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I wanted to start a thread for those who are thinking about changing careers, or have changed careers in the past and want to share their experience.
I have graduated from Fashion Institute of Technology 9 years ago. I worked in fashion industry for years, for top design houses in New York City. While I was working, I knew deep down that I'm not sure I want to do this for the rest of my life. It is a very stressful cut-throat industry. Very superficial, long hours, very competitive. It was bringing me good money, especially last 3 years, but I felt like my soul was dying and I needed to get out.
Due to many undisclosed reasons, we relocated to Florida. We moved to Sunshine state a month ago. Needless to say, it's a hard place to find work even in a better economy, and I realized that perhaps it is a perfect time for me to do a turn-around and start fresh. I'm only 31 years old.
Right now, I'm really looking deep into myself to see what I really want to do for the next 30 years of my life. I can always go back to fashion with experience that I have, but perhaps there is something better waiting for me.
Is anyone else right now in the same boat?
Has anyone changed his or her career completely? Were you happy with this decision or did you go back?
I'm in your boat. Worked in tech for over 30 years and now I want to do something different. Don't know what yet but not the same old thing.
Maybe something active. I had enough of sitting behind computer screens.
It's hard because I keep being lured by the money. Maybe I should just be thankful to be able to get a job and take one in my field. So far I've been able to resist this. In this economy, it's hard to accomplish anything!
I've written about this before but I went from flight instruction, charter pilot and delivering airplanes to sitting at a desk designing fire sprinkler systems.
Best change I ever made with two to three times the money and job security that doesn't exist with flying.
I like flying and still do it but I pay my own way.
I'm in your boat. Worked in tech for over 30 years and now I want to do something different. Don't know what yet but not the same old thing.
Maybe something active. I had enough of sitting behind computer screens.
It's hard because I keep being lured by the money. Maybe I should just be thankful to be able to get a job and take one in my field. So far I've been able to resist this. In this economy, it's hard to accomplish anything!
I'm curious, what exactly did you do before?
You know, I was contemplating about life (LOL) and thought that maybe this inflation is a blessing in disguise for some people. Yeah, many lost jobs, yeah many are struggling, but maybe it's an opportunity for them to re-evaluate what they want to do with their lives, an opportunity for career change, new beginning.
Changing PROFESSIONAL careers is nearly impossible if you are over forty because you have to retrain and then without any work experience in the field, just education, you have to compete with the young college graduates who are more sought after by recruiters and hiring managers.
For example, lets say you decide you want to be an Accountant. Well they are not going to hire you as an Accountant if you do not have any skills, education or experience as an Accounting. So you will have to go back to school and train to be an Accountant. Once you graduate few employers want to hire a career changer over forty, who use to make $60K a year. They want a young MBA who is 25 who can be forced to work 12 hour days and is flexible and can be molded. You are out of luck!
Changing PROFESSIONAL careers is nearly impossible if you are over forty because you have to retrain and then without any work experience in the field, just education, you have to compete with the young college graduates who are more sought after by recruiters and hiring managers.
For example, lets say you decide you want to be an Accountant. Well they are not going to hire you as an Accountant if you do not have any skills, education or experience as an Accounting. So you will have to go back to school and train to be an Accountant. Once you graduate few employers want to hire a career changer over forty, who use to make $60K a year. They want a young MBA who is 25 who can be forced to work 12 hour days and is flexible and can be molded. You are out of luck!
You remind me of the recruiter who sent me across the country, expenses paid, for a series of interviews during the early 90s recession, then told me, "you were a waste of money......you were doing so great at the interviews but one person didn't like your eye contact and was leery, now get outta here". Gee maybe I should've shot myself or something after that, eh? And I was one of those 25 year old young MBAs then.
There are some careers that are like that, but I know people in their 40s and even 50s who got MBAs in accounting, passed the CPA exam, and got jobs. Mind you, it wasn't with a "Big 6" firm (who probably do mostly think like your post), but they got decent jobs. Accounting is one of the few industries doing decently during this recession, so I think people can change into accounting at an older age, just network and ignore snotty age-discrminating recruiters, hopefully in this economy some of them will go out of business and can join the rest of America on the long-term unemployment.
I know of a few other careers that are more friendly to middle-age career changers, teaching nursing immediately come to mind. Time for people to speak up and counter all these negative people who just want to put down the unfortunate even further.
This said, something is going to have to give and change, otherwise, you're going to have a whole group of people 40+ flipping burgers or needing something like Social Security way before their time because everyone will be "unemployable". Or do these nasty recruiters and hiring managers wish for a real-life version of "Logan's Run" to solve everything?
Changing PROFESSIONAL careers is nearly impossible if you are over forty because you have to retrain and then without any work experience in the field, just education, you have to compete with the young college graduates who are more sought after by recruiters and hiring managers.
For example, lets say you decide you want to be an Accountant. Well they are not going to hire you as an Accountant if you do not have any skills, education or experience as an Accounting. So you will have to go back to school and train to be an Accountant. Once you graduate few employers want to hire a career changer over forty, who use to make $60K a year. They want a young MBA who is 25 who can be forced to work 12 hour days and is flexible and can be molded. You are out of luck!
Well, I'm only 31, so I have a long way to go, but I have to completely disagree on this one. I know people who changed careers in their 40s. Yes, of course they had to go back to school, yes of course they had to start off from scratch, but they knew that going in! No sensible person will think: "hell, let me just change my career without going to school for it". When you are 40, you still have over 20 years of work life. You can still make a decent living and a growing career. Some companies would prefer someone older, who already worked in other fields, because they have referals from others, experience in a hectic fast-paced environment, experience working in the office etc... Where there is a will, there is a way.
Career change at middle age after going back to school to learn a new trade is possible but much more difficult because MOST EMPLOYERS like younger workers in entry level jobs. Can we agree on this?
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