Branding
Retrain For a Totally New Career in Your 30s
Glassdoor Team
Glassdoor Team | Author & Career Expert at Glassdoor | 14 Oct 2016
Focus on what you are good at
Thirty-year-olds who find the tide has shifted and their once cutting-edge job is in the shallows need to shrug off the British habit of focusing on our weaknesses. Instead they need to focus on what they are good at and gravitate towards things that support that. Don’t aim to be a jack-of-all-trades - be the master of one. I am a lover of psychology through my first degree and I believe a great way to obtain an independent review of your skills is to get some psychometric analysis through a test. It’s better than asking what your star sign is and will give you some indicators of what you are good at!
Embrace a portfolio career
Changing jobs will become far more common in the future simply because we are all living longer. Our children will probably live to over 100 years old because Artificial Intelligence is going to make healthcare much more effective. This will have huge implications for our education and working lives. If we live that long there won’t be any jobs for life and the specific letters after our names will be less important than three things: our transferable skills, our EQ (Emotional Quotient) and our ability to work with other people. We all need to prepare for a portfolio career in which we have several different jobs in potentially very different industry sectors.
Forget about early retirement
People will have to work a lot longer in the future than they do now. The ending of final salary pensions means there will be far fewer silver surfers who can afford to retire at 50 and head for the beach in Marbella. The Government is urging people to invest more in their pensions so they have enough to live on in old age. It scares the hell out of people because, well, where do you start? But it is making people think in a completely different way about what a career actually means. It’s a very important part of how you maintain your lifestyle and look after yourself if you get sick.
Become a job “sailor”
The future of work looks full of technological advances, which will impact every aspect of what we do. For example, entry-level jobs in law and accountancy - two employment paths that have provided the mainstay for many graduates - are going to slowly disappear as entry-level data entry and research work is going to be increasingly taken over by computers. So to survive in this rapidly changing environment people are going to have to become what I call “sailors” who know there is never a linear path to a destination. They never move in a straight line because the sea is moving, there’s a current and they have to react constantly to the rapidly changing elements.
Get a mentor
Find someone who can help you get to where you want to go because they have been there already! Talk to those closest to you to see if they can offer you any advice. I don’t mean your mum, because she loves you and she will tell you what you want to hear. Get a mentor - a (possibly!) grey-haired individual who knows a bit more than you do, who can see around the corners that you can’t. I like to refer to mentors as driving instructors who can help you navigate your career better.
Breathe
Above all, don’t panic. Just breathe! A lot of people get into a flap saying: “Oh my gosh the clock’s ticking. I am running out of time. I had this plan to be in such-and-such a place when I was 30 and I am not.” The world doesn’t end. Just breathe and focus on the next small step rather than focusing solely on the big grand plan.
Glassdoor Team
Our team of savvy experts are here to help you, whether you’re navigating your career or working to make your company culture shine. Glassdoor has the unique insights and guidance you need to experience your best worklife. Stick around to learn how to prepare for an interview, negotiate your salary, develop DEI programs, engage your employees, understand the state of the job market, and more. Check out our community to share and learn from professionals just like you too.
