AIBU to ask you to suggest a career for me (long, sorry!)?

[NothingSafe]

In a year or two, I’ll need to find a new career(/job) and it turns out I have no idea what I want to do – so please, kind people of mumsnet, what do you think I should look at?

In the near future my business partner wants to sell and retire as she’s 60, and my job title sounds impressive but I couldn’t hope to do the same thing at a bigger firm (we have a small business, 30+ employees – I couldn’t go and be a director of X at a huge firm, for example, my title is largely decorative as I do a bit of everything). For various reasons I don’t want to take over the company, I’m ready for a change.

I can afford to retrain, but don’t want to do another undergrad degree
– I’d ideally want to do no more than 1 year (so a masters or equivalent) purely studying, but happy to do on-the-job training if necessary.

I’m 34, no children and no plans for children, so no career break needs to be considered.

BIG earning potential isn’t important to me, but ideally I’d want to be able to earn 30k steadily. More is great, but I’m absolutely not bothered about climbing the ladder and pulling 50 hour weeks to earn loads.

My undergrad degree is in History and Creative Writing, and I’ve worked in marketing, journalism and PR roles, with a lot of event planning experience. I’m a great writer (although would prefer not be writing creatively for work any more – bid writing type stuff etc would be fine), I work best under deadlines, and I like digging into things – researching or tracking stuff.

Dream job would be: something roughly M-F; preferably not managing people – I enjoyed managing a team of 3, but no more; working in a smallish team but with some work done alone; preferably not directly customer facing but that’s negotiable.

My (very very broad brush) interests: media/TV/radio, science-adjacent things, mental health.

Careers I have considered/am considering:

• Counsellor (decided against as too emotionally draining and not distinct enough ‘tasks’)

• Conveyancer (have worked in property industry for a long time, albeit in a creative role, and find it interesting. Plus I really like jobs with distinct, short-ish term projects that have a definite end – a yearlong project is my worst nightmare, although I know some property purchases can drag!)

• Mortgage adviser (same as above, really)

• Solicitor (my original career plans, although those I know seem to hate it which has put me off, plus the retraining would be longer)

But there are so many jobs I’ll never have thought of. Are you someone who has a reasonably interesting job that hits some of these points? If you are, please inspire me! 😊

How about being a freelance social media manager, writing content, planning campaigns and engagement strategies across various channels for companies or charities that fit your interests?

@Botanica

How about being a freelance social media manager, writing content, planning campaigns and engagement strategies across various channels for companies or charities that fit your interests?

I've got a fair amount of experience in doing this in-house but weirdly never considered doing it freelance! It's definitely something I'd be good at, but I wonder if it'd be an over-saturated market (and whether I'd need design skills - I'm great on Canva, but don't know PS at all, although I could learn)?

I’m in the voluntary sector and with your skill set would look at roles like communications officer, social media or researcher
You could also consider fundraiser, bid writer etc

With your skill set I think you'd do well as a business analyst - working on projects, but most likely under a project manager who would run the actual project. It's across many industries too, although my experience is mostly in financial services - main responsibilities are gathering and translating the business needs into right level of detail for project/ IT to implement.

What about UX (website user experience design) - you need empathy for users and to understand people, and need research and communication skills. You can earn a lot in consultancy and specialise in aspects like user research. Can work for any sized company that runs a website, on big and small projects.

Account Manager.

Its a bit of everything to make sure everything runs smoothly. A bit of Jack of all Trades master of none role.

Lots of liaising with other departments etc to solve problems, make improvements or keep things ticking over.

Even better if you can develop the relationships and get a bit of commission thrown in.

I really enjoy it most of the time.

Civil Service Fast Stream (assuming you have a degree as you mentioned potentially studying for a masters). £28k starting, up to £29,500 in second year, rising to £32k in years 3/4.
Personally I'd look for one of the streams with a qualification (I'm on the Finance stream so doing the ICAEW ACA to become an accountant, all paid for by work. There are other optionssuch as HR which have a qualification too).

Thank you all! Some great ideas in here...

@JaceLancs A comms officer/manager role would be the most natural step for my skillset and experience, so a good call. Doing it in the voluntary sector would be great too :) also, no retraining needed!

@DeireadhFomhair this is really interesting: it's not something I'd ever considered, but having had a dig it's something I think I'd really enjoy. Do you generally need a business qualification?

@deeni also very interested in this, thank you! Again, not something I even realised was a job, and it's something I do (albeit on a less technical and formal scale) regularly as part of my role at my business - I've signed up for a free Udemy course to get a bit more of a feel for it, because I think this would be a really interesting mix of my experience and leave me room to learn new skills too

@nancybotwinbloom it sounds like the ideal role in terms of what you do! I like being in the middle of things and knowing enough to tell the experts around me what we need - is it salesy, though?

@AwkwardPaws27 again, not something I'd thought of, but getting into the CS would be great in terms of possibilities (and yes, have 2:1 undergrad degree so would qualify on that count). What's the culture like? I wonder if going from a very relaxed, casual creative culture to civil service would be too much of a culture shock haha

Thank you all for your suggestions - all excellent and really appreciated

Counsellor (decided against as too emotionally draining and not distinct enough ‘tasks’)

Have you considered careers adviser? You can do a masters in one year and there is a huge skills shortage. Careers advisers /consultants in Higher Education get paid really well.

It involves some counselling skills but is nowhere near as emotionally draining.

It's very fair & accommodating - I've heard it varies between departments a bit, but the two I've been posted in have been very focused on staff wellbeing.
For example, my depth are currently moving back to hybrid working and encouraging two days a week in the office. I'm in the (very!) early stages of a pregnancy and have a history of recurrent miscarriage and they were very supportive when I asked to WFH for the next couple of months.
It's not so creative (apparently creative accounting is frowned upon... ) but once you get passed the acronyms most people are really nice, and have a "greater good" type of mentality.
I like working in public sector (I've worked for the NHS, in the education sector and at a charity in the past). Fast Stream enables you to push your own development more than most CS roles (if you complete the scheme & pass final assessment, you could get a G7 triple paying £45k+).
The pension scheme is pretty good too, as it maternity leave of that is a consideration for you.

@NothingSafe

Depends really. I think usually or at least in my experience, the account managers are keeping things at a steady state and resolving issues, business development managers tend to do the more target driven stuff relating to sales.

It's fairly customer facing. I think Covid has proven you don't need lots of regular meetings just for the sake of it.

I bet you've got some pretty good credentials if you've been running a firm of 30 odd employees. Contact a recruitment consultant and get them to place you.

What about working in the property department of a company that you like.
You could be an estates manager for a retail chain, a pub chain, a cafe chain? I always think that looks like a good job and if you like being in the middle and organising things you'd be good at it.

Anything freelance, especially SMM or comms, will have a lot of client facing work. And ideally a lot of longer projects.

I’d second the civil service fast track, if I’m honest, but managing properties for a chain of businesses is an intriguing option that could suit your skill set!

@NothingSafe I have a business qualification but I've been in the industry 25 years. Not necessarily required for Business Analyst role. Have a friend working as BA in the airline industry, another in tech. Lots of different scope.
Whatever you decide, best of luck with it.