The classic post baby career change, but to what?

[Flingingmelon]

I've come to the conclusion that working in the fashion industry and having a young child is an uphill battle and I'm not sure I can do it anymore. I was recently made redundant under pretty iffy circumstances and because I'm senior, finding a new job will take a while. I'm also really over everyone acting like they're Anna bloody Wintour. I am used to working in a stressful environment, I'm not a princess, I'd prefer something creative but TBH I'd settle for some thing useful. Any suggestions?

I'm fortunate enough that I can take an earning break for a few years, long enough to retrain, but I have no clue what to do.

Anyone been in the same boat? How did you find your second calling?

What are your interests? Do you want to stay in the same sort of area? Do you have skills that mean you could move into a slightly different area using your experience (teaching HE comes to mind)...

I changed careers years ago (way before kids). I was working in a creative industry, but had always wanted to do postgraduate degrees (masters/ phd). So that's what I did - MA and PhD in discipline related to industry I used to work in. I'm now an academic and mostly love it, but I was always cut out for academic life.

Id like to stay in the same sort of area, I know in good at it. HE could be a good option. I'm not wildly academic but I loved the mentoring part of my job.

Did you already know what you wanted to do your MA in or did you talk to someone first?

I'm wondering about going to see a careers advisor but Id imagine Id need to find the right one. Or are they all a bit snake oil?

I'd always had a hankering to do an MA. Then the company I was working for got shut down, I was made redundant and it was right around the time MA applications were due in. So I did some speedy research on places to study, got my application in and got accepted. In between then and the MA starting (about 8 months) I freelanced. Once I was on the MA I loved it and knew I wanted to stay in academia/ didn't want to go back into creative industry I'd been working in before.

Is freelancing doing what you used to do an option? I actually really enjoyed freelancing and imagine it could work well with small kids. Also, my experience of freelancing (and knowing others who do it in various industries) is that it begets itself. I.e. once people know you're available for freelance work, and you're good, it's quite quick to build up clients/ network/ jobs/ etc and all sorts of opportunities come along that you didn't even know existed before you 'put yourself out there'. I think I could have made a pretty successful career for myself as a freelancer, if I'd not gone down the lowly-paid academic route.

Re. careers advisors - no idea, never used one. Not much use in industry I used to work in (where it's all about contacts and who you know, etc). I think they can give quite good general advice about thinking laterally about career options, tidying up CVs, etc. But I'm not sure how much specific advice they can give, unless they specialise in your industry/ field.

In a v similar situation but still working - just know I need to make career change. I wasn't so keen on one to one coaching so have signed up to a career shifters programme. No idea yet if it will be good but I found their site quite inspiring and full of ideas - they have hundreds of stories of people who've changed careers.

www.careershifters.org/

Ooh thanks for this, I'll have a look.