After dozens of hours of deliberation, fretting and denial, I finally decided to take the plunge, and get PRINCE2 certified and begin the lengthy process of changing my career (and in many ways, my life).
For the benefit of the fine readers of this blog, and in thanks to the staff who provided me with helpful resources, I thought I might document my journey through career change and give you mall a small infight into what it looks like from the inside.
This is the process I used during my career change – as you’ll see, it was not a straight line from A to B. I’m sure this is typical of any career change example – life is full of unexpected turns which you’ll have to deal with during your career change.
As a bit of background, I’ve spent the last decade working in and out of mines. Sometimes this meant operating heavy machinery, fixing said machinery, writing software, creating reports, organizing logistics etc.
At first, I started listing out all the software packages I could use, the electronics, electrical engineering and equipment I had experience in the use of. I added in all the transferable skills I had gathered (spoken and written English, working with people at all levels of an organization, working with people from different cultures, people management, time management).
Looking at the long list, I realized that I was writing was not what the core of my work – my real work was about fixing things and improving how things were engineered.
I am good at fixing things – that was the main skill, knowledge, talent, ability required in my IT and engineering career – whether it was repairing the electronics of terminal, writing code in two different languages, to run on two different computer platforms, or reconfiguring the network to enable two companies using different operating systems and services to work together. I like finding out how things worked, especially by “trial and error” experiments, using logic.
I like knowing how things work and being able to understand what might make them fail, and how to prevent the failure. I like figuring out why something isn’t working, fixing it so it works again, and if possible, modifying it so that it doesn’t break again. I like getting things that have never been put together before to work, to do something that was not expected to be possible, for a lot less than was projected to be spent, in a simpler, more elegant way than was imagined. I like learning.
At that time, I had minimal debt and a well-paid job.
I investigated universities and courses on offer in Holland, England, Scotland, Ireland, the USA, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. Many were expensive, or I was not eligible.
I had to change my tack slightly – I asked myself, what are my future plans? What am I most interested in? What career would be the closest match to my skillset and ambitions? What’s the easiest route from A to B?
Luckily during my education and years working and had accrued a diverse network of friends, associated and professionals, and it was during this time that the idea of project management was introduced to me. I created a plan to help me track my progress through concrete goals and eventually achieve what I wanted most.
As I quickly learned, no one takes a gamble on an unqualified project manager, even if your soft skills are there, and a lot of work experience is there, everyone expects a recognised qualification to be front-and-centre on your CV. So I browsed the hundreds of options available online and finally settled for a PRINCE2 certification course.
Training was quick and easy, and in no time I soon had my shiny new qualification. Its hardly the end of my career change, but it’s a good first step and at the very least, it’ll help me get shortlisted for more interviews.
The process of changing careers has a sharp learning curve, and I’m by no means done, but watch this space and I’ll be sure to keep you updated on how things go from here.
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