Failed career - help me

[yonderhouse]

Namechanged as outing. Christmas is over, and I’ve woken up thinking about the reality of my failed career, and how I’m so desperate for things to change next year.

In short, began working in the media industry after graduating. Was doing well, though once I got into my thirties progression slowed down when I had children. Eventually about 12 years ago I went freelance (unwise in retrospect) to juggle young kids and becoming a carer for my unwell father, who eventually died. I continued to ‘keep my hand in’ with freelance work over this time, and even more recently side-stepped into a different area of the industry with some success.

Now I find myself completely stuck. There has been a huge collapse of available work in my field - it’s been widely publicised. As a freelancer, particularly given I was quite ‘new’ in the area I work in, I’m bottom of the pile. It’s also very difficult for me to return to the type of role I was in before I started freelancing as I’ve been out of the game for so long and jobs are enormously competitive. I am exploring various avenues, have interviewed for a couple full-time jobs (and not got them), and feel completely lost.

Income is becoming a big worry, and I’m so frustrated. I’m late 40s now and it feels hopeless - I really don’t want to slide towards retirement age not really working and being dependent on DH’s income, which has remained static for several years too.

Sorry this is long. Do I keep pushing away pitching for freelance work/applying for gold dust jobs like I’m currently doing, or do I look at retraining/a complete career change?! I’ve got at least 15 years of working life left and I want to make the most of it.

Has anyone been in a similar boat? What did you do? Would love thoughts and advice

You might find browsing this board helpful, @yonderhouse:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/mature_students

Curious as to what you do in terms of media as this may help highlight transferable skills. Are there other careers, jobs you’d like to try, be honest with yourself and open to all possibilities a you’ve hopefully got a lot of working years left in you so loom to find sk
wthing you enjoy or find rewarding. Goog luck

@GhastlyGoodTaste - thank you. I will have a scroll through.

Part of the problem is that I can’t currently afford to embark on a new degree or significant training course. I have thought about becoming a therapist/relationship counsellor in the past - but the training is (rightly so) long and expensive.

I actually love the thought of an apprenticeship, but these seem mainly geared towards financial/legal/scientific/tech sectors which I wouldn’t be any good at.

I'm guessing you're a journalist? It must be soul destroying seeing your job pushed aside by the nonsense clickbait the industry has become.

Do you want to go back to study or do you want to use your transferrable skills elsewhere so you can bring in a stable income at least? If the latter, you could probably look for agency admin/reception work as a way of earning and getting a foot in the door while you decide what to do? Is there anything you're passionate about or are otherwise good at? Eg if you're also into fitness could you retrain as a personal trainer?

@MNTourist - thank you. I have worked in publishing and journalism, and also in TV. I’m very skilled at editing/writing. Teaching might be a possibility - I love supporting others, and I have taught on adult courses in the past - but I am not sure my heart is in truly in it!

I am also pretty fascinated by businesses/people/how things work - in another life I think I could have done very well in HR, for example, but it feels quite late to be going down that road…

Google suggests that HR apprenticeships are a thing and you're never too old - you have nearly 20 years before you reach state retirement age.

I'm in another sector but we've just had a big recruitment drive for us and over half the new recruits to our graduate trainee programme were career changers over 50. Most of the others were in their 30s and 40s and only a handful were new(ish) graduates under about 25.

@Bjorkdidit - thank you! I would love to study again but also need to earn - so it would be tricky to set up work just to fund the study, if that makes sense? It’s why I love the idea of an apprenticeship but none I’ve looked into seem quite right so far.

I have also looked into part time roles that are more ‘admin’-y, just to bring in a stable income. But the feedback I get from recruiters is that they think I’m overqualified to go for a more junior/supportive position…

@Bjorkdidit - that’s so interesting, thank you. And wonderful to hear that you did have a number of older career changers on your recruitment programme - I have slightly worried I’d be the lone middle aged person surrounded by loads of 23 year olds 😂

What sector do you work in, out of interest?

There are apprenticeships in many fields - I currently have staff doing HR and teaching apprenticeships. There are also degree apprenticeships.

Have a look here:

findapprenticeshiptraining.apprenticeships.education.gov.uk/courses#:~:text=Apprenticeship%20category,Transport%20and%20logistics

I am in a not-dissimilar position, although I had also been working in part-time roles until a couple of years ago. Freelancing alongside.

There is a useful thread in Work called something like ‘waiting to be shortlisted 3’.

I’d consider looking at the civil service, if I’m correct in thinking you were a journalist you’d have a lot of transferable skills and it’s extremely sold and reliable if that’s what you’re looking for, not brilliantly paid but it’s a good pension and very flexible. You also won’t have the ‘over qualified’ if you get the job, you get the job.

Definitely retrain - which will mean time on a limited income, even as an apprentice, but will be worth it long term.

I had a similar issue - started as a pioneering freelancer, but after 20 years there were thousands in my field and the amount of work had reduced massively, and on top of that I was old and stale and had run out of fucks to give. I suspect it’s something that happens a lot. I was fairly close to retirement so took my skills into a completely different and lower-earning level, but if it had happened 10 years earlier I’d have retrained.

If you need to study part time, would you be eligible for a graduate loan to do a masters or similar? I did my degree in social psychology, but I've moved into the private sector and I'm looking at masters degrees to adjust my skills a bit. The open uni does part time masters degrees, and some of the cost can be covered by student loan funding. That's the route I'm considering this year, I'd be 47 when I graduate.

Here:

https://www.gov.uk/funding-for-postgraduate-study

(I had one for a Master’s in a completely new (to me) subject in my 50s.)

https://www.charityjob.co.uk/jobs?keywords=Media&UserHasGrantedBrowserGeoLocationPermission=No

I just put media in the search category and found these roles, not sure if they're suitable or not. You do have a lot of transferable skills that will suit most sectors.

@Azandme - thank you. I need to investigate further. Part of the problem I am having is that a lot of apprenticeships (in the fields I am interested in) are aimed at school leavers. Most graduate programmes or degree apprenticeships seem to be in particular sectors which I don’t think I’d be good within - I will look again though.

@NotMyDayJob - love the idea of civil service. But I thought most CS roles were very very competitive? I have a few friends senior in government/ministry jobs…I might should look into local government/council positions though.

@katmarie - I might be. But loans make me a bit nervous (particularly as I have dc who are shortly off to uni and we’ll be supporting them too!)

@olderbutwiser - thank you so much for sharing. My freelance career also depends on a lot of pitching for work, and like you did - I am also running out of fucks to give 😂 I would love to retain but the question is what/how? X

@GhastlyGoodTaste and @Enterthedragonqueen - thank you SO much. I will look x

It's not uncommon to go in at a more junior level and work your way up (I took about two steps down when I joined but that was in my particular circs and I could afford the pay cut) and yes it is competitive but if you know people senior in the CS get them to coach you in the interview style, that will give you a wild advantage on the competition.

It's worth looking at local gov, and local gov agencies (by that i mean regional authorities, orgs like TfL depending where you are in the country) but their interviewing is not that different and not necessarily less competitive depending where you are geographically

Marketing, PR or comms might be suitable- you have a lot of skills that would be valued massively.

Also, and please take this in the positive spirit it's intended because for very different reasons I've been where you are, don't focus on the barriers, yes the CS is competitive but so what, someone has to get the job and many many people won't have friends who can help them understand the process

Thank you all so much for your wise words and encouragement. I am definitely feeling more positive. You are so right that I shouldn’t let barriers or my own negative mindset get in the way.

Just feels hard because I have had a few knockbacks already in terms of putting myself out there, or opportunities that very nearly went my way, and then didn’t. But this thread is making me feel encouraged- and I’ve already seen a role on one of the links given that I am going to apply for…

thanks again everyone xx

Lots of bbc apprenticeships
https://careers.bbc.co.uk/search/

You’ve had some good advice here
good luck x

@yonderhouse are you in the Facebook group TV Switch Up? It's got lots of folks in a similar boat... I feel for you - I'm in pretty much the same situation. It's exhausting and scary.

Loads of organisations have communications roles. Internal, external, digital. Civil service, civil service adjacent, regulators, NHS. I'm sure you would get one of these type of roles.