Career change/career find at 35 years old (find a job, careers, company)

[airbucket]

It appears thus far that finding a career or switching careers in mid 30s is difficult thing to do and to research. My husband graduated with a useless B.A. and has done nothing since resume worthy although he is a model employee, he has no IT experience or finance or any of the major industries. Now at his age and with a family he is trying to decide what to do, and constantly searching on the net and reading books and trying to predict what will be a winning move is confusing at best and almost making things worse in that we are both too confused to make a move at anything. Like everyone im sure, we are trying to figure out what the best value is in terms of going back to school - what woudl be worth it. IT is appealing as we read EVERYWHERE that network admins and other positions less likely to be outsourced are the most recession proof jobs and earn well and theres lots of them. On the other hand we also read that IT is a competitive and complex field where you have to go at a break neck pace to just keep up with the "latest" or you are worthless. So its varying info like that which is confusing. First you read some positive things and think, yeah ok I can do that, then you read some negative or less positive things and think, ok Im not spending 40K and 2 years to end up with no job and workkng 70 hours a week.

So, how do you smart people assimilate all this info and decide where to get your info, what info is reliable and when its time to just take a plunge and make a move? He has been over all ideas from radiology tech to IT to HVAC and on and on. All have their pluses and minuses, but its still seems almost too difficult to choose something when youre 35, havea family, work full time and are just eager to find something decent for decent bucks and something that wont take 10 years of school.

If it sounds like we are whining, we probably are! We are not the most entrepreneural (sp?) type people and would both be happy on some ranch planting veggies and drawing pretty pictures than figuring things like this out! Seriously though, what are your opinions of career finding/switching at this age in this market having a family and already working full time? Currently my husband works at an armor manufacturing company which is doing very well and he operates some large machinery and a little CAD, but theres no growth in this company for him unless the manager dies for example, otherwise he is just labor. We recently read a bit about HVAC and other techinician type pursuits which sound good, largely because he is a serious introvert. That was the other biggie in why we had been researching IT for so long and why he doesnt just try and become a cell phone salesman or something. Thanks for reading the ramblings above!

p.s. forgot to mention a major goal and the reason for even considering a return to school is security - not just interested in finding a career out of boredom or dislike of current job, but specifically interested in nailing down a career, not just a JOB, something that is good when you have a family and something that can travel with you if you move etc. So thats where the radiology tech and HVAC ideas came in - things that arent fly by night and things that are more just there for you to do and and require less entrep. skills and have generally decent job availbility.

[rubytue]

If he goes for HVAC, stay out of residential if he is an introvert. My husband is an electrician and very introverted. While he was really good at residential service work, he had a real hard time with customers, especially handing them the bill. Now he is an electrical forman on a construction site. Much less of a problem with his personality, as he is a good leader and great with people he knows. It was just the different customers every day that really got to him.

[airbucket]

Very good point rubytue, i never thought about that aspect, thank you.

[airbucket]

OOPS i did not realize that i posted a very similar post to this one about a month ago in this forum - I post in some different places and didnt recall that i had posted here already about this, sorry to anyone who is wondering why i am asking the same question a month later.

[ackmondual]

Anything particular in IT? To some folks, IT is just working with hardware, setting up networks, or other people's workstations. Other definitions have going into QA, software development, or even something related to that.


IT ain't bad. However, I'm guessing you can't expect that high of a salary at all if you're new to the field. Also, dunno if places really do hire young people over older ones most of the time.

[eric351982]

What about an RN?

[calnbs]

Originally Posted by eric351982

What about an RN?

This post is from a loooooooooooooong time ago! OP is probably gone.

[brownbagg]

the good thing about HVAC and other trade like plumbing, electrical, is you can find a job in any city no matter how big or small. Even a rural area away from anything