Re skilling / career change at 48?

[Olddognewjob]

So I've been at the same place for 26 years, an SME, 400 people.

Joined at 21 in a relatively junior admin role, many roles and couple of Mat leaves since and I'm now managing a team of 50 or so, on leadership team, on 75k. I left school at 16 so no degree or further qualifications.

Combination of young family & flexibility, enjoying the industry and frequent challenges/progression opportunities have kept me there this long. However, the operating board/group MD changed a few years ago, which coupled with Brexit and post covid have led to a nosedive in morale and culture. I hate it most days and am desperate to get out.

What can I do to reskill/upskill? With no diversity in my CV, no formal qualifications I'm struggling to see roles I'd be a fit for. I have broad business experience, sales, operations, people management, commercials & budgeting, project management. I'm intelligent, personable, super organised and process minded. But basically a jack of all trades and nothing to really sell myself on.

I accept I'd be looking at a pay cut to go to a different industry, but with 3 teenagers between 16 and 19 to get through Uni years, and a mortgage still to pay there's a limit to that.

Looking for ideas for night school / additional courses I could take or possible ideas for a complete change of career direction. Looking at perhaps an MBA but daunting proposition study wise (nothing to a masters). Perhaps accountancy courses?

Any input gratefully received. Or perhaps I just need to suck it up for a few years until I'm better placed financially for a change of direction?!

Project management stands out most to me from your list - there are so many PM vacancies right now. Perhaps the MBA in the future, but could you persuade your current employer to pay for some project management qualifications if you don't already have them? Or if you do, maybe start looking at these roles.

Unless of course, you don't like project management! What aspects of your job do you enjoy most and which industry are you in broadly?

Thanks for replying. I've looked at PM courses, something like prince but without practical application it might be quite tough to pass. Is prince aimed at tech PM or construction Pm or is it generic?

I do think PM might be the way, just not sure how to get started!

The industry is marketing services supplies (think POS). We supply product to corporate companies.

Why would you want to do an accountancy course from that background?

Pretty much every community college in the country offers AAT courses because they're a good money earner for the college. Always a stream of students - whenever people don't quite know what to do career wise, they'll see affordable-looking part time accountancy courses with no entry requirements and think that's an easy way into a stable, high earning profession.

Except trainee salaries are low. AAT doesn't actually make you a qualified accountant, you'd have to do another 3 years of study of ACA/ACCA afterwards (tuition fees are around £13k if self funding). It's a hard slog especially as you don't sound like you want a career in accountancy!

People qualify as accountants when they're young so they can side step into business roles doing the kind of work you've already been doing.

Why is accountancy on your shortlist and where were you hoping it might take you?

Unless you have a desperate wish to become an accountant, if you have £13k or so to spare, personally I'd spend it on a professionally relevant Master's or MBA.

But decide your end goal and target destination first. Being a jack of all trades can be marketable as long as you tailor your skills/experience to the specific role you're targeting rather than trying to bring in everything.

Dunno, I guess it feels more concrete of a 'career'. I'm currently fairly commercially involved - setting & reviewing sales & margin, site p & l, cash flow (debtors & stock investment) etc. I enjoy that part of it but I hear you about the long slog of self funded AAT courses, thanks for the advice (tho I was thinking AAT could be part of my 'retirement slowdown' career - bit of bookkeeping in my senior years to keep my brain active!)

You can definitely pass PRINCE without practical application, it's a little dry, but I did it. Do you have PMs in your company now? Also worth arranging some shadowing if so.

Ooops didn't answer your other question, it's generic, although PRINCE agile is a bit more tech specific. Worth looking up some videos on YouTube and LinkedIn for an idea of it.

There is a lot of funding available for senior leader MBAs and diplomas at the moment through the level 7 apprenticeship route. That might be worth looking into and having a chat with your employer? You study alongside work and the idea is that it upskills you as a manager and improves your performance in your current role, and you'd have no fees to pay. Many people do this without having studied at degree or Masters level so try not to let that put you off.

With that experience and skill set I would be more ambitious in the first instance.

Could you stomach a similar role in a different company with a culture that fits you better? And would your current employer provide good references? If so I would speak to a trusted recruiter in your field or contacts in different companies and put feelers out. You might have to work hard for the first year or two in a new organisation to prove yourself but do not undersell yourself. Your current employer values you otherwise you wouldn’t have worked your way up the ladder. You might be able to add considerable value to a start-up or smaller SME who have just gotten funding and can afford you.

I am dubious about an MBA or other qualification at this stage. I can’t see what hard skills would be provided to you with that you do not have already or couldn’t learn from a book, and unless you do a stellar course the networking side is unlikely to be worth it.

I immediately thought PM or MBA.
Go online sign up for some cheap online PM course basics so you get a feel for what it’s like. Google have one for instance on Coursera.
Check out MBAs (though you get what you pay for with these so really do your research) and get a meeting with the management now for some development funding!

Have you applied for other roles? It doesn’t sound to me like you need to do anything. Just apply for roles in similar companies or speak to a careers coach. Your experience will override professional qualifications you just need confidence and possibly some help to encourage you to sell yourself. I certainly wouldn’t be starting to faff about with project management qualifications at your stage.

Thanks everyone for your replies. It's given me a bit more confidence to focus on what I do have to offer (rather than what I don't) and go and sell myself.

I'm going to start properly looking and applying elsewhere, and tailoring my applications and cv to pull out the relevant bits. Will explore level 7 funded courses too.

Personally I think when you're at the point of managing a team of 50 and on the leadership team you are way beyond retraining for other things. When you retrain, you kind of reset your career and go back down the ladder.

People at your level aren't specialists or doers, they just need to understand what the people in their team are trying to achieve - managing IS the role and a skill in itself. "jack of all trades" is an advantage, not a disadvantage.

I'd recommend starting by just getting on LinkedIn or something similar and browsing comparable jobs to your current one and look at the skills they ask for, look at jobs you'd actually like to do and see what you have that meets what the ask for. When doing that remember that women are known to typically be in the mindset of "I need to meet everything here or I can't apply" whereas men will apply if they meet 50% or less of the criteria. When applying for jobs you really need to learn to treat the criteria as the hiring wish-list, not a go-nogo situation. If there's something you typically see as being asked for that you don't have, look at how you can plug that gap - even just using YouTube is a great source of learning videos to get quite in depth knowledge when needed.

Honestly I think your biggest disadvantage is going to be lack of experience in the application and interviewing process. That is actually the new skillset you need to focus on learning - and there's loads of resources available to help you.