To ask if you have changed careers in your mid 30s or later in your life?

[judybloomno5]

I am currently on maternity leave and I am considering changing careers.

I am currently in HR where I have worked in a call centre helpdesk environment and its recently been restructured so i feel my job has been downgraded and my skills will disintegrate. I have a good general business degree and I work for my DP part time (its not a business i could go into without us buying a premises which we aim to do but don't currently have the finances for, I just collect his receipts and manage accounts for him).

Have you changed careers at this stage in your life? What did you move to?

I could have written your post. I am due to return to work in January after 18months on mat leave and I hate my job. I have a masters degree, had a very very interesting and unusual first job following that, second job was also very interesting and exciting then I made a bad choice and switched to a job that make no difference to anybody. It's soul destroying. But the pay and benefits are very good so it makes it hard to leave...8 years later. I know I'm meant for something better...I just don't know what that is and at 35 I'm getting worried I won't ever figure it out.

I would like to do a phd but I feel like I'm too old to do it now with a view to making a career in academia. Don't want to hijack your thread but if anyone out there has done a phd at 35+ then I would love to hear how it went and if it's something you would recommend.

Lawyer, retrained in healthcare job, and then went back to law as I missed being around really driven, dynamic, ambitious people. Working in the nhs I was surrounded by unhappy demotivated miserable people who hated their jobs, and almost a ratio of 2 managers per worker! . It was really depressing and the pay was rubbish.

Oh no! My mum is nearly 70 and being encouraged to retire but just keeps considering what she can train to do instead!
Myself* after a degree in one thing, a PGCE teaching in something slightly different but I'd worked in, then training to do corporate IT training (nothing to do with my degree!), which I did for 10 years, then took a break after having DS, now approaching 40 I've now got a job doing something else! Start after New Year!!!

So no never to old. The hard part is convincing other people that all your skills and experience ARE transferable!

Cguk I started a PhD at 32 with a view to a career change into academia. I won awards, published, presented, did masses of unpaid lecturing, got my name well known... and have not in the past year had one single postdoc job offer. And so, at 39, I am now back in the same position I was in when I started: looking to start again in an entirely new field and not having a clue how or where.

So in response to your post: please think very, verrrrrrrrry carefully about how to proceed. If you do earnestly want to pursue a career in academia by getting a PhD, I would advise the following

• go to an Ivy League, Oxbridge or RG uni, and get the absolute world-specialist top supervisor in your field
• from the very minute you begin studying, pester and demand teaching experience
• from the very minute you begin, start submitting your work to academic journals for publication
• network, socialise, get to know and to drink with and sleep with all the important people in your department and field
• go to every conference you can, no matter where in the world
• apply for jobs countrywide and worldwide

It's not family friendly.

I left a senior Nursing role in the NHS to become a School Counselor. I adore my new job. I'm only about £2k per year better off but I'm much less stressed, have a better work/life balance and the long holidays are lovely.

Does anyone have any suggestions for me? I need a career change too.

I have 4 useless degrees including a PhD. I am a reasonably good researcher and writer, and have few other transferable skills - though would be willing to retrain. I would like a sedentary and mentally-demanding job and need something that requires little mobility and few social skills. I am almost 40.

@tiredclare all the reasons you listed are the ones that really put me off doing it. I can't be bothered socialising, I hardly have time to sleep with my husband never mind anyone else and just don't have the motivation that the younger new graduates would have. But social research is my field and that's what I want to get back in to. But I've never worked for a profit driven company and don't fancy it, I can't get into academia without a phd (or even with if your experience is anything to go by) and there are no jobs now in my old field (police). So I'm a bit stuck. I am good at researching and advising, problem solving etc but I can't seem to pin that down to an actual jobs. That sucks that all your hard work for your PhD didn't pay off...very hard to stay motivated after that.

I've been a SAHP for ten years and really want to train for anew career, but I have no idea whatsoever as to what I want to do. My career resolution for 2016 is to find out what I want to do. I will have to work out a plan, which will probably involve doing loads of voluntary work and asking everyone I meet for help and ideas.

I am also looking for inspiration.

I am 40 very soon and have only ever worked in office jobs since leaving school, in dead end jobs with little to no chance of progression. The thought of doing the same for the next 20 plus years fills me with despair.

I don't have any qualifications as such apart from some outdated ones in typing and shorthand. I would love to retrain but really wouldn't know where to start and very much doubt I could afford to anyway.

Hats off to those of you who have followed your dreams and taken the next step.

Left job in forensics in my early 30's to be a part of a pole dancing stage act with a touring rock band. (It had previously been a keep fit hobby) I Would fly out to where band were playing for wkend, work then fly home again.
Purely financial as earned more than my months salary in forensics in two days performing.
Recently back in forensics as I have since paid off my mortgage (with money made pole dancing) and I'd bought myself a new car.

@Cguk81 I very much appreciate where you're stuck. Is your social research and/or police experience such that you could get some sort of graduate tutoring or junior lecturing role at one of the post-'92 HEIs? Such jobs (though rare and hugely competitive) enable employees both to earn a salary and to study part-time whilst teaching, and the experience to be gained whilst doing so means that you will come out with a strong CV from which to apply for further academic jobs. In my experience, older PhD students who have come that route seem to have more success at attracting postdocs than those doing the traditional 3 years ft.

I'm 34. Left teaching last month and I'm now an operations manager for a fitness company. Good luck finding an alternative that works for you. X

What about someone with no qualifications?
I missed out on uni and college due to home situation, but hold secret unfulfilled dreams of Oxbridge. Was going to post similar thread myself tbh.

I'm 32 "on maternity leave" but been made redundant, disliked my job anyway. Seriously thinking about retraining as a midwife or something medical, medicine fascinated me.

Straight to uni from school. Science degree, Ph.D. and then a dozen years of postdoc research. Saved some money and bought a flat to rent out.

Stayed home for a dozen years to raise family and juggled a small property portfolio - made enough to pay off our mortgage and bring in money for private school fees.

Latterly looked after mother with Alzheimer's for several years so did a part time degree in languages. Now teaching with a local college and privately one-to-one.

I'm currently laying the foundations for the next big move abroad and starting a new business.

Unfortunately, it's overeating and staying up late that's helped me get the energy to keep going.

Good luck to all.

Watching thread with interest for an unhappy husband who is wondering what move he can make from accountancy.....

I have to comment here! Has anybody heard of Daphne Jackson Trust? I've just seen someone thinking of change to engineering. I have a PhD is chemistry, and was doing research before family, then been a stay at home mum for 7 years with two sons. Thought I wouldn't "get back" to scientific career. But this trust helps people who have had career breaks of 2 years or more, esp for family reasons, to return to science, possibly retraining in a different scientific area. The beauty is, it's part time to fit around family. It's only a two year fixed term fellowship, but it's to get you retrained and up to speed. I got a fellowship in April when my son started preschool, it's been the best career move ever, I love the Trust. Please check it out :-)

Yes, I have heard of the Daphne Jackson Trust. Am not STEM, though, and nothing equivalent in my field.

My advice would be to go back to work on as few hours as you can manage and retrain or set your new career up in some of the 'free' (ha!) hours that you will get.
It's tough going back to work after a baby, you may find that the little bit of income and no brainer workload will allow you less stress setting up for something you realky want to do.

Don't stress that you have to decide before you go back, use the flexible working and decide then.
Good luck!

Place marking. I have decided that next year I need to either sort my career out or go back to uni and do a masters. Either way I need to get my shit together before I hit 40 at the start of 2018.

Trouble is I'm not sure I know what I want to be when I grow up yet...

That's a shame, I've often wondered if there are non-STEM equivalents. Good luck!

@Hikez was thinking of you and your post regarding Daphne Jackson trust!

Agree with TiredClare about academia. I had over 25 years lecturing experience, publications and a PhD - there's very few permanent jobs these days and after time out looking after children, almost impossible to return to. Depends on your field but there are alot if up and coming youngsters who can go to the pub after hours and network, who have no childcare responsibilities and who can live off much less as no mortgage, etc.

I got fed up of hoping that an academic job would come up; retrained as a social worker at 51 and now, having just qualified at 53, have been offered a full-time permanent post working in the statutory sector.

I've retrained along the way moving from agency research to client side research to project management to career coaching! I basically followed my interests in each role, understood what it was I liked and didn't like (finding out answers to questions/clients, finding out answers to questions that matter/long hours, achieving something/process management, helping people/no downsides yet!)

If you have access to coaching of course I would advise that but even if not do you have a really good friend or perhaps your DP depending on his closeness to the decision making process who you could talk out loud to about it? Sometimes just saying your thoughts put loud makes things clearer. I was choosing between 2 roles in early December; one was similar to my job but more exciting with more possibilities, the other was really quite different but ticked all of my self fulfilment boxes despite only being temporary. So I stepped into the abyss and I'm so looking forward to it!