Realistic but inspirational career changes

[HettyMeg]

I'm mid-30s, mother of 1, burnt out in my day job, I'm the higher earner in my marriage and we have sky high childcare costs, like many others. Have struggled with anxiety and burnout and been treated for it. We don't live an extravagant lifestyle at all but everything is so expensive that life feels like a constant juggle of bills, daily grind etc. My job used to be interesting but as I've grown in seniority has become more management focused which I've learned I don't actually enjoy.

I want a change! I don't mind a slight pay cut to go in to a more junior role in a more promising sector BUT don't want to be worse off overall in a couple of years time - so would love to hear some inspiring but realistic career change stories from those who have done it recently - how did you go about it and how did you manage to keep on top of finances and manage family life in the process?

My job used to be interesting but as I've grown in seniority has become more management focused which I've learned I don't actually enjoy

I hit the same issue. Unfortunately this is common across a lot of professional and corporate career paths.

There are senior/well paid roles which don’t require management, but all the ones I can think of tend to involve being an expert in something, with many years of knowledge/experience - this is obviously tough to do as a career changer.

I would be interested in any suggestions of a suitable career change as I’m looking too!

What is your current sector if you don’t mind saying?

This is one reason I went into tech. I don't mind having a role in team development but I find performance management and strategy meetings fucking exhausting. I want to do the doing not the managing. I can get into six figures as an individual contributor in tech. My specific path has involved persuading my employer to put me on tech apprenticeships and reconfigure my job, then changing jobs and moving more deeply into the tech space, but this has been enabled by finding a space where my existing skillset could be used in a tech space.

maybe not so inspiring but I used to be a lab based scientist- had first baby and 1.5hr commute each way was killing. My priority was to find something to work flexibly, some days at home and went into an operational/management role in similar sector. I took a paycut because no one thinks geeks from the lab have people skills, luckily I do. I know what my ceiling in new path is which is lower than where I could have been in previous career but the reward is that I got there faster and now earning the most I ever have not having to wait forever for promotions etc. SO- I guess a good way is to figure out what are you hoping to get out of new career path? any deal breakers? what does progression look like and what's your ceiling in that role and how quickly can you get there even with pay cut?
Currently managing fine, as spouse on similar salary to mine. we now have a 2nd child and have a mortgage too.

Yes it's tricky isn't it, you get to a certain stage and you're then a manager. I'm already at senior manager level but not in a massive organisation so limited opportunity for further progression. I work in journalism

Thanks for this, I feel that looking to growth industries is a smart move. How long did the process take you? It's great that your employer was able to offer you those opportunities.

Sounds pretty inspiring to me as you've found something that works for you. Did you have to do any additional training or were your lab experience and existing people skills enough? It's good advice on figuring out upper ceiling/time taken to get there in potential new career.

I started freelancing in the industry I had been working in for 12 years. All of the roles had been ok but not exactly what.i wanted. By the time I went self employed I could do the full range of work of a whole (design) department.

My industry isn't well paid as an employee but by providing a subcontracting service I charge £27 per hour, fully flexible and working 95% from home.

Can you pivot to a consulting or contracting position?

Me too, I love the actual focus of my work but am SLT and spend 85% of my time managing, mentoring and dealing with issues, 15% doing the work I really enjoy.

I’m considering becoming a consultant, just need to find a part time job for a bit of surety of income as I’m a single parent.

I left a senior role in one corporate for another just because I wanted to do the work rather than manage 20 years ago so this isn’t new for me.

I think I’m a good leader/person to report to so it isn’t that, I’d just rather be doing the work I’m invested in.

A fair while. My first apprenticeship was 15 months, and meanwhile my employer agreed to give me 10% of work time to do related projects. I proved the worth of those and then pushed for more of my job to be in this space. Then when I finished the apprenticeship I got my employer to support me for a 3-year MSc apprenticeship in the space, and to make my role more techy, then I had the creds to jump to a "proper" job in the space. I'm about 5 years from my start point now and have my eye on a third, highly specialised and in-demand apprenticeship.

If the tech side is of interest there is a training and recruitment company who help career changers certify to work for with Salesforce. It's all about a good salary and flexible working. They're called Salesforce supermums.

With your background in journalism, have you thought about moving into a policy focused role?

I used to be in the same industry as you, am now doing content design (not to be confused with content writing/copy writing). It's part of the user centred design job family, you can look at the various roles in that. For most of them you'd need to do another qualification or work experience, but for content design you can pivot into it fairly easily from journalism.
I did have to start out at the bottom of the ladder though, but have worked my way up in a short space of time. I'm actually earning more than I ever did in journalism and I haven't even reached my full earning potential yet.
Training-wise, I had lots of on the job training and courses paid for by the employer.
I love it and don't regret leaving journalism for a moment. The feeling of burnout and anxiety is very familiar but I no longer have that since leaving.
There are lots of roles in the public sector, as well as tech agencies and other private sector companies.

Not disimilar to you, I had my first baby at 34 but came back from mat leave (mind you only 4 months to not lose track) but a restrcuture and a change of line manager happened anyway in that short period! I asked when I came back to be embedded across different teams - non lab based so that I could understand the business. Ultimately I dug myself a grave there as I was hired to be 100% lab based and was not! The thing about having deep technical skills sometimes is that when a restructure happens, you are likely to not be needed anymore- which also made me decide that I wanted a more 'general' career that could be transferable.
Also, use the power of your networks and beyond to get your next role even if it isn't the final goal- its really helpful to get a helping hand to make that shift as I eventually went to an organisation that was previously our collaborator- they were happy to take a 'risk' knowing that I would probably come up to speed fairly quickly even if I lacked previous experience. I also never said no to any opportunity in my first 12 months in the new job and got promoted after 6 months in. This did mean we put back plans for second baby and in the end I have a 4 year gap instead of 2 that I dreamt of. However, I regret nothing, and I feel more ready and secure second time around on mat leave.

Do keep us posted on your plans forward!