Career Change at 30: Building on Your Skills

Changing roles at 30 can feel like a major decision, especially if you’ve remained fairly steady throughout the first portion of your career. Your inclination to redirect your career path can be a growth indicator, reflecting a desire to explore possibilities you weren’t aware of or didn’t feel accessible when you first entered the workforce.

Although you may have spent roughly a decade working towards your current position, you’re likely closer to the beginning of your career than the end. Many people will retire well into their sixties— even their seventies—which gives you three or four more decades to define and redefine your career destination.

You can change that destination as often as you’d like, and people successfully change careers at all stages of their lives. In general, the steps remain the same:

1. Assess your current career

2. Clarify your career goals

3. Research potential careers

4. Research job listings

5. Define your course of action

Below are some key pointers outlining how you might use your established work presence to frame a career change in your thirties and offer some ideas on how you can get started.

Changing careers at 30

Any adjustment to your current career path will require some investment, whether in time, energy, money, or otherwise. However, regardless of your desired outcome, you’ve likely already made a substantial investment into your career, and you can use that investment to your advantage.

Think about this next career stage as if you’re refining your path rather than completely changing it. Your career path is a collection of your experiences, contributions, and successes, and you’ve built new job skills at each stop along your journey, which you can bring to the next. Over time, your path will uniquely qualify you for new opportunities—and it’s up to you to decide which opportunities you’d like to explore.

As you contemplate your future career path, consider the following pointers:

How do you know it’s time for a career change?

Deciding to move your career in a new direction is a personal choice, and there’s no real way to know with certainty whether or not the time is right. However, the mere fact that you are asking the question may indicate that you desire something different. Figuring out what you want to change can guide you in making a career move that aligns with your current situation. 

1. Decide what's next

Knowing you’re ready for a career change is a productive first step towards making it happen. However, having a clear sense of the career direction you want ensures you find the job that mirrors your long-term goals.

Regardless of your specific experiences, you know more about yourself, your needs, and your preferences now than you did when you first entered the workforce. Use those insights to help determine your path moving forward. 

Two broad areas are worth considering: what you want to do and how you want to do it.

• What you want to do: This encompasses the tasks associated with your future career. What tasks would you like to continue doing? What would you like to do more of? What would you rather leave behind?

• How you want to do it: This involves the lifestyle and environmental considerations that will enable you to approach your work in a way that feels good. What type of office setting do you prefer? How much money do you want to make? How much flexibility do you need? Are any employee benefits particularly important to you?

There are many additional ways to keep assessing your priorities, from external resources like career coaching, career counselling, and career quizzes to internal exploration through meditation and journalling. There’s no right or wrong way to figure out your next steps. Find the mechanism to comfort you as you interpret your wants and needs.

High-demand careers

If you aren't sure what you want your next step to be, it may help to start by looking at careers in high demand. According to the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) 16 of the 20 occupations with the highest projected growth in numbers to 2035 are graduate-level jobs [1].

The top 5 occupations by growth at the graduate level are:

• Computer programmers

• Higher level teaching and classroom assistants

• Financial managers

• IT managers

• IT business analysts and systems designers

2. Embrace your accomplishments

Although you likely still have much of your career ahead of you, you’ve probably already witnessed the fruits of your self-investment. As you approach your next steps, take stock of all you’ve accomplished and learned in your career.

Reflecting on the successes that make you feel proud, you can uncover what you truly value in a work environment. You may want to consider future roles that enable you to continue expressing those values through your work.

Meanwhile, considering how you orchestrated those successes can help illuminate your top workplace skills. You’ll likely be able to highlight some of those skills as you apply for jobs and use them to secure a lateral (at the same level as you are now) or advanced position along your desired career path.

3. Recognise transferable skills

Transferable skills are the soft skills you take from one job to another. These skills tend to be important to roles across job functions and industries. You can use them to demonstrate that you qualify for roles beyond entry-level, even if you don’t have direct experience with your desired function or industry. As you research your next role and build familiarity with the associated job tasks, take note of similarities with your current position.

Some examples of transferable skills are:

• Critical thinking

• Problem-solving

• Adaptability

• Teamwork

• Leadership

Remember that different industries may use different language to describe similar skills. In some cases, it may help to reframe the language on your CV to better align with your desired future position. For example, you may have considerable experience coordinating the needs of various people to achieve a singular goal. In some roles, you may use that experience to highlight your customer service skills; in others, you may consider stakeholder alignment.

Tip: Consider taking an introductory course online to help determine the terminology that best aligns with your desired future career. You’ll likely be exposed to the crucial skills and phrasing common to your desired position.

4. Learn new skills

As you learn more about your desired career, you may notice some core technical skills you haven’t yet developed. There are many ways to learn new skills as you move towards the next career phase, including completing projects, taking courses, earning a professional certificate, or getting a relevant degree.

Filling your skill gaps will likely require investment, whether in time, energy, or money. Ideally, you can leverage this short-term investment into long-term career gains. To do that, it may be worth focusing your investments on in-demand, high-value skills.

Some high-income skills include:

• Data analysis

• UX/User experience

• Web development

• Project management

• Account management

In many cases, you’ll be able to find flexible options to gain new skills, such as online classes, that enable you to continue working or tending to other responsibilities while you learn. You may also be able to find relevant free online courses or other resources that enable you to easily demonstrate newly acquired skills. 

It’s never too late to keep learning. Most students pursuing their bachelor’s or master’s degrees on Coursera are 30 years old or older [2]. The median age of female learners on Coursera in 2021 is 31, with 1.2 million hailing from the UK [3].

Finding a cultural fit

Workers in their thirties, specifically millennials, change jobs more frequently than other generations. According to a Gallup poll, millennials feel less engaged with their workplaces but want to feel purpose in their work. They generally seek professional development opportunities rather than job satisfaction. When looking for a new role, they tend to consider factors such as growth opportunities, management practices, interest in their work, and jobs that offer strong work-life balance [4].

As you consider your next career move, you may want to consider your lifestyle, cultural needs, and job function preferences. One way to determine your cultural needs is to assess your current and previous workplaces. 

Ask yourself the following: What about a workplace that made you feel empowered, motivated, and able to succeed? Conversely, what about those environments that felt discouraging?

Some constructive introspection here will guide you towards your optimum career path.

Keep learning

Changing your career is the first pivotal step towards a more fulfilling work/life balance as you head towards your forties and beyond. Explore your career possibilities with Coursera. Sign up for free today and gain access to over 5,000 courses from world-class institutions, or become job-ready with career-oriented Professional Certificates from industry leaders like Google, Meta, and IBM.