[OT] -- How to go about changing careers?

Whistle
1

Anyone know? (I don’t.)

Let’s say you’ve been working in the same field for your entire
professional career. A pretty specialized kind of career, too. Lots of
field-specific technical skills and knowledge. However, you’ve also got
plenty of general business-type experience (hiring/firing, managing
people/budgets, and so forth). You’re now in a very high-level position in a large company, so you’ve performed well in your career, and you’re now managing an entire office as well as individual projects and people.

You’re not enjoying parts of that work anymore. You do the work well, but it’s not rewarding, for personal and moral reasons (preclinical animal testing requirements, a push to increase profit at the expense of employees, etc.). Sometimes it’s distressing. This makes you tired and anxious and frustrated.

Let’s say that you’re me.

Essentially, after about a year of careful thought and research, I’m hoping to land a position in a non-profit organization, affiliated with environmental concerns and/or wildlife conservation. This is the stuff that really drives me, for which I have the greatest passion. My volunteer time goes here, I keep up on current issues and trends, read everything I can.

The question is: how to land a gig in such a field, or how to change careers in general? (Thus far, I think I’ve actually looked for a job maybe once or twice; since then, I’ve just been actively recruited by employers; my job-search skills are rusty and minimal.)

Today, I’ve tailored my CV to highlight my general management and administrative skills, and not just biotech-related skills: research and proposal writing, management of multimillion-dollar budgets, the development of people, negotiating skills, etc. But how do I get folks to read the thing, when I can’t point to five or ten years of actual nonprofit work, as required in many job descriptions I’ve found to date? I know I have transferable skills and experience – in many cases, I think, skills made stronger than they would have been in most nonprofit entities – so how do I convince a potential employer that the skills I’ve developed in Corporate America will be to their benefit?

I’m completely open to hearing ideas for positions anyone out there thinks I might enjoy and/or be good at. But for a number of reasons – ethical, moral, personal – I’d prefer to work outside of the clinical trials business. Even though I’m now captain of this ship, I’m ready to jump.
Any land in sight?

Thanks in advance for reading this far, and for any advice you may have.

–Aaron

2

You’re a very good writer. One thing you might consider is developing a few ideas for articles on those subjects that stir your blood and seeing if you can find a magazine or journal interested in publishing them. That might lead to either more freelance work or a regular gig with an environmental publication or agency. I’ve been a self-employed writer for many years and it’s a good life, all in all. With diverse clients there’s even some protection against the corporate woes so many regular employees go through.

Just a thought.

Carol

3

Aaron – I’m one of those career changers myself. In my case, I had to go back to school. Even then, some people did not think highly of the time I’d spent in the business world. But I recently landed exactly the job I want – and they appreciate both my academic and my business background.

What I’m trying to say is that if this is your passion, you will find someone to hire you do to it. You might have to be pretty darned determined about looking for that job. You’ll be taking a huge pay cut; you’ll have to convince a nonprofit that you’ve thought that through completely, understand what you’re getting into, and are willing to do it. I think there are web sites that list only nonprofit jobs – are you watching those? In your cover letter, make sure you emphasize that this is where your heart is, along with your volunteer work and the specific areas and ways in which you’ve kept current.

Hope that helps some. Good luck!

Tery

4

Good suggestions so far. Here’s another that might help. With your skills you’d be looking for a fairly senior position. If you have experience as a manaager, you’ll likely get hired as a manager. As you yourself mention, hiring at this level is often done by headhunting. This means that to be in the field of vision of those you might want to work for, you have to be known to them. In short, you need contacts.

One way to get contacts fairly quickly is to attend conferences in th area you’d like to work in and talk to as many people as possible. Combining an idea Carol mentioned with the one I’m proposing, you might want to offer a paper or presentation. Nothing gets you known faster than a lively, informed and articulate presentation to just the audience you want to impress. Then it’s a matter of making potential emplyers aware of your availability.

5

I did one of those career changes. Went from veterinary technician of many years to something completely different- rural mail carrier. Of course it took me 8 years of sub work on the mail route before I finally got an opening available for full time. During that time I continued to work at the hospital.

I made the change as a result of “burn out” I guess you’d say. Standards of practice being relaxed, quality of care on the decline, too much about money being made, smoozing of national organizations and politics therein, egos to be stroked,etc., as opposed to practicing excellent medicine… That really prompted my decision.

So, I went into something so different there is no comparison. Plus, much better pay, less dangerous work.

To make the change I of course, took many years, so I knew I would like the different job though.

Do I miss the old work, yeah, sometimes, but then I talk to my daughter, who is also a vet tech, and realize I’m glad I got out when I did. It’s only gotten worse. I must add that I was following my passion in this job. However, as the years went by I slowly realized that things had changed, I had changed and I was no longer happy in the profession.

I think that’s the bottom line in any career change. Life’s too short, and work’s too hard, and there are too many other things to do to spend your time chained to frustration.

So, if you want to do it, and it’s realistic…go for it! :slight_smile:

6

There are good books that are very helpful,
‘What Color is your Parachute.’ Probably you
know of them. Well, they certainly help.
Also vocational counseling is relatively
inexpensive and quite effective.
That’s what I did. Good luck.

7

Good luck, Aaron.

I wish you all the best.

8

Herbivore, first off I think it’s great you are looking to move into doing something you love even if it means some financial changes. Possibly you hit a realization like I did that life is too short to spend doing something you don’t really care for, carpe diem, etc.

I do want to share my experience, though. Without going into specifics, I was also working at a well-paying professional job a few years ago when I found something else I really enjoyed. I ended up leaving my job - six months later I was totally stressed out and realized not only was I not happy with what I had changed to, I wasn’t particularly good at it, either. I went back into my prior field, in a situation that is much more rewarding. For me, the problem wasn’t my original job per se, it was the setting I was in. As far as what I thought I would love doing, it’s like the song Rambling Rover “You may gain some satisfaction when you’re thinking at least you tried”.

So my advice would be make sure you really want what you think you want. If you have family, make sure they are behind you. If you are looking to get into a non-profit setting I am sure they would love some help from you on a part-time or volunteer basis so you could get your feet wet. It sounds like your skills are organizational, are you looking to move into fund-raising, activism, lobbying? If so, do you have enough experience to know that these are areas you will enjoy?

I’m not trying to throw cold water on this, actually I am glad I made the effort in my life even though it didn’t work out. I learned an awful lot about myself in the experience. I would hate to see somebody have to learn the hard way like I did, though.

9

Good luck, Aaron.

I wish you all the best.

Me, too.

10

One thing that’s really worth honing, if you’re interested in non-profit management, is grant writing skills. That was one area I was seriously deficient in when I was E.D. of EarthSave, and it was very frustrating.

Redwolf

11

Good luck to you Herb.I would echo what’s already said about having your family behind you in what’s really a major life change.
I’m to have a bit of a career change myself soon- my Uilleann Pipes will be due!

12

Aaran, if your specialty is working around animals (“preclinical animal testing requirements”), you might look into gov’t contracts. I have several friends who do this with the USFS, and make a good living. Two of my friends in particular are wildlife specialists, and at times can average several hundred $$$ per day. I wouldn’t want to say exactly how much, so no one knows for sure how much the gov’t is wasting!

But there are tons of contract areas in gov’t, and you can get a list of ones available online probably. When I was doing Silvicultural contracts for the Forest Service, it was the best years…hiking around all day in the far reaches of the woods. There’s not a lot of competition in some areas, although there are either some job skill experiences required, or specific education.

A good way to get out of the office anyway! :slight_smile:

13

Aaron, you pose an interesting question. I am in a similar situation. Our pharmaceutical company was just taken over by a much larger pharmaceutical company and there’s a good chance I will loose my job soon. I’ve done this kind of work for years and don’t really know anything else. I have kids and a granddaughter here and don’t want to have to move away. So what then? I certainly don’t think there will be another job getting the pay I do here in our small town so it will have to be something rewarding in another sense.

Good luck too you and keep us posted.

14

There is lots of information already given. I am in the same position, after 20 years of business I thought I could take the chance and swap carrier after I lost my job because of the location being closed down. After 1 year of looking and 5 months of being actually unemployed I had to learn, that changing carrier in times of a depression is not the best timing, it is not a good timing at all to have to look for a new job. So my advice as you are looking to work for a non-profit-organisation is that if you find one which you would like to try also find out how the financial support is. Here in Germany and I presume this is a world-wide thing, non-profit organisations live on governmental funds and company sponsoring. This is the first money which gets cut down in times like we have now and usually head counts get cut down as well then by the rule “last in, first out”. Wish you the best of luck with your search

Brigitte

P.S. regarding paycuts, from what I have experiences I had to accept about 50% less of my last net income if working in a concert agency, green party was even 60% which is hard to impossible to afford no matter how much I would have loved to do these jobs.

edited to add P.S.

15

Aside from the obvious paycut you’d have to take in a switch to non-profit, you’d have to be ready for a certain amount of disorganization as well (which is not always easy coming from the corporate world).

However, in spite of the economy in the toilet, the time for non-profit is probably great right now, because our administration gives us so many reasons to lobby: environment, health care, civil rights. There is more reason than ever for these organizations to be around, and although the money may not be there, the jobs may be.

With your experience, and the writing talents that others have already pointed out, you might be cut out to become a grant proposal writer. This job is going to be critical for these outfits to be able to raise funds in the coming months.

Best of luck to you.

16

Been through the same kind of major change.
There IS a price.

Trade-in: quality of life, moral issues
Trade-off: income

Given what you commented, there’s no executive position that will solve your moral concerns in the long term AND give you a comparable income for what you’re worth. Any company–Int’l Red Cross or “Meds without Passports” included. Dont think NPO to be different from any large business. I was shocked recently meeting people from Amnesty Int’l career makers–young wolves executives. Who could care less about Tchetchnia iusues, or only as a mean to their goals. NPO has become a business, and career. Art is a business, too. You might even end up finding that legitimate bona fide profit orgnaizations cxan be “cleaner” than many NPO. At least, they’re openly saying their blatant goals.

FIRST ask yourself what is the minimal income you need for a living you consider decent. Then brace yourself and lower your expectations by 20%.

You could consider becoming self-employed. The caveat is that with your experience you’d be tempted to expand to a full company after initial success… and this trap is not a small bunker.

I planned my reconversion for a long time. My method was securing as much things for a living that would lower the money required later–like rent, cars, etc. Generally, needs for a fixed, regular income. It’s a bit like planning a retirement, except I certainly did not retire.
I believe I set myself as free as canbe in my country, i.e. sorta.

Sorry for the trivial truth: I understand it may sound so very general.
One specific detail I can help with is get out of the city life–go to the sticks. This will help a lot with the income, but also with the “quality of life” and give you a lot of time beside work.

17

Aaron?!?

And all this time I thought you were female. :laughing:

good luck with the job switch…

18

My experience is exactly like Rando7’s experience. I went from teaching music and theory/composition on the high school and college levels - to the heart of the defense industry, working with truly nasty, hurtful, advanced lethality devices. Took me time to have the guts to go back to teaching, and the experience, while valuable in the area of learning what was important to me, was very costly on both human and economic levels.

Point? Be really sure you want to jump before you jump. I was not dissatisfied with my original JOB, just the place I was DOING IT.

The best to you,
Byll

19

when you do get that new job, try and show some restraint and don’t let them know about the whistle playin for at least two weeks :astonished:
one day in the future i may reveal my" theory of negative income " but believe me , it is not for everyone .
best of luck, tansy

20

-For deliberate changes, keep your ears and heart open. Most doors open eventually if one keeps knocking. -Aphorisms aside, working at something you enjoy can’t be beat. Enjoyable work gives an advantage of self-replicating good will toward the work which
will tide you over the times when drudgery is the immediate face of the work. Its hard to compete with someone enjoying their work and having good will and energy to devote to it. Even the best work has a drudge aspect sometimes, and this can be faced cheerfully if the work is generally enjoyable. Good Luck!