How Women Switch Careers

Like many people, I remember being advised by my parents a time or two to choose a career path wisely because they, like many baby boomers, saw a career path as a life long choice (and sometimes like a lifelong sentence!).

Of course it was and still is a tall order for any young person to know what they want to do for the rest of their life. But I remember thinking at least when I make my career choice, I won’t HAVE to make it again. In other words, my immature mind could not comprehend how complicated life is. I didn’t understand that a person’s perspective could change; how each of us evolves and what fulfills us could change many, many times throughout life. And I NEVER considered what motherhood could do to motivate a woman to switch careers.

Ever since I’ve been a mom, I’ve required flexibility in my work and I had to find my own way to achieve a flexible career option. Being self-employed has allowed me that autonomy over my time that we learned even BEFORE the pandemic is a necessity – not a luxury. Make no mistake – it wasn’t an easy path but as they say, anything worth doing requires hard work (I share more of my full story here.)

STEPS FOR MOMS TO SWITCH CAREERS

So if a woman is interested in making a career switch, the next natural question is “but how?” Thankfully, we live in an era where technology makes it really easy to observe what others are doing, to research options, to gather information and to “learn enough to be dangerous” about anything. And thanks to people like Jennifer Jelliff-Russell, there are subject matter experts on career switching who share options for your consideration via her podcast, “Go Find Out: The Career Switch Podcast.” This podcast is a GEM.

I was honored to be a guest on “Go Find Out: The Career Switch Podcast” where Jennifer and I discussed the incredible world of becoming a social media manager. This was the career path I switched into from corporate America into back in 2010 and never looked back. Having my own social media marketing freelance business allowed me to build an agency made up of all moms working from home. This experience has given me my life’s work: my company, HayThereSocialMedia.com, trains moms how to start and run their own social media marketing business. And in this episode, Jennifer and I talk about how it’s done.

Like they say, knowledge is power and I’ve always believed OPTIONS are power. If you have career options, you no longer feel pigeon holed, stuck or hopeless with your current professional situation. The amazing thing about social media marketing is that SO MANY WOMEN are beyond qualified for this work and you can get into it at your own pace.

For any career switchers out there, please take a listen as I share with Jennifer what makes a good candidate, how to start, and what the potential looks like.

So let’s go!