into this type of work?

I am 25 and cannot find a job. There are so many people applying for the same role and it pisses me off I cannot even find a shop job. So everyone is struggling out there.

I am going back to college in September to do an access course and hopefully become a nurse after 4 years of education. So maybe education is the answer?

Some great ideas on thisthread. I am starting to feel a pich (alveit a small one) of positivity

LEM are you me?

My PhD was also in a Drosophila genetics lab! Ah, the quizical looks I used to get when I told people I was researching flies. Don't think they quite got what a good genetic model they are. Anyway, I digress....

That fellowship looks really interesting. It sounds like just what you need! I think once you get your first job, it is easier to move into something else.

Why would you want to be a vet? Working with particular types of animals, or running your own practice, or the clinical,problem solving?

There is massively increasing demand for genetic testing services for various species, and new labs are sprinting up everywhere. Maybe look at approaching them for entry level jobs, and see where it might lead?

Have you updated your CV recently?

I did this the other week, and put in about my voluntary work. I sounded quite interesting.

Reading your thread alone, made me think you are too :)

Oh don't diss your PhD. All of them are stupidly specialised!

Where are you based, OP? Biotech and pharma companies often hire people with bioscience PhDs for non-science, but related roles.

Yy to all PhDs being "stupidly specialised" too. I think your general knowledge of genetics will be far more transferable than you think but it does depend where you live whether there are real job opportunities. If you can commute to Cambridge area you are laughing...

Weelors - its funny isnt it. The most common reaction I had was "but why" I still get a buzz of excitement when I talk to anyone who's interested (see what I did there!??). I can't say im sorry that ill never dissect another fly nervous system but I do miss it very much. With regards to DJ if you go for a biotechnology rather than molecular or straight biology project you are more likely to get funding. ( just saying ;) )