How to change careers?

[sunandshadow]

I have a friend who is a unix sysadmin; he hates his job and is totally burned out, so he wants to get a job in a different field, but has to be able to earn the same pay (55k) and not need a new degree. He is not interested in starting a business or freelancing. Do you all have any suggestions or resources for him?

 

[infinity706]

I don't have a clue, since every job around here that pays more than $12 and hour requires a minimum of a bachelor's degree or putting in time until you can make it into management. (most of our economy comes from the tourist industry)

 

[kredo]

hello

Thanks for information...

 

[silverwhisper]

sunandshadow: does he have skills that lend themselves to working in another department? it isn't easy to make such a change, esp in a job market as crappy as this one.

for example: if he's good at communicating with users, maybe a shift into technical writing as a writer of user documentation might work? perhaps his strong technical skills could be made to work in a sales role, if his employer sells technology products/services?

more information is needed here.

ed

 

[niv78]

That's going to be tough, as a UNIX sysadmin your skills are really limited to just that field unless he has training in other things. I think it really just depends on what he is interested in, see what skills he already pocesses within that field and try and learn the rest.

 

[coastal-boy]

what is happiness worth to him? Sometimes, sacrifices must be made for a period of time to get to where you want. The way you wrote his desires made it sound like he expects a new job where he doesn't have to do anything to earn it. I wouldn't hire him...no passion. I'm willing to train someone if they have passion. What does he love? Jobs should be fun and rewarding.

 

[sexy_asia]

sometimes, if you are not happy with your job and planning to change careers, you also need to change yourself. There are a lot of jobs in the IT field all he has to do is look. Though, he must already have a new job waiting for him after resigning. changing careers is hard especially at this time where in there's a lot of competition and economic crisis.

why don't he take a vacation first and think things through, knowing yourself really helps in deciding what you really want.

 

[Noira]

I don't have a clue, since every job around here that pays more than $12 and hour requires a minimum of a bachelor's degree or putting in time until you can make it into management. (most of our economy comes from the tourist industry)

I make more than that working as a hospital housekeeper. >_____>

But if he wants the same pay he might just have to bite the bullet and do more school, getting a good paying job isn't easy depending on where you live... he'll just have to find something he loves and then work to get there. Changing careers is just like starting a career. Hard work, study, leg work, contacts, and being really damn good at talking your way through an interview.

 

[silverwhisper]

sunandshadow: incidentally, if your friend is web savvy, the first thing he should do if he hasn't already is created a linkedin profile. the second thing is to learn to love networking, and do it well.

we can talk more about this if you like: wing me a PM.

ed

 

[mntcmn]

motivation

Motivation is THE key ingredient. I did it twice and it is not for the faint-hearted nor those who cannot contemplate a reduction in their income. For me, both times were ultimately VERY rewarding both psychologically and financially but the rewards were delayed by passage through difficulties. To proceed, one needs to select a field and obtain all the training or education it is possible to get before making the switch.

 

[LaRocha]

I have a friend who is a unix sysadmin; he hates his job and is totally burned out, so he wants to get a job in a different field, but has to be able to earn the same pay (55k) and not need a new degree. He is not interested in starting a business or freelancing. Do you all have any suggestions or resources for him?

He should go be a Linux sys administrator. wah waaaah

 

[silverwhisper]

while i normally might agree, larocha, sunandshadow doesn't make clear what specifically her friend is burnt out over: somehow, i sincerely doubt it's the reliance on command line. :>

ed

 

[PertPerth]

Re-training and updating qualifications.
I'm currently working my 40 hour week (8am to 5pm) and then going to university at night (two nights a week, 6pm to 9pm). It's hard, tiring, and taking up most of my weekends with assignments and study, BUT I love it. I have motivation, I can see the end result of change in career without my income dipping while I re-train. The only issue is I'm not sure my pay will be quite equal when I do acually get that other "new" job. My guess is that it'll be close-but-not-quite.

 

[sunandshadow]

while i normally might agree, larocha, sunandshadow doesn't make clear what specifically her friend is burnt out over: somehow, i sincerely doubt it's the reliance on command line. :>

ed

He said the things he is most unhappy about are pager duty, being responsible for fixing everyone else's problems and in trouble every time something breaks regardless of the fact that he's not the one who broke it, responsible for pandering to people in other departments because everyone outranks the computer support staff, and working within a framework of established dysfunctional or insane procedures and software.

Since he does run Linux on his two personal machines he sort of is a Linux sys admin too.

 

[silverwhisper]

sunandshadow: yeah, those frustrations would clearly mean any kind of adminning, irrespective of OS, are not an improvement. i thought as much.

what about other skills, as i asked in my first post in this thread?

ed

 

[sunandshadow]

what about other skills, as i asked in my first post in this thread?

ed

I couldn't really think of any - the only thing that really comes to mind is he loves to talk to people and can strike up a conversation with any random person. He has pretty good writing skills for a techie, but he dislikes writing and he hates telephones almost as much as I do, so he couldn't be a secretary or technical writer.

 

[silverwhisper]

then he should really talk to a career coach, maybe take a few skill assessments. most of the time, our friends are not the people who understand our professional value the best: it takes someone who's seen you at work or otherwise worked alongside you hour after hour for days, weeks and months. and our friends rarely are that.

ed

 

[huskie]

Get a degree on line?

 

[flyrv9]

Perhaps there are other Unix related jobs he could look into; where he could use his Unix experience in a different environment. For example some of the flight test aircraft I work on have Unix based instrumentation computers that require people with Unix knowledge to program and maintain. That way he wouldn't completely starting over.