Career change - anybody done it?

[Guest]

I’m 33 and I have done 17 years in retail and led that to follow my dreams of being a zookeeper. I am now studying a degree in Animal management and Zoology and I volunteer at a zoo too.

[emmafleur]

I’ve worked as a TA for over 20 years and did a degree with the Open University while I was working and bringing up my kids. I decided I didn’t want to go through with teacher training once I had my degree but couldn’t bear the thought of another 17 years before I retire still doing the same job, so I’m retraining to be a Play Therapist. Still working with children but so much happier than working in education and so glad that I took the leap to start something new. It’s not been as easy to learn things as when I was younger but it’s so satisfying when things go right 😊

[Posiesmum]

I trained as a solicitor and practiced for a bit. I grew disillusioned by the ‘billing hours’ culture and left in my late twenties. I was then a civil servant in a research council for a bit and a police officer for 5 years. Finally I became a lecturer in FE and HE and retired from that last year. So yes, lots of changes!

[Twin mummy]

Not totally changed but I had become disillusioned with teaching secondary in the state sector. Took a few years out, went back as a higher level teaching assistant in a primary school. did that for 4 1/2 years and then saw an ad for a maternity cover in a private prep. I started teaching my subject (history) then did another maternity cover teaching maths.

I've now just started a permanent job at the same school as Head of religious studies and PSHEE. I love it, teaching 8-13 year olds and just love my school. I've got my passion back for teaching and it's so much nicer than having to jump through all the hoops and focus on testing and results in the state sector.

[Minnie18]

Originally Posted by lovesdisney

I’ve worked as a nurse for nearly 20years... I’ve just completed my masters in advanced practice, have a good job but... I’m still feeling like I want a total career change... But to what I don’t know..
the current state of the nhs just leaves me disillusioned and as I approach 40yrs and still have nearly 30yrs til I pull my pension I wonder if there is more out there.
Has anyone had a total midlife crisis and changed career, and if you could change career what would you do?

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I worked as a nurse and loved it so much. We moved to a rural location and I got a job in a hospital the commute was big. When dd started school it hit me as my last wee chick was away into the big world. I decided I wanted to do something for me and one day I was cleaning my house and I decided to start a high end professional holiday home management business... thankfully its went well. I have enjoyed every moment of stress and each learning curve.

Wishing you lots of luck...

[alkel2730]

Yep. I worked for HMRC for 17 years (you can boo if you like!) and then retrained in social media marketing, set up my own business and started again at 38. Now I run my own business from home.

[Ellelledee]

I did it 3 years ago best move I ever made. I worked in an office when I left school and I loved it. I left to gave my son and never went back - I ended up childminding and did it for 10 years during which time I did lots of training and got a nursery qualification. Loved working with SEN children so went down that route for 5 years. Then I decided I’d had enough I wanted to go back to work in an office so I just started applying. I got a job working in credit control and I’ve been there 3 years. The scary thing for me was computers. When I worked in the office 23 years ago computers were just coming in and my job now is all on the computer and excel spreadsheets so that was hard but I love it.

[ERICSMUM]

What an interesting thread.

[bernard301]

I'm at the start of my plan to change careers. Am a Police Officer atm but moving into an emergency planning/business resilience role. I'm also studying an MSc in Risk Crisis and Disaster Management so hope to take the leap into private sector crisis management in the next couple of years

[Bad Pink Tink]

Originally Posted by alkel2730

Yep. I worked for HMRC for 17 years (you can boo if you like!) and then retrained in social media marketing, set up my own business and started again at 38. Now I run my own business from home.

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Thats similar to what I did.

I was a chef, went to catering college and worked various roles both back and front of house in hotels, restaurants, cafes etc from aged 18 to about aged 34.

Then when I was 35 due to family circumstances, my life situation changed and I decided it was the opportunity I needed to get out of the catering industry. Over the next few years I volunteered in a charity to get office experience and then eventually at 38 went back to education and did a BA degree in Marketing with Digital Media. I set up my own Digital Marketing consultancy business and now I help small business with their online marketing, things like website content creation, social media management, email marketing, online advertising etc etc.

My advice to anyone thinking of changing careers is to look at your skills and experience, hobbies and interests. There are many transferable skills, things which you do automatically in your current industry which are needed in other industries.

For me, I have always been part of online communities and social media. When I was a chef I would be in internet cafes after work and I was on all the social media platforms when they first started, right back to MySpace, Bebo, Yahoo Groups, MSN, and the first EZboard forums.

I was then able to use the skills I had taught myself as a hobby and get a BA degree and then set up my own business.