Can your career 'recover' after a downsize?

[bobbyshafto]

I'm thinking of starting a new job, 3 days a week and a 15 min commute. Exactly what I wanted. I have 3 DS's (6, 3 and 1). The problem is that this post is significantly less well paid and less senior to the job I was doing before having my 3rd child. I have no problem with the downsizing, as it will give me the work-life balance that I lacked before. However, in 3 years time when all my kids are at school I'll want to step things up and try and get my career back on track? Is it possible after working in a more junior role for a number of years? Has anyone managed it? I'm in academic/scientific admin and as usual PT jobs are very rare.

I think it depends on what the career progression for your new role is like. I did similar to you - went p/t in a more junior role after having children BUT the role enabled me to keep my skills in the field up to date and was easy to step back up to the more senior role when I felt I wanted to.

Thanks RedSky, as it's scientific admin, the skills are based in the subject area, rather than the admin itself. Previously, I was working in the Cancer field (I have a PhD in Molecular Biology) and that's what my role was based around. This post is in a Psychology Dept so my scientific qualifications are almost irrelevant in this setting. This makes it difficult to judge whether I will be able to move up or not?