What next at 40+
I was recently impacted by layoff and having 20yrs of exp into application support and service management with last 10yrs grown into a middle management role(limited tech hands-on and no dev experience nor CS background)
While I am financially ok atm and can manage staying at home for next 12-24 months, I am not financially independent yet. its getting too boring and I want to get back into some sort of work routine as I am keen on retirement yet.
Challenges I am seeing with finding a new opportunity:
- The job market seems to be quite restricted for senior roles with that experience
- Few that came across were at a substantial low salary.
- Some others required significant hands-on experience
Thought process::
- While salary is not a major concern, I am not sure if I makes sense to take a pay cut.
- Given the speed of tech changes, not sure what kind of learning/certification would be helpful
- Even if I do tech self-learning, lack of practical hands-on seems to be a drawback
- At 40+ while I am open to work hard and learn, i view is to find a job and learn into it , rather than other wat round
Any guidance/pointers would be appreciated. As would any leads/introductions on suitable opportunities you know of.
Start a hotel of your own or a small CCD why work in boring mncs
Where's the downvote option for this :p
When did kids start to come here? Seriously!
Do you want to help me with my side hustle
Sounds interesting.. what exactly is that? How to discuss this with you.. can you brief
I have started a mobile game development studio with a unity developer. We created a few casual and hypercasual games for a client. And some augmented/virtual reality solutions. Now need someone on board to increase sales pipeline and possibly handle operations.
If you have money , start a business and keep me as your assistant. I will happily leave my job
I would say take your time, but not beyond 6 months, otherwise you may end up having a major gap that raises questions (idk if they worry about gaps even at that experience). Speak with as many people as you can - across companies of different types, as well as people you may have met through your career and try to understand what the situation is.
Have a cadence to fact finding and then start interviewing.
Thanks for the advice. Been reaching out to ppl in my network but situation seems to be same most places for senior roles - layoffs, hiring on hold, cut down on senior hiring or internal closure. Still trying, fingers crossed.
Few things I can suggest-
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Don’t take too long a break else it will get difficult to get back in the hustle
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Try freelancing / consulting
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Try to reimagine your resume. For example, can skills acquired by you in application support / service management be useful in project management or some other industry
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Depending on your appetite, can you become a LinkedIn/ YouTube guru on something (may or may not be related to your work ex. I have seen marketing guys becoming finance gurus online 😀)
How to start consulting? Any platform or any network to start with
Check Toptal, wellfound and similar platforms.
In case you have good network, putting out word to your peers/ previous bosses can also work.
At 40, it's time to use your network (which has probably not been tested so far). Understand your worth basis that - understand what's holding you back and see if you really want to work on that (you may choose not to - nothing wrong with that)
But important for you to take some time and introspect about what you truly want to do
2 yrs is great to sustain, but you need to get on the bandwagon soon for your next chapter. Suggest you take a month for this introspection and not much longer - finding a job will take about 6 months
If money is becoming stressful - try freelancing a little (if your role allows) to buy some more time until you figure it out
Don't stress - it will be fine - you will adjust :)
Thanks for your advise and support.
With huge population, 40s is the new 60s. Being Cheap labour helped us to get jobs from the West. But cheaper labour is on the way always in India. So no value of older employees.
True. Though I feel it's more of office politics, focus on bottomline and the fad of jumping on buzzword bandwagon