Career Change at 40: Moving Into Your Next Stage

While you might think starting a new career is for someone in their twenties, it's actually becoming increasingly common to make a career change at 40 and even 50 and 60. In this article, we'll examine the process, benefits, and potential challenges of changing careers in your forties.

How to change careers (at any age)

Regardless of your age, you’ll typically follow the same key steps when you’re considering a career change:

1. Assessing your current career

2. Clarifying your career goals

3. Researching potential careers

4. Researching job listings

5. Defining your course of action

Below, we'll focus on the unique aspects of approaching a career transition in your forties. 

Changing careers at 40

In your forties, you’ll likely come into your new career with an established skill set and new lifestyle considerations you may not have planned for when you began your current career path, such as family obligations or financial responsibilities. You can use your work and life experiences up until this point to guide you toward your next steps.

To get started, it can help to acknowledge the advantages and disadvantages you may notice as you approach your career change. Here are some potential benefits and challenges that you may relate to:

Benefits of a midlife career change:

• Sharper and more expansive job skills

• Longer list of accomplishments, results, and proven expertise

• Stronger sense of workplace preferences

• Better understanding of what work-life balance looks like for you

• Greater confidence in your capabilities

• Larger professional network to tap during your job search

Challenges of a midlife career change:

• More responsibilities requiring higher salary requirements, financial planning options, and scheduling flexibility

• Pronounced skills gap

• Potential exposure to age discrimination

Let’s examine how you might assess your past to inform your future.

Decide what's next.

Your life likely looks different now than when you started your career, and those changes may have led you to shift your work preferences over time.

To help you decide what’s next, get clear on your current preferences, such as: 

• What you’d like to keep doing? 

• What you’d like to do more of?

• What would you rather not continue doing? 

• What compensation do you desire?

• How many hours do you want to work? 

• Where do you want to work? 

You may not be able to find the exact position you envision, but knowing what you’re looking for can help you get as close as possible to your perfect version.

Consider transferable skills.

Your forties are somewhat of a midpoint in your career, which could be a productive time to reflect on what you’ve done to help decide what you’d like to bring with you into this next piece of your journey.

Transferable skills are the specific skills you use in your current roles that you can apply to a new career path, such as problem-solving, teamwork, and organization. To identify some of your transferable skills, reflect on your accomplishments. The sources of pride in your accomplishments reflect your values, while the actions you took in achieving your accomplishments reflect your skills.

As you review your skills, consider how you might apply them to a new career path, and remember that transferable skills can come from any area of life. For example, suppose you took a few years away from a traditional workplace to raise a family. In that case, you may have exhibited transferable skills such as negotiation, communication, and management throughout that time.

Read more: What Are Employability Skills and Why Do They Matter?

Learn new skills.

At this career midpoint, you have likely already built a solid foundation of skills. However, depending on the career change you’re seeking, it may help to enhance your current skills (upskill) or learn new ones (reskill) by taking additional training in your desired area of work.

You can upskill and reskill in many ways. For example, you may enroll in a certificate program, take online courses, or build a project portfolio to demonstrate newly acquired skills that may not appear on your resume. Read through the job requirements for roles aligning with your desired career to determine the additional education you need to feel secure moving forward.

Career change at 40 with no degree

Some professions require a specific level of education to move into that career path, for example, medical doctors and lawyers. However, many companies are moving away from education requirements and considering candidates with a comparable amount of work experience instead of a degree.

Depending on the career you hope to move into, you may be able to rely on your transferable skills to get you there—even without a degree. If it becomes apparent you need additional education to land your desired position, consider whether you can learn what you need through a Professional Certificate program. These tend to be quicker and more affordable options for people looking to build skills applicable to a specific career path. Alternatively, you can look into high-paying jobs that don’t require a degree.

Navigate workplace culture.

In your forties, you might have more adult responsibilities than your younger colleagues. As you search for your job, consider what type of workplace support you’ll need to succeed during this next career phase.

Many companies offer flexible parental leave policies, retirement benefits like the Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP), and wellness programs to encourage work-life balance. Organizations may also highlight employee resource groups (ERGs) and other networking and internal support groups that elevate employees' voices with similar values to influence company culture and professional development.

By approaching your career change with a realistic perspective of your needs, you’ll be better able to recognize the types of workplaces that fit your desired lifestyle.

Read more: How to Find a Job: Tips to Expand Your Search

Next steps

Get job-ready for roles in project management, user experience (UX) design, marketing, sales, and more with a Professional Certificate from world-class companies like Google, Meta, and HubSpot on Coursera. Join now to start exploring the next phase of your career.