Unhappy in my well-paid job. Scared to go

[reservedlaydee]

Hi, i have a well paid civil service job in central London. It is telephone-based. However, it can go from highly stressful to boring and lonely, depending which department/shift im on. I also work 12hr night shifts which can be mentally draining.
As my job is quite niche, i dont think i will have any transferable skills. We use a unique computer program. I plan to move out of London to a surrounding county and dont think i could handle a 1.5hr commute. I would love to get a job 5-10 miles from where we choose to settle but i know id have to settle for at least 10k less per annum. We enjoy nice holidays and I'd find this hard to give up. Also, will anyone employ me in a non-telephone role? How will i branch into a completely new area? I've had the same job for 8 years.
Just wondering if anyone has took the leap and left their stressful, well-paid job and gone into something more satisfying?

Surely if you're not living in London your living costs would be much lower anyway? That £10k salary difference might not be nearly that large after all.

You will have transferable skills. Even if it's a bespoke program, it's presumably doing something like problem management or process control or order management or whatever, and you would be able to pick up a new program doing this sort of thing more quickly than someone who hasn't had any exposure to such things.

I assume you have things like Word & Excel - if not, learn them, as they're pretty much default office skills these days.

Plus you will have soft skills like time management, written and spoken communication skills, maybe negotiating skills, presentation skills, problem solving, organisation, people management, budget planning - all sorts. And if you're a civil servant, you may have some level of security clearance, too. They are all transferable skills you can use in other roles.

Thanks Ebear. That is very helpful. I will remember these for a cover letter. I had thought about them but when job searching online, out of interest, 99% of the jobs ask for experience in a similar role, or some kind of qualification. The ones that dont require a qualification are minimum wage. Should i just apply for roles that i have not had direct experience in? My current role is in a busy control room, speaking to the public so i feel trapped in a telephone job

If I were you (and obviously I'm not), I'd go through all the tasks I do as part of my current job and look at what is really involved. So, you answer phones - that will probably involve gathering information (caller's name etc), communicating with people who may be upset, scared, angry, frustrated... so you may need to keep them calm and control the conversation to get the information you need, give the information they need. I guess sometimes you have major incidents to deal with, so you'll be able to show how you cope under pressure. Following procedures, using initiative, things like that.

Then you need to look at what the role you want to apply for is asking for, and break that down and see where you have the relevant experience. Make sure your CV is ordered so it emphasises the experience they want, and use the covering letter to draw attention to that. You probably will have direct experience of many of the tasks, if not the exact role. What the recruiter will want to know is whether you can do the job they're advertising for, and your job at this point is to show them that you can.

And remember - you have no chance of getting a job until you apply for it, and that's the only thing you can guarantee in job-hunting!

Good luck!

Do not just apply for minimum wage jobs! If you're outside of London then there may be less competition - a lot of rurally located offices have trouble hiring also.

Totally agree with listing your transferable skills in your cv, and just mention in your cover letter you are making a move out of X to y. That's totally normal.

Employers will also look at your level - e.g. Have you been used to managing staff/making decisions at a higher level so make sure you bring this out

Apply for everything you are interested in - good luck!

I have just done this. Have given up my job which involved lots of driving and taken a different role in my local town. It's taken me back to something I used to do when I was much younger and I feel more relaxed and unstressed than I have in years. We have made some changes to make savings in our outgoings and will now cut our cloth differently to ensure we can afford to keep living within a smaller income but we decided the time was right to put happiness ahead of everything else. Good luck