SUDOHow do I pivot my career?
Mister NeonI’m in the same boat. I’m trying to go from frontend developer/designer to project manager. My advice is to look for certifications that are respected in the field and then acquire them.
lime!i think this only applies in the us. nobody i know in europe gives two shits about certifications, unless it’s the kind you can’t work without, like electrician.
Certs are really only for HR. Most hiring people understand certs are just taking a test and have little to do with real job skill.
I help in hiring for my company. Most candidates lack communication skills and the ability to apply their knowledge. We have hired people with MS in IT who were totally incomplete, and people with no degrees in the field who were stellar, self-motivating, and were quickly promoted.
The problem that most employees don’t want to hear is that all their experience and degrees mean nothing if they can’t market those skills and demonstrate basic social competence and self-reliance.
I got certifications, communication skills, and I research every company I’m lucky enough to get an interview for. You hiring? I would be a star employee.
We are hiring entry level jobs only that pay about 45-50K. People often balk at the starting offer, but we offer fulltime WFH, and everyone who works here has been here for years or decades.
It is very hard to get applicants, because people balk at the starting pay. But what they dont’ realize is our benefits basically offer you an extra 20K+ in total comp and are far more generous than most companies these days. We have gold-plated healthcare package, and retirement matching, which is rare to find.
It’s so tough. 45k isn’t enough to cover expenses where I live (I know because we’re doing it, and if we weren’t dual income it just wouldn’t work). It doesn’t matter that my husband gets amazing retirement matching and decent benefits, because without my (admittedly small) income we couldn’t pay rent and utilities. If you want to be independent here and have a yard, you need to make more. A few years ago here you couldn’t even find an apartment with that salary, but it’s calmed down a little.
Certs are really only for HR.
I’d add on vendor managers to that list. Most ‘larger’ (read: more than 50 employees) orgs I’ve been at also cared about vendor certifications because it could make or break their partnership level if they didn’t have enough certified employees to make the cut. That’s why I got my ccna a decade ago (and haven’t renewed it since I left there), because my company needed more certs and they gave me a 2k/yr pay bump to get certified.
Don’t. Learn and specialize.
The issue with chasing what the ‘hot’ high paying easy to get into job is, it won’t be around in 5 years. Data Science is past it’s prime already.
Stop chasing trends. Build skills and find a company that invests in it’s employees and stay there. They exist. They just aren’t ‘sexy’.
wizardbeardYep, and be prepared to take a (minor) paycut and/or not work on something “shiny and impressive” in exchange for a better working environment.
be prepared to take a (minor) paycut and/or not work on something “shiny and impressive” in exchange for a better working environment.
I can confirm this is an excellent plan. Anecdotal as it is, I traded a fast-paced job with great people and terrible management for a slower-paced job working on things that do not interest me at all, with excellent peers and fantastic management. The change in working environment (and recognition of WFH as work) has made a huge difference.
My pay cut was 3% initially, but the rate increases of the new job has outpaced that of the old, and it’s a few percent in my favour now. I’m pleased and relieved, and I hope its boring self can continue for a few years while I derive satisfaction and joy from interactions at work, and accomplishments and leisure outside of work.
Fully agree! Best advice I ever got from a high school teacher can be paraphrased as, “Think about what jobs will still be there in 20-30 years and can’t be sent offshore. Go into that career path and save your interests and passions for your hobbies.”
Sidestep into engineering. Utilities and maintenance will exist for as long as there are utilities and a need for maintenance.
what is “engineering” in this field? We have devs and engineers and i dont understand the difference bc im a peon who plays with javascript all day
My pivot from IT was to go into a front line support role that I hated but used to show my other non technical skills (“soft” skills) and moved into a knowledge org in the company. From there it’s building out your portfolio with accomplishments and objectives you did/helped on. I have since moved further away from tech and into a more public role and it is the soft skills which have allowed me to keep my job. Everyone knows the tech in IT - it’s why we’re originally hired. Being able to talk to people, to help them learn and/or grow, and have them like the conversation is what keeps me valuable.
It’s not the path for everyone but hopefully this gives you some ideas on where to apply your non-tech skills and your ability to be a person instead of a filled fix-it role.
I have been a Data Scientist for almost a decade now. I pivoted my career into it after working as a chemist / software tester. I got my work to pay for me to complete a three year Master Program after which they gave me the title which allowed me to jump to other companies when I wanted more money. So it can be done and I am glad that I did it.
However, I stared my program in 2015 when Data Science was HOT. Now I mostly see Data Scientist being promoted in place from data analysis or other related careers. You only really get hired at another company if have 5+ years of experience. So if you really want to do this you will need your company to promote you and train you in place. There’s a huge pool of people looking to get into it right now. Most of which did a coding bootcamp to upskill so those are mostly useless. They only really work for people with a PhD in some technical field where they learned a few tricks to get business knowledge instead of their academic data skills.
Not sure because I never did. Some of them seem to be business analysis and others just the excel guy. If you are interested in doing data science see if you can be the analysis person to do metrics and reporting on your team. The need to report and measure is consistent across most orgs and could be a good way to grow in place. Same if you can get some formal education
My two cents: start your own shop. Find a customer segment that you care about and build valuable things for them. It takes a fair amount of effort, but I’ve learned after several layoffs that it’s a lot harder to lose 10 customers than it is to lose one W2 job. Precarity is constant. Diversifying your income is a much better mitigator for a terrible job market than pivoting.
This is all assuming that you like your current line of work. If not, pivot sooner rather than later. Take an online course or watch a YouTube video, and then start doing the new thing to learn it. Build some case studies to develop and showcase your skills. What would a data science portfolio look like? What do other data scientists demonstrate on their sites? Learn enough to do that, and pepper in the current experience you have to differentiate yourself.
Any chance you can do a lateral move within your current work? Might be easier, but you’ll probably have to accept a “demotion” if you have less experience than the people already there. On the other hand, you don’t “lose” your job and have to go through the entire process of quitting and applying. Having established connections and know-who’s within the org might also make it easier to pivot.
Buy this book.
“Discover What You Are Best At,” by Linda Gail.
First the book tests you’re natural abilities in things like social skills and mechanical problem solving, then shows you a list of jubs that use those skills.
For example, both nursing and hair dressing need good social skills and good dexterity. Two totally different jobs with similar skill sets.
I got pointed at a job I’d never considered, and ended up with a good career.
Got me. I pivotted to IT to begin with but it was early in my career and I could still live at home so I could pay for and take the time for cert classes without having to worry about needing to pay bills. All why you had an area that was actively looking for people. Only thing that seems to even have some thirst for workers that is not super niche is healthcare but im unsuited to that.