WSJ's Five 'Almost Painless' Ways to Make a Career Change in Middle Age

Middle age is tough time to switch careers. For the typical worker it is the peak earning period as well as the time when workers achieve their highest rank, their fattest salaries, their most prestigious achievements. That said, middle age is also a time when we realize career satisfaction and happiness are work sacrificing for. Increasingly, the work-life equation is tipping toward life and workers forty and above are looking to change careers.

To make that transition a little easier here are five tips from the Wall Street Journal that might make it a little easier and which we've excerpted below:

1. Build on functional skills. If you like using your core skills and knowledge, consider transferring them to a different industry or field.

If a particular career change might work for you, identify your key functional skills and experience and repackage them in a resume aimed at the new field. Next, think of employers to approach and network to learn of possible openings.

2. Return to school. This can help you enter a new field that requires educational credentials that differ from your current background.

3. Start a parallel career. This is a career that begins while you continue in your former field.

If you keep your day job, while working weekends or at night in a second profession, be careful not to antagonize your primary employer, since companies don't always view moonlighting favorably.

4. Make an internal move. If you like your current company, consider a change of jobs there that launches your career in a new direction. Identify unfilled needs -- perhaps things others don't want to do -- and volunteer to do them while in your current job. You may be saddled with extra work temporarily, but it may get you into the new area or a promotion.

5. Go cold turkey. Suppose you don't want to stay in your current job another day longer. For you, quitting outright to enter a new field may be an option, especially if you can survive temporarily without an income.

In an earlier reference to this article in LifeTwo, it was noted that returning to school is hardly painless (the title of the article), however most universities have night and extension classes which can be attended while maintaining your current job.

This post is part of LifeTwo's Midlife Career Change FAQ covering all aspects of changing careers in middle age.