Career Change Advice Sought - Design / Development!

Branoic

Hi folks,

Long post alert, sorry!

Looking for some friendly advice!

My situation is this - I'm 35, fell into a job 10 years ago I dislike (sales role in a financial services company - I am so not a natural salesman) and now I want to get out.

I want to get into the web industry as its always interested me and I have some related experience, but not sure which role and have a number of related questions.

I have a fulltime job and a young family, and I live about an hour and a half from Dublin. This means that my retraining efforts need to be distance / online if at all possible. I tried part time evening courses before and it didn't work out - too far and too long to get to the city after work.

The length of time it will take me to retrain is also a worry. As mentioned, I'm 35 now and its going to take me a few years to train up. I'll probably be hitting 40 before I get a web industry job. Is this completely mad? I'll be competing with fresh college graduates in the field and with industry veterans who probably have 20 years experience by the time they're 40.

Deciding on Design or Development is another issue. I'm aware of the differences between the two and the consensus from what I've seen is that Developers are in higher demand, and would earn sometimes significantly more. Is that correct?

That's obviously appealing, as with my family to support earning potential is something I have to consider, but with the length of time it will take me to get suitably qualified before I can get a job is training as a Developer even feasible?

Looking at Design, I think this will suit me better based on my existing skills and previous experience. I've got a BSc in Communications Studies, I worked as an AdWords Specialist in Google for a number of years, and I've spent much of the last 10 years working in a merchant services company selling and setting up ecommerce payment solutions for client websites. I can see all of that experience feeding into and complementing a Web Design type role much more than a Developer role. But the question is would any of this experience be enough to bump my starting web design salary up past the inexperienced / junior level? There's no point in looking at any of this if my salary is going to drop from its current level down to 20K or something. I would need €40K to €50K. Is that even possible? Yes I'd be a brand new designer, but I'd have about 15 years of related professional and business experience and skills which a fresh college graduate would not.

Sorry for the rambling post. As you can no doubt tell my mind is kind of all over the place at the moment. Hopefully you can pick through the above mess and offer advice on a couple of my worries / concerns etc!

smash

I've got a BSc in Communications Studies, I worked as an AdWords Specialist in Google for a number of years, and I've spent much of the last 10 years working in a merchant services company selling and setting up ecommerce payment solutions for client websites.

Yes I'd be a brand new designer, but I'd have about 15 years of related professional and business experience and skills which a fresh college graduate would not.

Your related professional and business experience isn't really related to design I'm afraid. If I was you I wouldn't be looking to jump in to design and compete with graduates. If you do a few on-line courses and couple it with your real world experience it could get you in the door as a UX researcher/analyst for someone, which is an interesting and young enough sector of the industry.

Graham

The difficult part is finding some way to transition to a brand new career path while maintaining a €40k - €50k salary.

I use the work transition quite deliberately as it may take you a few steps to move in the direction you'd like to go. A sudden stop-sales/start-web-stuff just isn't likely to meet your financial/salary requirements.

Branoic

smash wrote: »

If you do a few on-line courses and couple it with your real world experience it could get you in the door as a UX researcher/analyst for someone, which is an interesting and young enough sector of the industry.

Thanks for the steer! I hadn't considered UX design, but following your comment I've spent a few hours researching it and it definitely looks like something I would be interested in! Thanks again.

Now I just need to speak to someone in the Irish UX field to explore the best options for proceeding. You wouldn't happen to know anyone in the area or where they congregate (if not here) would you?