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Anyone here made a late career change into the medical field? I'm 31 and have been working as a GIS Technician/Analyst for the last 9 years. It's secure and fairly low stress, but I'm so uninterested in the work that I haven't been able to bring myself to gain any of the IT, programming, or web development skills I'd need to advance professionally, no matter how much I tell myself I need to do it. I often feel like the dumbest guy in the room and I know I'm in a job that just doesn't play to my strengths. I also feel suffocated by the humorless, government-job work environment with minimal human interaction and don't feel like I relate to anyone around me. Is it crazy of me this late in the game to be strongly considering taking classes at community college for three years while working full-time to complete pre-requisites and then applying to Physical Therapy schools? I'm open to other positions in a care-giving capacity, but that's the one that interests me most right now. It's obviously a decision I should have made a long time ago, but if the alternative is another 30 years of mediocrity and no professional growth in a job that is glorified data entry, I feel like it might almost be a sensible choice, even if I don't graduate until I'm 38. In summary I feel like I'm capable of a lot more, but I'm recognizing I can't bring myself to direct my energy toward what I'm already doing. If anyone has had a similar trajectory I'd be curious about their experience or suggestions.
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Sep 26, 2016 18:33
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THE MACHO MAN posted:so I've been working as a program manager/editor for almost a year in medical publishing now. I was a writer/managing editor before this, so I am still fairly new to the field. Not exactly riveting work, but it requires skills that I am pretty good at so it works for me. With that background and skillset, have you considered pharma advertising? A medical editor with management experience can make a really good living, assuming you can manage your time, have a low error rate, and have better social skills than a tuna.
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Sep 27, 2016 00:07
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I am mentoring a college kid, and am looking for any ideas on careers paths. He's an economics major at a good midwest state school. OK grades (B+-ish). He claims to be somewhat competent programming with Swift and R. He seems like he wants to go into programming, but he doesn't really have a rigorous CS background. I have told him that, to get a real programming job, which it sounds like he wants, he's going to need to show some actual work product, like a working app, which he is working on. If he can't pull that off for whatever reason, what are some other career path options? Seems like there should be all sorts of banking/finance options, but I am having a hard time narrowing that down into something concrete. Prop trading is big in Chicago, but that seems to require more quant-ey type people. I'm trying to think of some areas where he can use a kind of generic economics background to do some data analysis/modeling type work. In Chicago, if it matters. Sorry for vagueness, but I went tech->law (for tech clients), and little visibility outside that. Thanks all.
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Sep 30, 2016 18:41
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maybe big4 or Accenture? They take people with B+ or so and are usually looking for grads with a sort of general competency in those kind of skills? I know recruiting for them is decently competitive but IDK its a huge company that hires thousands of grads every year so not like you're getting overly narrow in goals. Also, its like the epitome "giant corporate machine " which fits some and is terrible for others.
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Sep 30, 2016 19:45
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Yeah, consulting's a good choice. The big four are always an option, but smaller shops are worth checking out too.
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Oct 1, 2016 04:30
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ultrafilter posted:Yeah, consulting's a good choice. The big four are always an option, but smaller shops are worth checking out too. True! But sometimes it's hard to get on at smaller shops as an undergraduate. They basically let the big corps do their training.
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Oct 1, 2016 05:00
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I am currently in school and looking at this internship in an American sports league that starts next summer. I have had a lot of interest and passion for this sports league since I was very young so I am going to apply. However, my past work experience is in a very niche internal corporate security field and wouldn't really apply to any of the broad fields (Finance, Marketing, Sales, Strategy, IT, HR etc) that this internship is looking for. How should I approach the cover letter that is required for this internship?
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Oct 5, 2016 10:12
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Can you sell it as an IT role?
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Oct 5, 2016 15:06
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That's a pretty wide list of divisions. Wide enough to wager that it doesn't really matter as long as you've got some white collar kind of experience. Do they mention specific skills? If you can match that to your experience then I think it's not so important you're outside the listed functions.
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Oct 5, 2016 16:26
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Think 'transferable skills' even if a little tenuous.
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Oct 6, 2016 10:08
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I'm an Applied Mathematics major graduating in May. I would love to work at an ERP or FinTech startup, but I'm not quite sure what roles I'd be qualified for. Here's a brief inventory of my skills:
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Nov 22, 2016 05:41
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Saeku posted:I'm an Applied Mathematics major graduating in May. I would love to work at an ERP or FinTech startup, but I'm not quite sure what roles I'd be qualified for. Here's a brief inventory of my skills: Did you do any on campus recruiting? You're a shoe in for consulting companies (depending on your alma / GPA / social skills), but it might be harder after the initial cycle this fall. I think they have more stuff in the new year.
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Nov 22, 2016 06:30
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Kontradaz posted:Did you do any on campus recruiting? You're a shoe in for consulting companies (depending on your alma / GPA / social skills), but it might be harder after the initial cycle this fall. I think they have more stuff in the new year. School is decent but non-target, GPA 4.1/4.3, I can talk to people -- but I made a hash out of campus recruiting; tried to struggle through September's on-campus interviews with a bad bout of pneumonia and made a generally poor impression. I'm currently in the running with one company for consulting (although it's one of my top choices, at least!) Glad to hear that more postings might show up in January. Saeku fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Nov 22, 2016 |
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Nov 22, 2016 07:09
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Yeah your skill set and GPA scream consulting. Stuff like an Agile cert would help there but it's not needed. E: I dunno about the US but I know Deloitte Canada has a winter cycle and is attempting to move away from the fall / winter hiring cycles anyway. It can be about just getting your resume to the right people
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Nov 22, 2016 15:42
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If your employment is terminated because the employer needs someone with different skills, is that a layoff or firing? I think of layoffs as being to reduce the number of employees, but I also think of firing as being the employee's fault. I'm wondering because that's what happened to me, and saying I was fired gives a bad impression.
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Nov 22, 2016 17:36
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22 Eargesplitten posted:If your employment is terminated because the employer needs someone with different skills, is that a layoff or firing? I think of layoffs as being to reduce the number of employees, but I also think of firing as being the employee's fault. I'm wondering because that's what happened to me, and saying I was fired gives a bad impression. You were laid off. It's a generic catchall for positions eliminated due to business reasons.
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Nov 23, 2016 06:56
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I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this, so if it isn't, then please let me know where I can ask this. I'm 30 years old, been unemployed for 7 months, and I have a choice to make. I'm currently doing per diem work for a temp agency, but it's neither consistent nor is it lucrative. Most of the work opportunities I've seen have either been your standard high school minimum wage crap jobs, or ones that require either a degree/certification, or 3+ years of experience doing what they do. The problem is that in order to pay bills, keep the lights on, and eat, I need pay rates of the latter, while lacking most of the qualifications. Enter, the choice. The temp agency I've been working for has told me of an opening they're going to try and get me into, working for a parts manufacturer for the aeronautics industry. The position would be entry level, so just above minimum wage, but would be temp-to-hire, and from there the company is purportedly very big into promoting from within and keeping employees on board for their entire careers. Conversely, I don't know if I'd be a good fit for this company, I don't know where or how far I could potentially go with this company, and I don't know how high my pay rate could go. It seems very high risk/high reward, but very short term in definite answers. On the other hand, I've been doing research, and I've found a trade school I'd like to go to that will let me earn certifications to be an HVAC technician. If what that site says is true, I'll have a decent income, good job opportunities, and the actual work is pretty much exactly what I want to do with my life. The certification program runs from the end of February through the end of August, in the mornings, and has a 96% placement rate for graduates. Student financial aid would likely cover all of school(I don't have exact figures yet, but it's about $9k), but I would need about $13k in additional loans to help pay rent and utilities while I go, so I don't have to worry about having to work a full 40 hours/week and go to school 40 hours/week. I'd be fine working part time, but full time would be a bit much. My only concern here is staying employed until school starts, and securing enough money in loans to make going to school easier. Overall, this choice seems like medium risk/medium reward, but with far longer-term planning and rewards. So, it basically boils down to: A.) Do I keep my finances where they are now, trust a temp agency, stick with a job that I know nothing about, and hope it turns into a career? Or B.) Do I go into ~$25k debt total to go to school for a job that will set me up for life?
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Dec 2, 2016 02:56
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I'd take a real serious look at the HVAC career to make sure it's all that you think it will be. That said I left a job that was fine but has no long term future (retail commission sales) and went like 30k in debt to get a degree at age 28 and 4 years later am way better off for it in terms of career opportunity. Basically... Make sure that you're going to get value for time / money if you decide HVAC is the right choice for you.
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Dec 2, 2016 04:14
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Jordan7hm posted:I'd take a real serious look at the HVAC career to make sure it's all that you think it will be. Literally everything I've heard and seen so far has told me that my interests and aptitudes line up almost perfectly with HVAC work, but I will keep that in mind and keep looking at things. I've got a couple months before everything solidifies anyway, so if some serious red flag pops up within that time then I can still back out. Mainly though, I'm just completely sick and tired of minimum wage lagging behind cost of living here, of being denied for job after job after job because I lack a piece of paper saying I know how to do things, and of the uncertainty that both of those things bring. I'm 30 years old. My wife and I are going to be having kids in the next few years. I need a stable career that pays well to get us by. The worst case scenario for me is that I get the certs and end up hating the job. If that happens, I can at least work the field while I look for alternative certifications. Even if that happens, at least I'll be making almost triple what I'm making now, so it'll be much much easier. Better than living job to job, paycheck to paycheck, renting a poo poo hole apartment, and one flat tire or really bad case of the flu away from financial emergency.
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Dec 2, 2016 04:54
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Investing in yourself and your future is never a bad decision. If you're very confident about your job prospects with the certification and have done the math, it seems like a no-brainer. People go into thousands of dollars of debt for college all the time and end up with poorer prospects. Edit: I don't know much about trade schools but if it's anything like college then the connections and people you meet are as important if not more so than the education. Network, network, network.
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Dec 2, 2016 08:09
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I don't mean to pry, but are you eligible for any welfare assistance programs like EBT? You should take advantage of those if you can.
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Dec 2, 2016 13:10
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N. Senada posted:I don't mean to pry, but are you eligible for any welfare assistance programs like EBT? You should take advantage of those if you can. That's... actually a good question. I'm not sure, at the moment. I know that as of earlier this year, when my wife and I were both working, we made too much money for any government assistance. Now that I'm basically making half of what I was making, we should look into it, especially with winter coming up. We could probably get HEAP, but I know that even when we were both working minimum wage jobs years ago, we couldn't get EBT, which is loving stupid when you think about it. My two main concerns regarding going back to school are surviving until then, and trying to get enough money through whatever means are available to keep the lights on and food in our mouths while I'm going. I'm just worried because my wife and I are at the end of a long process of getting our poo poo together and learning to adult with money and the like. Because of that, our credit rating are both shot. I'm worried that that'll mean I don't qualify for any loans, regardless of how bad the interest rate would be, to help cover more than the cost of school. This Wednesday, I have a scheduled meeting with the school to take the placement tests, have an interview, sign the paperwork, and look into financial aid. I'm hoping it goes well.
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Dec 2, 2016 14:32
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Best of luck to you, man. If you haven't already started tracking expenses and creating a budget, you should get on that. Something that I had to do with my spouse was figure out exactly how much money we actually spend and then figure out what we NEED to spend. It was a really hard conversation but it made our relationship and finances stronger. E. It sounds like you've already started this kind of talk though which is fantastic. It sounds like you're taking the right steps, you should feel good about that. N. Senada fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Dec 2, 2016 |
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Dec 2, 2016 14:43
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N. Senada posted:Best of luck to you, man. If you haven't already started tracking expenses and creating a budget, you should get on that. Something that I had to do with my spouse was figure out exactly how much money we actually spend and then figure out what we NEED to spend. It was a really hard conversation but it made our relationship and finances stronger. Thanks, yeah, we are and I do. We've gone through the learning process of creating an actual working budget, learning how to make it work(like the envelope system, but with bank accounts), accepted that we hosed up bad enough to need bankruptcy, went through that process and are months on the other side of that, and we're currently at the point where we've spent the past 5 years crawling out from literal rock bottom, and are less than a year away from both of us being in lifetime careers and being responsible adults. It's surreal, honestly. We both keep waking up apprehensive of the future, but it's because we both know things are changing rapidly and we're both just worried that something's gonna gently caress up, when most likely it won't. It's like being blinded for years by a shower of poo poo, fumbling around, and finally finding the knob to turn it off.
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Dec 2, 2016 14:57
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This is less of a career path question I guess and more of a work in general question I guess, let me know if it's not appropriate for this topic- I have finally found a job with a company I like and a culture that I like. There is a lot of downtime, and during that downtime, rather than tell us to ask for more work, they tell us to find something to do that we WANT to do that helps the company. Do you guys have any suggestions for staying on task during downtime and not loving off all the time? Like, actual strategies and not just "get your head out of your rear end"? I'm not used to this kind of environment yet.
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Dec 2, 2016 15:11
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Is career specific training an option for some of that downtime? I find aiming for certifications to be a fairly focused use of such time. Are you in a position to do any business development? That would be another option that is fairly task focused.
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Dec 2, 2016 15:21
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What kind of work do you do? Like, are you in offices all day? Are you on a factory line? I'm going to assume office. What can you research to increase your knowledge about the work you or your company does? Can you learn more about strategies you could implement that might benefit the company? E. This is something I would look at a lot when I was involved in volunteer recruitment and management: http://ctb.ku.edu/en It's got stuff about community organizing. Maybe this will help? N. Senada fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Dec 2, 2016 |
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Dec 2, 2016 15:21
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I am the east coast support rep for a silicon valley startup. They already have a support team that handles tickets way better than I could, but they needed someone out east to handle hardware problems. I work from home normally but fly out to customer sites as needed. When I'm on-site it's all business of course, because there's a project that gets finished faster if I work faster, and of course I have a deadline of getting it done before my flight home leaves. Mostly what I'm doing in my downtime is reading knowledge base articles and the task I've picked out for myself is organizing the knowledge base and in general do knowledge management stuff to focus our KB to get it to deliver answers to customers and support reps faster. So office work but not in an office. I'm looking for some kind of system I can engage with to keep me on task essentially, which is difficult when I'm assigning my own tasks.
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Dec 2, 2016 15:47
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signalnoise posted:
There are lots of tools based around various methodologies. Look at Trello as an example of kanban, maybe?
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Dec 2, 2016 21:00
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I'm currently an Analyst working in the Food and Beverages industry, been at my current company for over two years with the same job title. We have an open headcount in our department and my boss is planning on hiring a Project Manager, whose job duties would be traveling across production sites to work with formulators to ensure their products meet specifications (determined by us), and working with marketing to ensure we're incorporating desired product qualities into our specifications. At the end of 2016 my boss told me she wanted to fast-track me into a management role, so I was surprised she brought this position up without explicitly telling me she was considering me for it. I asked her if I would be considered for the position, and she said that she thought I wouldn't be interested in it, and that she was considering me for an Operations Manager position, overseeing our department/lab and growth activities and ensuring everything runs smoothly. I would have two direct reports as an Operations Manager and no direct reports as a PM. If I was interested in the PM position, I could get it, but she wanted me to think about it and decide which position I would rather have. Both positions would be in the same salary band. I think the Operations Manager role is more in line with what I want to do down the road. I enjoy the logistical stuff and I am a good people manager. I could see myself managing a large technical department down the road, or being a site GM, something like that. The tricky thing is that there is no time line for when this Operations position will open up, and the PM position is about to be posted. This timing makes me kind of nervous -- I'm ready to get more responsibility, and am kind of burnt out at my current job level. Am I risking too much by passing this PM position up? I would probably do well at it but I don't like corralling cats, and there will be a lot of resistance from production at first, so I'll probably be dealing with lots of difficult people. TLDR in a non-tech industry, would you rather be Operations Manager later, or Project Manager now Jerome Louis fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Jan 25, 2017 |
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Jan 25, 2017 20:17
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Not in that industry or even really close to it but the operations manager job sounds better both as the job and long term. Reasons I think that, in no particular order: - The travel for the pm job. Traveling for work intensely can be deeply draining. Especially quick trips taken mostly alone. - The operations job sounds more connected to the org. You have people reporting to you and you are reporting directly. The pm roles sounds more isolated where you might disappear from people's radar. You might research who has held that job and where they have ended up to see if this is correct. - you like the operations job better and your manager thinks you're better suited to it. From the description it sounds like that pm role will take a lot of persuasion / politicking. If you're not that kind of person, would suck. Doubly so if you're traveling because there is usually limited support. Again you know your situation and company, this could be very wrong. Something I did a lot and sometimes still do is look at the career path of people I admired or destination jobs I aspired to. You can probably parse out trends that will help you. Depending your circumstances, you might consider looking externally but it's hard to get hired as a manager without manager experience, so you might be happier/ better off where you're at even if takes a reasonable amount of time to get the job. Xguard86 fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jan 25, 2017 |
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Jan 25, 2017 21:24
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Thanks, that's good feedback and helps me put my decision into perspective. I think the politicking would definitely drive me crazy, and I wouldn't get much support with that from my boss since she is pretty awful at that kind of stuff. I'm pretty solidly set on the Operations role now.
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Jan 25, 2017 23:57
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Jerome Louis posted:Thanks, that's good feedback and helps me put my decision into perspective. I think the politicking would definitely drive me crazy, and I wouldn't get much support with that from my boss since she is pretty awful at that kind of stuff. I'm pretty solidly set on the Operations role now. I mean I am assuming from your description. The pm role is dropping in on people and getting them to comply with something, right?
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Jan 26, 2017 00:02
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Xguard86 posted:I mean I am assuming from your description. The pm role is dropping in on people and getting them to comply with something, right? Pretty much, but it's pretty esoteric. The PM would be making sure winemakers are making wines that meet consumer sensory expectations. Before, winemakers made whatever wines they wanted with some input from marketing. Now, our company has a real sensory department with actual consumer data to show what consumers like sensorially, so the PM will need to work with the winemakers to ensure they're making stuff that reaches the right consumer targets. Needless to say, some winemakers absolutely hate this and want to just make whatever they think is good. So I can foresee lots of drama happening.
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Jan 26, 2017 00:09
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Yep so that sounds highly political. Not in a bad way necessarily just the skills. It also seems like a hard job to "win". You get everyone in line, you're doing your job...Congrats? Everyone hates you and you can't, you fail. Idk how you could really excel with the role. Again outside looking in from a different industry.
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Jan 26, 2017 00:53
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neogeo0823 posted:I've found a trade school I'd like to go to that will let me earn certifications to be an HVAC technician. Be aware that you're signing up for a life of crawling around in cramped spaces, or being crouched doing heavy labor stuff, and if you're in a warm climate those spaces can get baking hot. I know some older HVAC guys and they all have some annoying physical ailments in their mid-40s connected to their profession. They still like it though!
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Jan 27, 2017 16:41
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black.lion posted:Be aware that you're signing up for a life of crawling around in cramped spaces, or being crouched doing heavy labor stuff, and if you're in a warm climate those spaces can get baking hot. I know some older HVAC guys and they all have some annoying physical ailments in their mid-40s connected to their profession. They still like it though! On the other hand, if you're ever in a building taken over by terrorists, you have a leg up on everyone else cause you already know all the vents.
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Jan 28, 2017 02:18
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I've been working as a counselor with a small agency that is... Not well. We're getting split paychecks, no Heath insurance or 401k, and have released staff to save money. I've seen some borderline unethical things too. I just got an advanced license that allows me to practice independently, bill insurers directly, and supervise others. I'm looking at positions in larger companies with benefits and good reputations. I have to disclose my new licensure and my current employer may be looking for me to take supervisory responsibilities. I don't plan to stay, but the idea of having a nicer position on my resume is tempting. But if I leave in 3 months like I hope to, I feel like that would look bad on the resume. Could having a better title for a few months help, or in a situation like this, could it actually hurt? I guess on a resume I might be able to hide that detail. Thanks for any feedback.
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Feb 13, 2017 09:40
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Macaroni Surprise posted:I've been working as a counselor with a small agency that is... Not well. We're getting split paychecks, no Heath insurance or 401k, and have released staff to save money. I've seen some borderline unethical things too. I just got an advanced license that allows me to practice independently, bill insurers directly, and supervise others. I'm looking at positions in larger companies with benefits and good reputations. Ragingsheep fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Feb 13, 2017 |
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Feb 13, 2017 10:11
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gvibes posted:I am mentoring a college kid, and am looking for any ideas on careers paths. Seems like any generic finance role in something short of a prop trading place would work - eg an investment bank, hf, etc. He wouldn't get to do programming, but it could be evidence of quantitative skills which would help with a job. There's also a huge number of tech startups in chicago which are growing quickly and might be interested in someone with some decent R experience in a data role. He could look on Angel list or builtinchicago.com for specific companies, but off the top of my head he should think about : Uptake, Avant, Grubhub, Enova, Trunkclub, Knowledge Hound, civis would all be possibilities. There are also a bunch of large companies which are expanding their data capabilities -- for this he should probably look at job boards, but Morningstar would be a good example. Others mentioned consulting at a big 4 firm, and it's probably worth noting that while these are jobs he could get, they probably wouldn't do much for his R/programming skills. I think he'd want to do strategy consulting, which afaik is mostly excel and general business stuff, not the it side of things. Saeku posted:School is decent but non-target, GPA 4.1/4.3, I can talk to people -- but I made a hash out of campus recruiting; tried to struggle through September's on-campus interviews with a bad bout of pneumonia and made a generally poor impression. I'm currently in the running with one company for consulting (although it's one of my top choices, at least!) Glad to hear that more postings might show up in January. I wouldn't give up on consulting just because you messed up some campus recruiting. If your school is non-target, then you were probably not visited by thaaat many consulting companies. There are plenty of places which would be solid to work at but which don't have recruiting resources to visit non-target schools.I would consider doing your own search of smaller/boutique consulting firms and sending them all cover letters and resumes. Even if you're outside their normal hiring cycle, there's always a chance. Consider e.g. compiling a list of attendees at consulting career fairs at target schools (eg harvard or w.e - this should be publicly available with creative googling) and looking for the ones you don't recognize/haven't applied to yet, and applying to them. From my experience recruiting at a smaller firm which fit the above profile, we were open to people applying outside campus recruiting when they weren't from one of our target schools, and could be more flexible with our hiring schedule since we were smaller, meaning it was OK to hire off-cycle. Re: recruiting at Fintech startups, plenty of places are looking for someone with your skillset I think. Maybe one frame would be to (1) look for roles which report to the COO and apply for those and (2) describe yourself in those terms - a force multiplier for the COO. I've heard roles like this described as business analyst, operations analyst, operations manager, etc. Caveat to this is that I don't work at a fintech startup, so I"m working off friend's experiences.
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Feb 13, 2017 16:25
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