Wednesday 2 January 2008

Planning a second (or third) Career for the over-50s

These days very few people can be sure of having a job for life, and many people will change careers many times while working full time. Changing careers can be tough at any age, but it can be especially challenging for 'mature' workers. While early retirement is the dream of some people, it could turn into a nightmare if you can't really afford to stop working and have to try to find a new job in your fifties. I'm currently studying towards a Master of IT degree that is relevant to my current work, but I'm also doing a Diploma of Financial Services (Financial Planning) and a Bachelor of Teaching degree. These qualifications would be useful if I decide to change careers and become a school teacher or financial adviser. Both of fields seem interesting to me and offer a chance to reduce working hours (and commuting time) somewhat, without too great a cut in pay compared to my current job. It was interesting to see that both these jobs are in the "top 5" listed for the over-50's by CNN Money! The financial adviser apparently has a median salary of around $67,000 and rates a B+ for "meaning" and flexible hours. The public school teacher has a median salary around $47,000 (about the same as the starting salary for a 4-year trained teacher in NSW) and gets a rating of A- for "meaning" and a B for flexible (the long summer vacation helps).

The full list of "top 20" jobs for over-50s according to CNN Money is:
1. Non-profit executive
2. Patient Representative
3. Celebrant
4. Financial Advisor
5. Public School Teacher
6. Residential Real Estate Appraiser
7. College Professor
8. Day Care Centre Teacher
9. IRA Specialist (Tax preparer)
10. Labour Relations Manager
11. Leasing Consultant
12. Lobbyist
13. Medical Records Coding Technician
14. Pension Administrator
15. Religious Educator
16. Department Retail Sales Manager
17. Retail Sales Staff
18. Staff Nurse
19. Tax Accountant
20. Tutor

My current position is interesting enough and sufficiently well-remunerated for me to stick with it for several more years, but I can't see myself working for the same company until I'm 65. So I have a good opportunity to get qualified for other careers that interest me while still working full-time. I can even "try out" teaching via the month-long prac teaching sessions which I'll squeeze into my annual leave from my current job during the next couple of years.


Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Changing careers can be tough at any age, but it can be especially challenging for 'mature' workers.
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When you're over 50 and have nothing which would be considered "career-related" experience, changing careers is REALLY challenging.

Anonymous said...

Did B_logger delete your previous post?


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enoughwealth@yahoo.com said...

No, the previous post was a PayPerPost sponsored post I wrote, then found that I couldn't register it with PPP after all, so I deleted it -- I draw the line at UNPAID ads! ;). Ever since my main URL had it's pagerank dropped from 4 to 0 by google (still don't know why) I haven't been able to register any posts with PPP.