Success Stories of Changing Careers

careeradvise

Hey,

So I posted on here a couple of weeks ago about courses I was looking at. My current situation is I work in I.T and am 27 yrs old. I really want to move careers and hopefully change into a more business focused role. After 6 months of research I am still not sure of my next move. I am hoping a visit to a performance coach will give me some help. But my real point is this. I have spent countless hours reading up on the subject of people changing careers, i began reading about Life Coaching, studied NLP and went to see an NLP coach (all this in the aid of trying to figure out what i should do next as its causing me to be really really depressed). And have not found many stories related to people changing careers here in Dublin. My questions would be:

1. How do people cope financially. If starting afresh you may expect to take a knock in wages to about 28k - 30k (just giving an average of what i have seen). If you have spent 6 yrs building up your bills, i would find this the worst part. Also right back to the start, in terms of the financial ladder.

I would honestly love to hear from anyone who has done this successfully. Or do most people just bite the bullet and although not really happy in work, just plod along. I have nightmares about my career, most nights waking up in cold sweats. But maybe i am unique in this and most people just get on with it.

Thanks for listening

Kali

Where do you see yourself "business focused" doesn't sound like you actually know yourself yet? Personally if I was you I'd build on my current strengths to move in my chosen direction.

For example if you wanted to get into a management position (Project Manager lets say) a course or qualification like ITIL/Prince2 could help you utilise your current technical strengths and maybe find a new role as a Technical Manager, Solutions Manager or even Technical Team Lead as a starting point. Once in a position like this, at a slightly reduced salary, you can then focus more on the particular area of you want to aim at and project management is suddenly a much more achievable goal. See it as a stepping stone or bridging job between your current role and where you want to go.

EDIT: Just to say, the above can be extremely easy in a larger organisation. In my current company I know at least half a dozenof people who have done the above (technical->tech. mgmt->proj. mgmt) in a very short space of time, say 20months, and all of them are extremely focused on getting what they can out of the current company before moving on. Again very goal-orientated people... which helps.

the_syco

I've come across 2 people here on boards.ie who went from 30K a year to €180 a week, to do an apprenticeship. Pay is sh|te for the 1st year, but they say it was the best choice they ever made.

Best advice I can give you, is try and remember what you wanted to be when you were a kid. Was it a desk jockey, a disc jockey, or a truck driver? Or what was it?

As for the pay hit, focus on rather what you want to do, and go from there, as opposed to the 2nd best thing, as the money is better, but regretting it 3 years down the road.

leeroybrown

From the above the statement 'more business focused' is possibly even more vague than 'working in IT'. I'd actually change job if I decided that I was 'working in IT' as I regard it as a term of abuse or something you tell people to avoid an awkward explanation of what exactly you do.

If you are at a large company then the transition may be relatively easy. Quite a few people I've met have moved from purely technical roles to management, project management, sales, pre-sales, post-sales, and many other non IT roles in this fashion. Unfortunately the non-default search system on Boards is sufficiently retarded that you probably won't be able to dig up the success stories that were posted here.

TBH, after six months of 'research' I would expect someone to suggest areas that they consider promising, probably resulting in some excellent suggestions from people here. A more clear description of what area of IT you are in would probably help too.

careeradvise

hey, so the reason i was being vague is I wasn't so much asking what i should do, more so i was interested in hearing from anyone who has moved their careers in a new direction by either studying or taking a more junior role.
To clarify I work as a Software Engineer and have worked as a Test Automation Engineer. I do not enjoy the technical side of work anymore. I enjoy more business related issues such as why products are needed in particular markets, how to get them in there, what the competition is, how the product needs to meet the end users needs etc.
I have never specialized in an area of I.T therefore do not have the expertise in one real area.

Yes the 6 months was a bit of a lie now I have thought about it. I maybe haven't done as much work as I thought I had. What I plan to do now is seek the advise of a coach, look over every course that may be suited to my skill set and try to write down each of my options. I do find the prospect of studying in Dublin full time a hard one as i I am not sure how i would finance it. But my plan is to have a full proof 3 year plan in place come the new year.

Thanks for the replies again, sorry about the delay ...

Jugs82

Have you ever considered becoming a Systems Analyst/Business Analyst?
P/T Courses (1 day per week) over 2 years in NUI Galway -

www.go4th.ie/info_systems

I know your not situated in Gaway but im sure many other institutions in Ath Cliath offer pretty much similar courses

Anyways, just thought id throw it out there

jimmycrackcorm

I'd advise the op to show a lot of initiative in the present job by offering to work on the business areas outside of core work hours on something such as detailing specification documents and the like (i.e. the grunt work of business analysis ). Any decent company will recognize the effort and try to utilize the skills in another area.

pow wow

I have zero to do with IT but I did give up a job as a Client Manager (financial services) to go to college to do a history degree. I was earning around 40k base and now get around 7k in 'student loans' to help me out lol. How I afforded it was....I sold my house. I could probably have kept it on if I'd rented out rooms etc. but I was so sure that the whole lifestyle I had wasn't for me (the job and living in the city) that I sold it off right away.

If you are sure of the direction you want to go in you are halfway there. Thinking about doing this should excite you at least a little bit, not depress you. Worst case scenario you can go back to your original job if the money is a hassle or you make the wrong move. My main advice is not to make any rash decisions and unless you have some serious debt, budgetting with a new salary should take care of it.

You'll never know unless you try it!

lolkelly

Jugs82 wrote:

Have you ever considered becoming a Systems Analyst/Business Analyst?
P/T Courses (1 day per week) over 2 years in NUI Galway -

www.go4th.ie/info_systems

I know your not situated in Gaway but im sure many other institutions in Ath Cliath offer pretty much similar courses

Anyways, just thought id throw it out there

I was going to same the exact same thing here. With your IT experience you could currently land a role as a BA. Then do a course at night in Project Management or something similar. (PRINCE2 etc)
Im surprised you havent considered this option tbh.

careeradvise

lolkelly wrote:

I was going to same the exact same thing here. With your IT experience you could currently land a role as a BA. Then do a course at night in Project Management or something similar. (PRINCE2 etc)
Im surprised you havent considered this option tbh.

Hey, thanks for the reply. I have considered a BA role. In fact i did apply for two but never heard anything back. My background is not core development. I have worked as a Software Engineer / Test Automation Engineer in Test Environments. Therefore my documentation is limited to designing the Test strategy part of a functional spec. I have not written a full functional spec since Uni. I am interested in going into a BA role and that is something I am def considering. But I do want to move away from the technical side of IT. Especially the development/coding work as i do not find this interesting at all anymore.
I have also looking into Project Management qualifications. But I don't know if that would be the right thing to do until I move into the right sort of area.
You say you were in a similar situation to me, so what did you do ?. I must look into the PRINCE course as it is something i have considered before.