New career for mum of 2

[Lulubon]

I’m a mum of 2 (1 and 3.5) does anyone have any ideas for a new career that suits family life?

I have experience in mainly customer service and healthcare

I want something that is not entirely customer facing. And something new!
Maybe something admin based. I’m really struggling to find anything that’s not horrendous pay, entry grade level. Any ideas? I’d like weekends off

all I see advertised is care roles and receptionist jobs!

You don’t say whether you have any qualifications?

If you take a look at the Mature Study and Retraining board you’ll see the variety of things people in similar positions are doing to start or re-start careers (rather than ‘jobs’). Might suggest some new ideas. Here:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/mature_students

@Edmontine

I have 13 gcses- c and above
a levels- A B D (media, art, performing arts)
and a level 2+3 NVQ- adult healthcare

thanks I’ll have a look

I’m halfway through my bookkeeping training . Also have two young kids. It can be done flexibly although there are quite a lot of exams … I self study. I was with AAT now ICB. I was approached by a charity I volunteered for about some bookkeeping work and now have a two year PAYE contract with them, managing grant funding and other finance tasks … I’m on £14 pa which is good as I’m not finished my studies yet. I’d eventually like to qualify as MICB (full member) and start my own bookkeeping business.

Sorry £14 per hour

Contact the national careers service. Look at volunteering to get some admin experience.

@EezyOozy that’s good to know! Maybe a qualification alongside a job would be a good way to enter a new profession. I don’t think I’d be very good as bookkeeping as I’m awful with numbers 😬

@thesandwich thank you, I’ll have a look

Have a look at the Probation Service.

Case administrator role - good for minimal customer facing, just some if covering reception tasks. Family friendly hours.

Probation Service Officer - good mix of customer facing and admin with very varied tasks and yet still family friendly hours as no weekends. There is often one late night duty (7/8pm finish one eve in the week).

School receptionist? Train to be a teaching assistant?

You could work as a therapy assistant for the NHS too with your background maybe occupational therapy assistant? Search therapy assistant on nhs jobs

I’m really struggling to find anything that’s not horrendous pay, entry grade level.

I’m wondering what sort of level of work you’re hoping for. Have you ever had any careers advice? I ask because you’re using words like ‘career’ and ‘profession’ and these things usually require a degree, as a minimum. Or an equivalent level apprenticeship for more vocational occupations.

So, I’d suggest a conversation with a careers advisor - the National Careers Service should be able to help with that - to work out where your skills and talents lie and how much time and effort you’re able to devote to career building. Truthfully, unless you’re a brilliant artist or entrepreneur there is no shortcut to a rewarding career - you need to be in a position to compete with everyone else chasing the same goals.

Obviously this will be easier if you have either a supportive partner or interested family who can provide moral support and practical help with childcare, etc, but it’s not impossible without help - you’d simply need to be very determined and organised.

I'd try and get into the civil service. Not quite sure what grade you'd be able to go in as, but there's a huge variety of roles and they are generally very flexible around family life. For the majority there's no weekend working and many of the admin type roles will have at least some working from home.
Pay isn't always amazing but the stability and flexibility are.

@Edmontine I said entry level that’s NOT horrendous pay. I simply can’t afford to work some of the jobs which pay under £10 an hour etc.
ive done an apprenticeship (my NVQ qualifications) through my employer and paid to do so on the job, I’m more then happy to do that again with a new employer.

@Workchatter my dad used to work for the probation service, I’ll ask him about his experience

I’ve been looking at NHS admin roles, they seem decent hours!

@pamplemoussee thank you I’ll have a look at the therapy roles

@ISaidDontLickTheBin this is something I’m really keen on, I’ve seen some well paid apprentice roles on the gov website too

Probation service officer roles are very competitive. Your generally be expected to have some relevant offender experience.

You aren't qualified for anything that isn't an entry level or low paid role. A levels are fairly useless when it comes to general job hunting.

@Smellywellyhoo that surprises me! My dad had absolutely no experience before he worked for the probation service, he was a camera man for the bbc beforehand 🤣
that probation job led him to a council job, now he’s an nhs director

Sorry if I wasn’t clear - I’m not discounting your NVQ qualification, but you’ll know yourself it would not generally qualify you for particularly well paid jobs. Adult healthcare is notoriously badly paid - so you probably would need new qualifications to compete for better paid jobs.

I'm assuming this wasn't something that happened in the last few years?

The jobs landscape has entirely changed since your dad got that job, in part because so many more people have university degrees. You need qualifications or good experience to get something other than an entry level job or an apprenticeship. Your best best will be to try to find a job in an area where your experience will help (in soft skills as well as actual skills).

@sheepdogdelight I'm surprised to see your comments, as in my experience PSO's continue to be hired in the present day in a good mix of

• relevant CJS or social work experience and may or may not have a degree
• degree and little work experience at all (often use uni deadlines and experiences in interview examples)
• no degree but have useful transferable skills from work experience even though it's not from the CJS

I think it's important to continue employing from a diverse background and educational mix so that the Probation Service offer the empathetic, holistic and creative approach it is known for (or not known as very few people understand what Probation do!)

You seem to be agreeing with me?

I said you needed a degree or work experience to get other than an entry level job/apprenticeship.

In all your scenarios you've listed the person has a degree or work experience ...

Data inputting

@sheepdogdelight yes the first two points cover what you described however for point 3 this covers people from any background who can demonstrate a transferrable skill.
I have seen people interview successfully who have worked in retail, estate agency and cheffing and for whom probation would be a complete career change. They have had no clue about the CJS but were excellent at other essential aspects of the job and learnt the other stuff as they went. This captures what the poster described about their father who I imagine could describe being adaptable and aware in scenarios as a cameraman which would transfer into probation. Whilst that was likely years ago, the way the scoring works now, providing someone can demonstrate, to a good degree, the criteria being sought then it doesn't matter where it was obtained. This has been my experience anyway.

@Workchatter I’m glad to see your comment, even though I haven’t described my exact job I’ve actually worked my way up the ladder and have pretty much reached the top of the area I specialise in (without having a degree) I have been offered to continue my degree (I’m second year nursing) however, I’m not quite ready to continue at the moment and not sure the role is not me anymore, hence looking at other options. Either way I worked my way up from the bottom, previously no healthcare experience and had been working at Waitrose customer service beforehand! They saw transferable skills and took me on happily! So I do believe I can work my way up in a new career too.

My dad who now hires a huge amount of employees for the NHS said he always looks for a range of people, some with degrees and some with different experiences. His assistant started as an office boy and worked his way up, so I don’t see it as a problem personally.