Help me brainstorm potential careers for a career change

[InterfaceLeader]

EDIT TO ADD: I'm also interested to know -- if YOU were 18 and choosing a career again, what would you pick!?


Hello! I am looking to explore possible paths for a career change and was hoping to get some input.

Context: I am a soon-to-be 40 year old, who 'fell into' digital marketing, website builds and project management. I now have a decent-ish job as a website project manager. However, project management is not really my forte, whilst I have developed skills around stakeholder and resource management, it is not what I enjoy and I find it stressful.

My degree is in English Literature; all of my experience is in digital marketing, but I've worked across a wide range of industries (video games, environmental charities, education charities, local government, d2c private businesses) which makes me pretty confident its the job and not the industry that is the problem.

In a year or so I am hoping to move to the USA, on a spousal visa, and would like to take the opportunity to carry out a career change.

Last year I worked with a career coach, and we identified the following 'wishlist':

EDIT: Just to be clear, I am not expecting a job to hit every single one of these bullet points. I should also add I would be looking for ~$50-60k salary as a baseline.

Your role needs to involve:

• Doing something purposeful that aligns with your values and principles, does some good in the world and has a lasting impact on a person, community or cause
• Building deep, authentic relationships on a one-to-one basis – through meaningful conversations and warm, sensitive communication
• Using your natural creativity to help and/or connect with people – writing, graphic design, photography, artistry
• Researching and analysing information – seeing the big picture, drawing insights, distilling it into key points, planning wise actions, and identifying and solving problems
• Helping to build a better future and deliver change as it relates to society, utopian ideas, the environment and making people happy
• Being an individual contributor within a team
• Having a high level of independence and personal agency – so you have the freedom to make decisions about what you do and how you structure your day
• Having time to think, process, prepare and produce
• Having clarity on the business strategy and framework, and your objectives, priorities, values and what “good enough” looks like

Other environment requirements:

• Enables and values work/life balance
• Has an informal, cheerful vibe and relaxed pace of work
• Normalises flexible working
• Pays well so you can be generous with your money and time
• Enables you to be wholeheartedly yourself and not feel out of place
• Promotes fairness and equality, and everyone is respected and listened to

I am fine with taking time out to re-skill, get a qualification etc. but I don't want to do that and end up right back where I started in terms of job satisfaction.

Really looking for ideas I may not have considered -- there are a LOT of possible careers and jobs out there, I have quite a limited idea of what my possibilities could be!

Thanks in advance for input and help.

[Smokystache]

Based on your post, I'm not quite sure if you don't ever want to do digital marketing again or if you'd be ok with it, but without it being the way you spend most of your working hours.

As I look at your current skill set, what came to mind is working with a small non-profit or small organization with a clear mission that you believe in. Perhaps even a newer organization that is getting going. You have the perfect skill set to help take on the marketing side of things. For example, perhaps you believe strongly in access to education for girls in a developing country. You find an organization whose mission is to raise money and awareness for this topic. You already have the skillset to:
- create or revamp their website
- create or improve their social media channels
- use your skills to record, photograph, video, and more to create campaigns or social media pieces or fundraising materials to further the mission
- copy-edit all materials coming from the organization
- etc etc.

Instead of working all the time on 10, 50, or 100 social medial channels or trying to create a new website per week, you would be able to focus a few hours a week on optimizing the digital marketing on a topic you really care about, propose creative new initiatives to build awareness and raise money for a cause you care about, perhaps travel to do on-site/in-country work ... in short, you would get quite a bit of variety and you'd be a department of one - so you would have a lot of autonomy on how this is done and within a reasonable time frame.

Of course, there are lots of other options too.

[InterfaceLeader]

Yep, good point. I'm not totally averse to staying in digital marketing. I enjoy content creation, I less enjoy managing ad budgets and cpcs and staring at data! The issue of course is that AI and off-shoring means content is cheap, so its harder to see how to build a well-paid career within that. And I'm also quite burned out on the whole area.

My main concern is pay; I am the main income earner. The kind of small charities where one person handles all the digital marketing tend to have very small budgets. The bigger charities aren't set-up much differently to prvate sector, in my (limited!) experience except you have even less resource to deliver on the projects.

I would prefer to move towards more of a relationship career though -- I've thought about (and not dismissed) counselling, nutritionist/dietician, social work, teaching etc. I looked seriously at becoming a Marie Kondo consultant at one point, but thankfully did not succumb!

[Laura33]

One thing that I would suggest is prioritizing all those many "wants."  Almost no job comes with a laid-back vibe, meaningful work, work-life balance, and great pay.  Most of us have to settle for the compromise that gets us the most of what we want with the fewest things that we hate.  So, for example, you put "good pay" very, very far down your original list.  But your subsequent post says that you're the sole breadwinner in the family.  So in the real world, good pay is probably very, very high on your list, yes?  Supporting your family is a really key value that your next job must support.  OTOH, it's not your only value; you don't necessarily want to maximize income at the cost of all your free time, or supporting an organization that conflicts with your values.  But only you can decide how important each relative value is.

I would also look at what needs/goals you can meet outside of work vs. through your job.  It's awful hard to bring in income through your hobbies.  On the other hand, there are many organizations and charities that allow you to do good for people in meaningful ways and build deep human relationships.  It's great if you can get your connections and meaning through work, but most of those jobs pay for shit.  So you may well need to be one of those people who takes a reasonable job to support the family and seeks meaning and connection outside of work.

[Kwill]

Hi InterfaceLeader! One thing that comes to mind as a possibility is a digital team in some part of a university. Potentially that could offer stability and reasonable income but also a sense of purpose and some time off.

You don't have to share details of the location here, but it'd be worth exploring what organizations and institutions exist within a reasonable commute of your target destination in the US. Is there a major company, university, museum, or other institution that directly or indirectly employs a lot of the people in the area? Chances are that a really big organization will have multiple teams or departments that need people with digital / website skills, and some of those teams could be a good fit with nice people to work with.

[InterfaceLeader]

One thing that I would suggest is prioritizing all those many "wants."  Almost no job comes with a laid-back vibe, meaningful work, work-life balance, and great pay.  Most of us have to settle for the compromise that gets us the most of what we want with the fewest things that we hate.  So, for example, you put "good pay" very, very far down your original list.  But your subsequent post says that you're the sole breadwinner in the family.  So in the real world, good pay is probably very, very high on your list, yes?  Supporting your family is a really key value that your next job must support.  OTOH, it's not your only value; you don't necessarily want to maximize income at the cost of all your free time, or supporting an organization that conflicts with your values.  But only you can decide how important each relative value is.

I would also look at what needs/goals you can meet outside of work vs. through your job.  It's awful hard to bring in income through your hobbies.  On the other hand, there are many organizations and charities that allow you to do good for people in meaningful ways and build deep human relationships.  It's great if you can get your connections and meaning through work, but most of those jobs pay for shit.  So you may well need to be one of those people who takes a reasonable job to support the family and seeks meaning and connection outside of work.

Haha - this is a mere snippet of the 6 page document the career coach put together! I'll be honest, I also feel like there is no perfect job, but I do think there is a career out there that will give me less of what I hate and more of what I like. The goal here is to really brainstorm possibilities, so I can go and research them, talk to people who do those jobs etc.

If I didn't have to compromise I'd be a sci-fi novelist ;)

Pay is hard, as I don't know what our living costs in the USA will be, but my starting point is that I'd probably need to earn about $50-60k a year to equal our current standards.

[InterfaceLeader]

Hi InterfaceLeader! One thing that comes to mind as a possibility is a digital team in some part of a university. Potentially that could offer stability and reasonable income but also a sense of purpose and some time off.

You don't have to share details of the location here, but it'd be worth exploring what organizations and institutions exist within a reasonable commute of your target destination in the US. Is there a major company, university, museum, or other institution that directly or indirectly employs a lot of the people in the area? Chances are that a really big organization will have multiple teams or departments that need people with digital / website skills, and some of those teams could be a good fit with nice people to work with.

Hello! University is definitely on my list as a place with hopefully a good work-life balance and decent culture. There are a couple of universities near where I am going, and also a couple of BIG BIG companies headquartered there, though those would be very corporate I suspect. It's a decent sized city, so a full range of options (though possibly not like, Big Finance or stuff where you have to be in New York / San Francisco)

[Kwill]

Hello! University is definitely on my list as a place with hopefully a good work-life balance and decent culture. There are a couple of universities near where I am going, and also a couple of BIG BIG companies headquartered there, though those would be very corporate I suspect. It's a decent sized city, so a full range of options (though possibly not like, Big Finance or stuff where you have to be in New York / San Francisco)

Big universities and big companies sometimes have their own in-house versions of temp agencies. Maybe you could sign up with a couple of them at the beginning to get your foot in and obtain local references. Potentially that would also give you a better sense of the work culture.

[InterfaceLeader]

Based on your post, I'm not quite sure if you don't ever want to do digital marketing again or if you'd be ok with it, but without it being the way you spend most of your working hours.

I wanted to respond to your post again, because it triggered a bit of a realisation. I actually actively DON'T want to stay in digital marketing, and this is partly because when I was early in my career I was passionate and excited about what digital could offer; about the communities, the connection and it making life easier for people.  Rightly or wrongly, I now feel like 90% of digital marketing is trying to navigate black box algorithms. The combination of spammy SEO, the demands of having to produce a firehose of attention grabbing content, the privacy and ethical concerns etc. have left me very disheartened and sad.

I feel like a different type of work would at least not have that baggage with it.

[former player]

Politics (for a cause you believe in).  Lobbying? Campaign worker?

[Kwill]

Politics (for a cause you believe in).  Lobbying? Campaign worker?

I feel like those would probably mostly be short-term positions, rather than something stable for supporting a couple. Maybe they could be interesting for a few months right after arriving in the US, and they might help in the long term for networking.

[lifeandlimb]

Nice, love a bit of research for life change.

If you know what area you might live in, make sure to look into specific cost of living there. $50,000/year in central San Francisco, California, will cause you to struggle compared to living like a king on the same salary in say, Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Applying your marketing and creative skills to local educational institutions seems like a good start for purpose and skill overlap.

Mentorship roles, teaching, and counseling (therapy) are all meaningful, people-focused jobs as well.
A few people I personally know who are very happy with their people-focused jobs:
- Counselor or teacher at a special needs school
- Cognitive behavioral family/kids therapist
- Couples therapist
- Educator or coordinator with urban farming initiatives
- Marketing at a theater for kids programming
- Managing sustainability or do-good/community initiatives at a large corporation

I would just be aware of the additional burdens of things like government social work (struggling with government regulations) and the business setup efforts that can go into freelance jobs like lifestyle coach, nutritionist.

[JupiterGreen]

Nice, love a bit of research for life change.

If you know what area you might live in, make sure to look into specific cost of living there. $50,000/year in central San Francisco, California, will cause you to struggle compared to living like a king on the same salary in say, Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Applying your marketing and creative skills to local educational institutions seems like a good start for purpose and skill overlap.

Mentorship roles, teaching, and counseling (therapy) are all meaningful, people-focused jobs as well.
A few people I personally know who are very happy with their people-focused jobs:
- Counselor or teacher at a special needs school
- Cognitive behavioral family/kids therapist
- Couples therapist
- Educator or coordinator with urban farming initiatives
- Marketing at a theater for kids programming
- Managing sustainability or do-good/community initiatives at a large corporation

I would just be aware of the additional burdens of things like government social work (struggling with government regulations) and the business setup efforts that can go into freelance jobs like lifestyle coach, nutritionist.

This. The US has a shortage of therapists. I couldn't do it, but I have a friend who does and she is able to make her own schedule and has  plenty of work. Also teaching is a good option, basically everything @lifeandlimb said lol

[shelivesthedream]

I think you would be well suited to look into arts marketing. For example, being the marketing lead for a smaller theatre, or working as part of the marketing team for a large symphony orchestra. Often in smaller theatres, marketing and programming sort of work under the same hat.

They tend to be quite "right on", are often spearheading environmental initiatives, and it's all about building relationships ship's with theatre companies and with different audience sectors/stakeholders.

You definitely have the digital skills, but they're often open to fun new ideas.

Alternatively, fundraising for the arts - organising events, building relationships with major donors, etc.

[Metalcat]

I'm 41 and recently retrained as a therapist.

I talk all about it in my journal if you want to join the conversation, there are a few therapists/ex therapists there too sometimes.

I would not go back and study therapy in the first place though, it's a career that really benefits from life and professional experience. Most of my classmates have been middle-aged, it's probably the most popular second career out there.

I question people saying there's a shortage though. That's what everyone thinks in Canada too, but we're actually quite oversaturated in the private practice model.

There's generally a shortage of therapists in the area of agency work because there's not enough funding for these roles, not that there aren't actually enough therapists.

So if you are interested in the career, join some therapists groups imon FB in your area and see what the chatter is. In my province every second post is about how hard it is to attract enough clients to work full time in private practice.

It's very much a small business, so you have to enjoy that element.

[LongtimeLurker]

Every thought about doing UX/UI design? Seems like you already have the technical background and some of the skills. It would be less stressful, would pay enough, would cut out the more undesirable parts of your current gig(project management) and let you focus more on the creative side. Some of these could be WFH or hyrbid, giving you more free time and flexible hours. It does not mean the meaningful work side, but to be honest, you are not going to find that in a good paying job. Not unless you get very lucky. As others have said, work to pay the bills and then find something else to get your personal fulfillment.

[InterfaceLeader]

@former player @Kwill these are great ideas, but the kinds of political parties I can support are not the ones with enough funds to pay campaigners! I volunteer for my local opposition party here in the UK and take part in campaigning and everything from the accounting to the social media is handled by volunteers.

I also have noooo idea how green card + political campaigning would intersect.

@lifeandlimb - thank you! Lots to look into there :) One of the things that is hard for me is figuring out if I like the *idea* of being part of sustainability initivatives or if I would truly be into it on the day-to-day. I'm hoping to try and get a bit of volunteering in when I first move there to try a few different things.

I wouldn't mind re-training as a therapist but I think the most in-demand positions are the ones that are hardest (working with extremely challenging & vulnerable populations) and also the most under-funded. So I need to figure out if it would actually be viable. It's sort of like how there's a shortage of carers, but nobody wants to fund them...

This is not me blowing off the idea though, I very much want to explore the possibility of counselling/therapy and again look for ways to get a bit of a real tase of what's involved before making up my mind.

@shelivesthedream - Thanks for the idea. I need to see if there's much in the way of an established theatre/art scene in the city I am going. I've a friend who worked in theatre for a while and it involved a LOT of travel/touring. The place I'm going is like a mid-sized city I guess? It does have a symphony orchestra though!

I do love going to the theatre so free shows would be a real perk.

@Metalcat - thanks! Yes, I'm in your journal (mostly lurking!) and it's been a lot of food for thought! I appreciate you sharing your pespective as well, I am not surprised to learn the shortage is driven by underfunding rather than actual lack of trained professionals. I would appreciate a career that has flexibility and being part-time built into it though, which it sounds like is very much part of the industry culture...?

I love the small business side, honestly, I ran my own freelancing side gig for a while and have worked as a contractor, so I'm comfortable with beng outside a standard 9-5 corporate job. Though I haven't done that in the USA with the complexity of health insurance.

@LongtimeLurker - Thanks for responding! UX/UK is an interesting one, and I don't know exactly what the day-to-day looks like. I get the impression a lot of is setting up user testing etc. but would need to look into it more.

[Metalcat]

Re: being a therapist and "funding"

Most therapists are self employed, so you can work in whatever area you want, it's just a matter of if you can attract enough paying clients with those issues to support the income that you want.

There are agency therapist roles, where you are a salaried employee, but they're much lower pay, not flexible, and steeped in bureaucracy. Some people love agency work though and wouldn't work any other way.

If you're interested in therapy, my advice is don't jump to *any* conclusions about how you think it might be as a profession.

It's a quirky field, make sure you have your facts straight before making any decisions.

[InterfaceLeader]

At the moment I'm trying not to jump to any conclusions about anything... though it's hard of course.

The plan is hopefully when I reach the USA to have an expansive & interesting list of ideas and carry out some thorough research to actually explore these careers either through taking people out for coffee and interviewing them (career coaches advice) or volunteering / trying to get entry level experience across a range of them.

I want this to be something I'll enjoy doing for another 20+ years, so it's not something I want to rush into! Though equally I don't want to procrastinate forever on making a decision. I'm ok working a random job in the short term until I find a direction, but I don't want to wake up in 5 years and still feel stuck and burned out.