28 y/o stuck in boring job - Career switch? What to do next?

[notsurehwhatimdoingwithmylife]

Looking for some good advice from fellow mumsnetters re career switching..

For context - I am 28 years old, single, feeling a bit lost with my life and not sure where to go next.

Career wise - I am in a bit of a ‘golden handcuff’ situation with work. I have worked for a large bank since I was 16 and earn a semi decent salary (40k) with share bonuses and have a high amount of money sitting in sharesave schemes which are due to come out over the next couple of years. No degree or any further education except high school qualifications. However… I am SO bored with my job. It’s an analytical work from home job and it totally does not suit my personality at all. I have a busy enough a social life/ hobbies to keep me afloat outside of this but to have to do this everyday is making me demented.

I love connecting with people and the best times I can think of in work is working in call centre jobs (not the work itself) but the range of people I would meet everyday and have such a good laugh and banter with. I know that colleagues are just that, however I’ve made some really great friendships with my colleagues over the years and really value human interaction daily.

What I really want is a bit of a career shift. I don’t know what, but trusty ChatGPT has suggested account manager/ customer success manager roles would be a good fit for me..

I feel like I have almost created this career for myself that I don’t really like however it’s decent enough paid to keep me afloat and enjoy life outside of work but the monotony of the work is actually draining the soul out of me. Most days I feel like I could just close my laptop and never open it again.

I know the obvious answer is to look for other jobs, but to be honest the amount of different career paths I feel like I could take is totally overwhelming and I don’t really know where to start because all I’ve ever really known is jobs in banking. Never had any experience outside of this.

I don’t really know where to begin - but I’ve created a list of things I want and don’t want…

Wants

• Human interaction
• Feeling like I’m actually making a difference not just sitting behind the scenes
• positive outcomes
• colleauges that are fun to be around
• structure in my day to day
• decent salary with high earning potential
• good work life balance
• hybrid work ( I don’t want to be fully remote)

Dont want

• Boring work (to me I suppose this is subjective)
• customer service
• overly Serious/boring environments
• heavy targets/ pressures

My interests - I am quite a creative person, i really like fashion, interior design, socialising with friends, beauty, health and fitness.

So I guess what I’m really saying, has anyone made a career switches from something they have spent a long time in that they didn’t like anymore? How did you approach it? I feel like if I don’t make a move at some point in the future I will just waste my life working in this job. I want to make something of myself…

I don’t really know what I want to do career wise, but some suggestions would be great.. I am scared I just waste my life being miserable in a job.

Also any advice, stories, experience and anything else in between would be so appreciated ❤️

The job market is absolutely dire at the moment. I retrained in my 40s (from librarian to academic) but not such a huge change. That was back in the 1980s and 90s when I went right through batchelors, masters and doctoral degrees. It would simply not be possible today. Even then I had to comp;ete ruthlessly for academic jobs because I was older and more expensive.

As a side hustle I began selling antiques online (early 2000s) which is something Ive always been interested in. So my advice would be to keep the boring job (at least for the present) and get a rewarding and fulfulling side hustle. It could be that in time you are able to build it up into a lifestyle business and work for yourself. Then you gradually cut down the bank work to part time.

Maybe look at tech sales in a company like Softcat? Targets for sure but not in a cold calling way.

You’ve invested time with this employer so it’s worth first establishing whether there’s something more suitable for you with them - and it sounds like a lot of your issues with the current role would be solved by being in the office daily. Large organisations have a lot of different opportunities within them

Definitely start with the ‘credit’ you have earned from a long career with one institution. In your position I would be disappointed if the bank could not offer me either:

• Funding and time to study for a degree. Or

• A sabbatical (of a few months) in which to travel / learn a new skill / whatever.

I suspect if you’re bored a period of learning and study to challenge you might be just what you need. And it sounds as if you can afford to do this, too (professionally and financially).

Could you try doing what you do from an office environment instead of working from home? I know from experience that WFH doesn't suit me and I started hating what I do because of it. Once I was mainly office based I found I felt a lot better in myself and about the work.

Apply for roles internally. Ask for additional projects etc to get more experience. Get involved in stuff for rhe business outside the day job. Do they have working groups planning events or aimed at specific demographics in the business, eg women, families etc. Get more experience with networking and relationship building and then see if you could apply for customer success roles. That does sound like a good fit. Could you mentor and train new people in your team? It's good to be employed by a bank as lots of different roles will come up over time

The trouble is some of your wants are irreconcilable.

You want high pay but low pressure, fun, and a job you can get just with GCSEs.

Unless your creative skills are really exceptional I think you may have to sacrifice some of that.

It absolutely is possible to change career, People do at all ages and you're young, you have plenty of time to requalify or retrain.

Someone once gave me a good piece of advice which was, if you want to switch careers, try to find a job that's midway between your current job and your ideal job, as a stepping stone to your new career.

So, it could be worth looking for jobs that combine some of the stuff you're doing now, which also contains some aspects of your ideal job, so you can get employed on the basis of your current experience and start building up experience in your new sector. Have you had a look at what's available?

Or, an alternative could be to get qualifications in a new area. Could you afford to go part time at your job while you study? Or maybe even use the money from when your Sharesave schemes payout to support you while you study full time? Plenty of people go to university as a mature student these days. It would be a great break from the monotony of your current job, learning a subject you actually have chosen and love is great fun and you'd meet loads of people.

I studied full time at university as a mature student in my mid 30s and loved it. Honestly, study is wasted on the young 😁 It was such a pleasure to be in an environment that was about learning and creativity, not about making money for someone else. I made some good friends there too, among the other mature students. I got by, by taking the full grant and renting a room out to a lodger.

Before that, I did an Access course while working part time to get the qualifications to get in, although it's possible I could have applied direct.

Have a look at what your local university offers and maybe have a chat with a careers adviser.

Please ignore the naysayers here. Yes, the jobs market is tough just now, but it's not impossible!

From your list I’d suggest retraining in social work and working with adults. Salary can be around what you are on now and more as you get experienced and move up if you want to.

There is an entire Mature Study and Retraining board on MN, here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/mature_students

As the OP has no previous degree there should be no question of her having to fund a first (or postgraduate) degree herself.

I retrained in my later twenties and also later thirties and had three distinct careers, Nursing, Libraries public then academic and then University housing officer for students with additional needs at a RG University.

Did I feel like I really helped people? Yes! Was it well paid? it was a very good second income but the most I earned was around 38k. DH has a desk bound spreadsheet analytical job, I tease him and say how many spreadsheets have you shuffled today. I would not do his job if you had paid me a million quid I like interacting with people too much. His income is easily double mine though.

Someone has mentioned social work, my friend works in child protection, it’s one of the hardest jobs in the world.

Your list made me think of one occupation, occupational therapist but it’s not high paying. Plus you need a degree.

I am afraid the Rollup your sleeves really help people jobs are generally worse pay. People that earn well that I know work in finance and law, not fun in the least. I don’t know how some of them sleep at night, they are DH mates not mine. Also know some Doctors at consultant level but obviously not a quick fix there and it takes decades to reach that level.

If you work in a bank Account Manager roles are definitely available internally.

Talk to your line manager, make them aware of your long term goals, ask about potential training you could do that would open up these roles, start reaching out to those teams to ask about internal opportunities and when one comes up, apply. You might not get it first time but ask for feedback.

You should be able to keep all the benefits of long service while still exploring other options

(Deleted as didn't pick up post I was responding to, will try again...)

Of course, her university fees will be paid if she does a degree as it's her first (as were mine, when I did my first degree as a mature student) but she will still need to find living expenses from somewhere, the loan isn't enough for rent and living in most places.

Also, by the time you're a mature student, most people have more bills / committments than your average 18 year old.

Studying part time and working part time is possible, which is what I intended to do originally, however when I looked at the reality of it, with my circumstances, it made more sense to study full time, make full use of the loans you get for full time study, and finish in 3 years.