Change of career - how do you decide what to do?

[wysiwyg]

So my time is running out to find a part-time job and finding a full-time job that doesn't require travel is not proving easy. I really have till end of Feb - but am trying to think about what else I could do instead.

Anyone else changed career? How did you decide what to do? (I actually quite like my old one it is just the way the industry is the jobs that are about are not family friendly and I am not into it enough (you know is IT (SAP Logistics) so although I enjoy it, it isn't really something you get passionate about :-)) to pursue it if it means I can't be about for the kids as much as I want.

If I am going to retrain would rather start this year than wait. If am not going to be working I would rather be studying towards working than not doing anything or just working in a job with no prospects (seems like I can't be flexible enough to get many of the jobs I could just do to earn money anyway, and have zero retail/cafe experience as when was younger worked on a production line)

Where do you even start working out what you might like to do? Start with what you are interested in and see what jobs might fit in that area?

How do I make sure I find something that is going to be more family friendly - with flexible but set hours (with no family support we rely on childcare so I need to be able to have set hours/days most weeks unless is outside of office hours where DH might be home)

Has anyone come across a good website about this area?

[LimeSlice]

I am changing careers now. I have been in hospo my entire working life, unfortunately, working as a fine dining chef is not conducive to family. Let alone single parenting with little to no support in terms of CC.

So I am pursuing my second passion, history, and studying to be a secondary school teacher. Obviously, it will equate to largely school hours and holidays and it is still something I adore and am passionate about.
It isn't easy, it certainly won't be easy being 30-something and only just starting in the career either, but the payoff shall make it worth it, I hope!! LOL

I had to find something I could do that would be enough to support my girls as a single income, be flexible with family-friednly hours and something that is largely transferable location-wise. From there I looked at what I love and what I am interested in and something I could study via correspondence while the girls were young and still at home.

[veus]

wysiwyg: could u do something more along proj management? But specialising in sap logistics? Or BA work? It's prob not the change ure thinking abt.

Limeslice: good for you! I always thought abt it (change career) but don't have the guts to do it.

[AnyDream]

TBH, I think you could be looking at what your transferable skills (ie your selling points) from your existing job/experience, and think about who else might be looking for something like that. Don't get too stuck on the specific thing, rather think about how that set of skills could be applied in a different setting. For eg, it's unusual to have expertise in a type of software without having a whole bag of skills that would allow you to develop expertise in a different type of software. Are there other IT-type employers who you could market yourself to? What about government jobs (they are always on the look out for clever IT-savvy types, even if it's not for IT-specific roles).

[sushee]

I'm a PM and I can't say that it's the kind of job that has a lot of options for part-time work. Projects are more often than not very time poor and you're ultimately responsible for everything so in my experience you're never really off the clock, which has not really been conducive to any real family life.

BAs though usually juggle more than one project (if it's not too big) and could be done part time. Or a BSA job if you have specific technical skills.

[wysiwyg]

Thanks for the replies.

Limeslice - thanks for your experience - I will try to analyse what else I enjoy and take it from there.

Sushee - I agree although I have some PM experience it isn't a job that I have a particular affinity for and definitely doesn't really fit in with work life balance in my experience.

Marydean - The government jobs all seem to be in Canberra - and DH has at last got a job he loves in an area he wants after years of his career being on the back burner as he followed me round the world - so although in long term we are not averse to trying life somewhere else in Aus we are here till 2016 at the earliest.

I am looking quite widely - I definitely have plenty of transferable skills and started life as a BA but there are very few part-time roles advertised and as majority of IT jobs seem to go through agencies they are not prepared to market you as a part-time proposition to a full-time opportunity. That is if you can convince them you have the experience in the first place - my experience with recruitment agencies has not been positive on the whole - unless you have a job title that matches exactly what they want they rule you out, and have no real grasp of the job in the first place. For example my whole SAP career I have been involved in testing, writing test plans and test cases, executing them, recording defects, incidents etc - but I have never had a role title of 'Tester' - so they say "so you weren't really a tester - we want 5 years of solid testing experience". Even within the SAP world they seem to think if you have worked with version 4.6 instead of 4.7 then that is no good - that is like saying someone who has used Word 95 can't use Word 2000 - the concept of transferable skills seems to pass them by completely. I know if you can get to the employer then often they actually have a much better idea around this but how do you cut out the recruitment agent? ( I do tailor resume for particular roles e.g. highlighting testing skills in ones for testing jobs but I am not up to bending the truth completely and changing job titles).

I am pretty confident in my resume - when I was made redundant in 2010 - went on a course and had personal support in structuring them and lots of advice and checking of them - and have had only 10 months of work to add into them since then.

I also have plenty of experience in Training SAP but have never been a Trainer - but most of those jobs do tend to involve travel.

If I go for full-time jobs then alot of the BA or BSA roles they want you to have already got experience in whatever area (banking for example) - or the more junior ones they then say am too experienced and don't believe I would stick around.

This is what I am doing currently and can continue to do till end of Feb (kids in daycare 3 days a week - I can't keep them in there that many days without working but once I give up days unlikely to get back)

- Checking out all the adverts both on the big names Seek etc, plus Ethical, InfoExchange, Government
- Where jobs are through recruiters - trying to identify the company - often they will tell me if I phone up (if I don't mention part-time and unwillingness to travel I get plenty of interest) - then trying to see if I know anyone through LinkedIn etc at that company so I can try, now I know they are looking, sell myself part-time to them.
- Emailing/meeting old colleagues trying to find any openings

I have been looking since October, on average a job takes 3 months to find apparently so till end of Feb I have given myself 5 - but there is only so long I can go on looking - hence the thoughts of change of career.

Part of the problem is that my experience is in SAP, and SAP is in the main contract roles with very high pay rates (unfortunately I personally have always been a permanent employee apart from my last role which wasn't through an agency so didn't have the SAP premium - I should have been a contractor before having a family and made the money then) - they have come down a bit over the past few years but are still high (people hear you are in SAP and think you must be rolling in it) and probably with just cause employers as are paying so much want blood (e.g. travel, long hours etc) - you don't always need this and in my mind they could save money by thinking outside the box and employing a cheaper alternative e.g. me - but recruitment agents will not put you forward for lower rates because they don't want to undercut their own market. So the market is polarized into $600 - $800 a day contractors and at the other end is all outsourced to India - with nothing in the middle. People can't then understand why you want to move outside SAP as they see it as so lucrative - so are suspicious that you won't hang around. The idea that someone might want a job that fits with their life more than money seems to be incomprehensible to some people.

[Babyluv]

I'm changing career. I was a business manager for a retail store and was sick and tired of the long hrs, no weekends, overtime without extra pay and crappy pay in general. I am studying to be a teacher. I love kids, am passionate about the importance of a positive education experience, hubby is a teacher. So although there is alot of work that needs to be done outside of school hours we will be together as a family and ill be doing a job I love. I'm studying externally, all lectures and tutes are online. Its great! All I can suggest is to find something you're passionate about, call some Uni's or even workplaces and have a chat to them about what the job involves.

[fionas]

SAP Technical Writer - seem to be a few of those positions around but yes, again, I think you might struggle to find part-time. The actual agencies might be different though and I know that people who actually want to write and CAN write are quite hard to come by so they may be negotiable.

[shells79]

I'm in the same boat somewhat. I'm working in something administration based but qualified in social/ market research. I'm due 17 March and would like to take go back to a different job as while this job is very convenient (working from home fulltime) I find it extremely unfulfilling. I don't know whether to try to find work in what I am qualified in but not overly experienced in the types of roles I am interested in. Move into marketing or teaching which both interest me, but I don't know whether I am good at it or it would suit me or not (both would involve more study & then starting from the bottom again. I already have a masters so I owe a lot of HECs as it is!).

I look online at the jobs out there and can imagine myself in any number of roles- whether I would like or be good at them is another question! I wonder whether it would be worth going to see a careers counsellor?

[wysiwyg]

I look online at the jobs out there and can imagine myself in any number of roles- whether I would like or be good at them is another question! I wonder whether it would be worth going to see a careers counsellor?

I wonder the same thing - I had another thread about it on here somewhere but didn't get any real replies directing me towards a careers counselor. Lots of places seem to charge a fair amount and I would be willing to pay but do wonder whether I would come out knowing anymore - hence after peoples personal experiences. When I was made redundant we had access to services that helped in that arena but at that point I wasn't looking at changing career, I thought I could work full-time DH could work part-time or I may get part-time so I was just using them to find work rather than access the programs they had on career changing.

Teaching does seem to be something alot of people retrain into - I think that can only be a good thing for schools because I am sure teachers who have lots of outside of teaching life experience can provide something extra to students - careers counselling in particular (I always thought was a bit strange at school that careers info given by people who had only ever been teachers - and do think it tended to be a bit narrow as a result). Although I actually loved school and my mum thought should I have been a teacher (although was her who actually persuaded me away from that area for some reason) and am a big believer in it - I lean more towards unschooling - less rigid learning, learning through play, learning through arts and crafts etc in my interests. So don't think I myself would go down that path (plus DH is not keen on teachers I think his ex was one and it got in the way a fair bit but also his parents seem to have a negative attitude towards teachers for some reason). I find it very difficult to do things I don't believe in/agree with and am sure as a teacher having to follow a curriculum this would cause me anguish.

[shells79]

I have a political and history undergraduate, plus a bit of science in there from my first degree I didn't finish (always been confused about what to do!!) so my interest in teaching is to foster critical thinking skills. I hated school, so seem to have a completely opposite perspective to you! I had only one teacher I thought was great and she was in primary school, I do think it was more to do with trying to fit in and not having a strong sense of self rather than quality of teachers or school though. I agree though if the specifics of the curriculum are so against what you believe in, it would be a bad choice of career path.

I think it depends on which career counsellor you go to- I guess there are good & bad ones everywhere. One of my friends claims it was the best decision she ever made to go to one while another said it was a complete waste of time.

I am seriously considering going to see one as my whole life I have wondered if I am doing the right thing. From time to time I have found a job interesting but never fulfilling and I have always wondered what else there is out there for me. I don't know if thats just my personality or there is actually a better career out there for me. And maybe it is still related to not having a strong sense of identity or who I really am? I am so indecisive!!

[veus]

Wysiwyg : can't pm u.

[Doing my best]

What kind of industry uses sap? Is it an industry that doesn't need a lot of specialised training? I do know some companies in the shipping industry that use sap, and if you know the ins and out of the system, then doing the other side isn't that hard..

So maybe you could look at the end users of your IT knowledge.

[wysiwyg]

Doing my best - lots and lots of industries use SAP - mainly big companies - what they use it for varies - everyone uses it for finance which is not my area unfortunately, and then it varies from there - including logistics, shipping, manufacturing, retail, warehousing, purchasing.

I have looked at some end-user type roles - in my area they are mainly in the west of Melbourne (which I am not keen on due to my location) and also require lots of flexibility in hours - but I am targeting the companies directly (Linfox for example).

Is funny that you say if you know the ins and outs of the system that the other side is not hard, as I would say the opposite, the system is easy, it is logical and once you know certain rules can easily be figured out - the business knowledge however mainly needs to be acquired as the way things are done is not always logical. (Normally my role is like the bridge between the two, business users on one hand and technical system on the other, working out how to map the business to the system).

Shells79 - I just found some information from when I had the redundancy careers session and one was called the Birkman profile that is meant to give some ideas about what careers suit you. I had forgotten I had it - is interesting, but am not sure will help me that much.

Fionas - thanks for highlighting the Technical Writer term - it was one I hadn't got in my searches.

SAP Technical Writer - seem to be a few of those positions around but yes, again, I think you might struggle to find part-time. The actual agencies might be different though and I know that people who actually want to write and CAN write are quite hard to come by so they may be negotiable.

I agree entirely about the people who want to write and can write - I know on previous projects we had people in to write documentation and training and alot of it was not great - IMO this is mainly because they recruit the wrong way - the subject knowledge comes second to ability to use the tools and experience at writing. Is a bit like getting someone who has never done any washing to write instructions for a washing machine - they may be able to fiddle around with the buttons and work out what does what - but if you had never done any washing using a machine only doing it in a sink before that instruction manual is not going to be enough to do it successfully/efficiently. It does depend on the type of documentation required, but it often seems they recruit in the same way for SAP documentation that is going to be used by end-users as they would for documentation to be used by a technical systems person - two completely different audiences.


My main bug bear today is the number of adverts that come up as Melbourne but are actually Inter-state or NZ based roles.

[fionas]

wysiwyg - if you're interested in technical writing, there are a few consultancies (not recruitment consultancies, writing consultancies) that specialise. It might be worth chatting to them. They may be flexible on days because they may get a small type project in for which they don't want to get a full-time person. I've done all sorts of writing including technical writing. It's not rocket science but a technical writing course (if they exist) would certainly help.

[wysiwyg]

Fionas - are you able to PM me names so I can look into further.

I thought I had something on the cards, had even agreed to full-time as was only for 3 months and thought could then knock it down perhaps later - was just my sort of job but after being told no travel - seems now is significant travel (a couple of nights away every fortnight) which I just can't do.

Maybe life is telling me, that my path lies elsewhere.

[fionas]

wysiwyg - just google technical writing consultancies and there's a few that will come up. One I saw offers courses.