Changing career in mid-life is becoming increasingly common, but this doesn’t make the prospect any less daunting! However, it can be one of the most rewarding steps you will ever take and can lead to a much more fulfilling life. In this article, we’ll take a look at the reasons for moving to a new career in your 40s, 50s or 60s, some of the major challenges you are likely to face and how to overcome them so that you can forge ahead and create the life you really want.
Why Change Career?
There are a number of reasons for deciding to change career and these include:
- Boredom and the need for a new challenge. After years in the same job or industry, what was once exciting can become mundane, leading to frustration, lack of motivation and general unhappiness.
- Exhaustion or burnout, which can happen when the job is stressful, involves long hours or seems to have no tangible benefits or positive results
- Change in attitude or values. When we first start out in the job market, everything can seem fresh and new, but with experience we may find that our chosen career doesn’t align with our values or no longer interests us.
- Redundancy or unemployment with no prospect of getting a similar job can force us to move to a different field.
Potential Challenges
Let’s take a look at some of the most common challenges facing mid-life career changers.
- Having made the decision to change career, it can be difficult to know where to start.
We all have a very limited view of the careers out there, based on our own experience of the world. Growing up, we were exposed to the careers of our family and the people we came across in daily life or on TV. Career education and advice in schools and colleges tends to be minimal and we’re often expected to follow a specific career because of the subjects we studied, parents’ or teachers’ expectations or the concept of a good steady job.
As adults, we no longer have this clear, if flawed, path ahead of us and will need to do a lot of research and soul-searching to make the right decision. But this is a good thing – we’ll make much more conscious and informed decisions as a result.
- Worry about your ability to succeed in a new field. What if our skills aren’t the right ones or are out of date? Or if we simply won’t be any good at a new job. If we’ve been in the same job or industry for 20 years or more, it can feel comfortable, even if we don’t enjoy it. Doing something new, on the other hand, can feel very scary.
- What if you can’t afford the time or money to retrain? Starting afresh could mean having to take expensive, time consuming courses and it could be difficult to fit this into our schedule, especially as we’re likely to have to continue working full-time to pay for it.
- What if you’re too old? Although more of us are having to work much longer than our parents had to, ageism is still very common and employers often prefer to hire younger workers.
Addressing these Challenges
Where to Start?
The internet has made it much easier to find information about careers and you can find out just about anything you need to know with a few searches.
If you have no idea what you’d like to do, get creative. Think of the skills, interests and values that are important to you, make a list and then search for jobs with (add skill, interest etc) or jobs where (value) is important and so on. You can combine things, for example, outdoor jobs with children, jobs involving travel and history.
Write a list of any careers that appeal to you, even if you don’t know much about them. Then search for “A-Z careers” and you’ll come up with some very helpful websites, often government run, which have information on many careers, including qualifications needed, what the job involves, pay, progression and more.
What if you fail?
This is a big fear for a lot of people and of course, there is no guarantee that you will succeed, but this applies to everybody. So it’s important not to exaggerate it or allow it to overwhelm you. There is a great deal you can do to maximize your chances of doing well.
Take time over your decision. Make sure you research thoroughly and know exactly what will be expected of you.
If your skills are out of date or you need new ones, find an online course that will help you improve them. If you need major qualifications, start with an introduction to see if you enjoy it and if you feel you’ll be able to develop the skills or acquire the knowledge.
Talk to people doing the job – if you don’t know anyone in the field, read websites and industry information and find contacts via LinkedIn.
Retraining
If this is likely to be expensive, look at different ways to get into the industry. You might be able to start at a lower level and get training on the job. Otherwise, look at part time study – often you can do this by distance learning, making it possible to fit around a full time job.
Look for grants, loans and any training schemes in the industry – you might find a different job that would be just as interesting, but requires less or on the job training.
Too Old?
Some companies actively look for older workers, because they bring experience and maturity to the job. Other jobs can be done from home as a freelancer, making age less of an issue.You could also consider self-employment – many older people are doing this as they find they can’t afford to retire at the usual age.
Planning
Take your time, you don’t need to choose a new career overnight and once you have chosen, create a plan to get you there gradually. You can make a plan right away, either to reach a specific goal or to find a new career.
If you have a career in mind, work backwards from the end result and ask yourself what do I need immediately before my goal? This might be a qualification, a new skill, experience in the industry. Then ask how you will get those. Keep working backwards until you get to today. Find something you can do today and do it. That might be signing up for a course, reading some company websites or updating your CV or résumé.
If you don’t have a career in mind, devise a plan to research careers. Ask yourself, in order to find a new career I would really enjoy, I need to . . Then map out the research you need to do, include courses you might take to brush up on the skills you enjoy using or want to learn.
Look for open days and career fairs and check out those A-Z sites.
Changing career is a big deal, but if you take it step by step it can be exciting Keep an open mind, get out and meet people, make contacts online, do your research and learn new skills. You might be surprised at where the journey takes you.