My husband changed careers at 39

I thought he was nuts, until…

I saw this…

Too funny.

I guess he’s not nuts after all.

Career change is a funny thing. I’ve done it a few times in my career but, I guess it didn’t feel as significant to me since I was already an entrepreneur.

You see, I stayed an entrepreneur.

I just went from doing one thing in my business to doing something else.

I pivoted.

For me, it started in e-commerce. I was running online stores making up to $30K/month per store. It was lucrative, for sure. Also hard word and stressful.

I traded a 40-hour workweek for a 65 to 70-hour workweek.

Sure, I could hop on Amazon and order just about anything to my doorstep without worrying about the price.

I could go grocery shopping or shopping at the mall and not have to check my bank account before I left the house.

We ate out often.

We traveled.

Life was good, until it wasn’t.

I saw a decline in my happiness and my health.

My workload was starting to spill over onto my home life and I lost control over my work-life balance. I also almost got divorced.

I knew I had to change things so, I moved into digital publishing and then social media management and then digital products, and back again.

Lots of movement but, all still while I was running my business.

The fact that my husband wants to move away from the medical field to pursue tech feels different. But, it’s not.

Here’s what we did to prepare for his career change…

Changing your job mid-career

Career change has been a big thing lately. Especially with the pandemic. People are participating in the Great Resignation.

And folks are really starting to question their careers.

Here’s when my hubby knew his job wasn’t for him any longer…

• He felt undervalued
• He began to dread going into work
• He was starting to isolate
• At home, we saw a change in his behavior
• He’d count down the hours until he had to go back to work

These are some of the warning signs that it’s time for a new career.

He always had a love for tech and decided to look into what it’d be like to change careers and break into tech.

I talked to him about some boot camps he could join…

• Avocademy teaches you UI/UX design. Their 8-week program is under $2,000 and you complete the training program with skills to work as a junior designer plus a portfolio. The average salary for a UI designer is around $85K and for a UX designer, around $94K. My review.
• CourseCareers teaches you technical sales. You’ll be selling tech software/hardware/other products to companies. After you finish the training program, you do a paid internship to gain experience then they help you find a job. The average starting salary for students that completed training is $60,000, with many students landing jobs at $85,000+. In a few years, your salary can grow to $100K or higher.

There are also boot camps that teach you coding, web design, and other high-income tech skills.

He ended up going with a 4-month program that will teach him skills to earn a nearly six-figure salary after completion.

How to plan your career change

Sit down and evaluate your skills. Make a list of your transferable skills (like soft skills) and consider your strengths and weaknesses.

Make a huge list of your hobbies and passions. Think about possible careers you could get into and start research.

When you figure out what you’d like to do, make a plan…

• What’s keeping you from working that job? Tackle those things like education, refining your skills, getting certification, etc.
• Get with a career counselor who can help you find a new career path and prepare you for your job transition with things like interview prep, resume prep, etc.
• Lean on the support of others to help during this transition. It’s nice to have others to talk to, whether it’s family, friends, peers, or even people online in forums or community-based groups that are going through a similar change of career or have gone through your experience.

Have you gone through a career change? How did you prepare?