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Ever change career ...??


Drfunke

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Was wondering if anyone on here ever completely changed career...been at my job almost 6 years and worked way up a bit. Have a good reputation.

But now wondering should i try something else...problem is i cant really afford a drop in wages with young family.

Anyone else ever totally dropped something they were doing and went a different direction??

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There was a thread on here a couple of years or so ago about this...I'm sure it wasn't the normal job thread. There was some really good advice in there on this matter, I'll see if I can find it.

But you can't change jobs- we then won't get good Sky deals from you!

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You can have a think about your skills in your current job and see if anything is transferable to other industries. Depending on how drastic a change you want to make, you might need to do some reaching. People do change careers without necessarily going to the bottom of the ladder each time, so you might not lose as much pay as you fear. 

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I have, i'm not going to go over it as it's probably been written about too much on here already, its in the job thread or PM me.

Best bit of advice I got was think about what you would really like to do or enjoy doing and try to make learning how to do it a hobby at first. Many things you might be able to make time for on the side (appreciate with small kids thats a lot harder) and see where it goes before trying to get a paid job. Its a good way into something creative where employment can be hard. Learn and work on it without the need for the income and you'll have a better chance at finding something suitable.

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I did, but it's not like it was a conscious thing. It was more forced by circumstances, although it was always something I'd had in the back of my mind. I used to work in a call centre. I'd worked in a few, as its what you do. One was a mail order thing, and it was going alright until they decided to throw me under the bus for something I didn't do rather than being honest with me so I actually just ghosted them. I was only temporary there anyway. 

I spent 10 years working for a less than ethically sound loan broker in Stockport until they went under. I started well there, used to cover for my TM when she was off, some admin duties, working multiple departments until they got a new call centre manager in and my face didn't fit with the management team she wanted. I got shuffled off to customer services for a few years until some of the higher management started their own business doing the same thing and the owner of the company just started trying to get cash in for whatever leads we could pass on, plus the FCA made a huge mistake and confused our company with a similarly named, but unlicensed one and that was osye sibky curtains for us. 

I had one last roll of the call centre dice working for a debt recovery company up in Salford Quays, and was doing alright but it was while my fiancée was going through cancer treatment and she got pretty ill during one of the breaks between cycles, which set off several big panic attacks and led to my being signed off while she went finished her treatment, then I started feeling like I could get back into work, I even said as much and offered to do all the training again, but because I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't have a massive breakdown related to my fiancée's wellbeing again they decided I was too risky to allow back and canned me a week before Christmas. 

I had a couple of years feeling very low, put on about 10 stone (5 of which I've managed to shift again) and not really leaving the house or answering the phone much, but had a friend a couple of years ago who helped me get a job working in a warehouse. Almost two years later I've been promoted to senior operative (deputy shift leader), also know how to work the admin, support/lead shift on the dispatch department and training the new starters. It's not a huge company, but they're on the up and my manager sees something in me and is trying to to help me develop myself. It can be done, I'm sure. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
7 minutes ago, Bicurious Dad said:

both involved taking money and sending people to sleep, not sure it was that big a leap.....

Can't really argue against that, if you've seen one of my matches. Fair comment really.

Can I put on my nit-picky hat and say hypnosis is nothing like sleep, or would that completely ruin the point? ;)

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On 6/4/2019 at 11:44 AM, Chest Rockwell said:

Anyone here do UX design?

I've got a growing interest in retraining into something new and this is something I'm really interested in. Right now I'm just in sponge mode looking to learn as much as possible about the job - both what it entails and how to get into it.

Thought I'd responded to this, clearly not.

I've done elements of it, and worked with other specialists in it. Given your background you could likely transition into it quite easily - you're going from requirements development into the next phase of design. Though it is a different skillset because there's a blend of art and science. There's "this looks and feels good" and "this is what users want to do" and "this is optimal from first principles."

It can be frustrating - but that's working with users for you. 

Without practical experience it's going to be hard to move forward. Look for scope in your current contracts to cross-skill, or look into the IDF courses which come highly recommended by peers. There's a whole bunch of new rapid prototyping softwares to get into as well, such as Balsamiq and Sketchup. 

Roll through your LinkedIn contacts to see if anyone you know is currently in the field?

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