WIBU to apply for an internship even though I'm mid 40s in order to facilitate a career change?

[thepeopleversuswork]

Wondering if people think this is a good strategy or if it potentially devalues my experience or is just an expensive waste of time.

Have been pissed off with the industry I work in for some time. It pays well but is very long hours and not family friendly. I've really struggled during lockdown to support my DC (I'm a lone parent) and have emerged feeling that I need something which isn't so relentless. I increasingly also don't feel that great about what I do which is essentially work in an industry that provides professional support to very wealthy and privileged people and want to do something which is more oriented towards helping and making a positive change in society. Tired old cliche etc and I know this isn't a panacea and that I'm lucky in many ways to be in a well-paid job, but I don't want to spend the rest of my working life doing something that makes me feel vaguely sick about myself.

I think my skills are vaguely transferable without retraining so I think a year in university or whatever would be overkill but I don't have any experience at all of the sector I'm interested in.

I would be quite happy to do a week's work experience with an organisation I particularly admire and take a week's leave from my existing job to do it (if they'd have me).

I've floated this past a few friends and a couple of them have said that I am undervaluing myself by offering to work for free and that at my stage in my career (in my mid 40s with over 20 years' experience in two different careers) it would send the wrong signal. But I'm pretty sure if I just applied to paid jobs in this sector my lack of work experience would discount me from getting a look in. Particularly as its charity/voluntary and jobs there are very competitive. I can't see why they would look at someone like me without any experience.

Has anyone else done this successfully or does anyone have any thoughts?

I think it is worth going in even for a few days shadowing to see if you like it. It seems to be less of a waste of time than changing then finding out you don't like it.

(So I would go for a weeks interning or shadowing)

Rather than internship can you not frame it as voluntary work if you are looking at the charity sector anyway? Then you could be offering your experience and transferable skills in a way that would be perceived as more valuable.

@Doyoumind

Rather than internship can you not frame it as voluntary work if you are looking at the charity sector anyway? Then you could be offering your experience and transferable skills in a way that would be perceived as more valuable.

I've thought about this and this would be ideal but I just wouldn't have time. I work roughly 10 hours a day and have very limited childcare. I did a bit of volunteering during lockdown and I had to give it up as I didn't have time to devote to it properly.

I think you’re a) overthinking it and b) putting too much emphasis on this. If you’ve no experience in the sector you’re interested in, a week of work experience is not going to make much difference to your employability, apart from showing some level of motivation. I don’t think you’d be undervaluing yourself by doing work experience - just call it ‘exposure and shadowing’ or something on your future applications. More valuable though would probably be a focus on your transferable skills. It might be that a bonus of doing some shadowing would be getting advice from people in the industry, or even finding a mentor who would help you think through application strategies.

It might be worth finding out if there are any mentoring programmes in your geographical location. Sounds a bit out there but they might be able to facilitate some job shadowing. Look for things like women in business or women in X industry.

Also I wouldn't completely dismiss the chance of you just getting a job in the 3rd sector outright. Yes it's competitive but if you have experience I'd be surprised if you weren't at least considered. I used to work for the charity sector and was part of a few interview panels and we would definitely consider people who had skills that were transferrable without 3rd sector experience. It would really come down to how well you tailored you application. If you can go through and make it super obvious to the reviewer that you meet most of the requirements then I think you would be in good stead. Just have spell it out to us.