Change in Careers from Health to Elsewhere

iceteacake on 14/03/2024 - 10:17
Last edited 14/03/2024 - 10:24 by 1 other user

I am currently working as an allied health assistant.

I am looking for a new career prospects (realising that this field does not offer any growth for me and it is no longer of my interest). After many rejected jobs applications I am unsure of what I should do next. I am considering to get a careers coach but I am unsure if it will improve my chances or it is just a waste of money. I’ve tried to apply for jobs in other industries that have similar skills requirements, such as administration, customer services, still no luck.

What is the best way to stand out in an interview and In order to improve, what should I do?

Education & Work

Comments

  • jv on 14/03/2024 - 10:18
    +4

    What is the best way to stand out in an interview

    Go naked.

    • iceteacake on 14/03/2024 - 10:33

      I wish though, I am sure to get the position guaranteed !

  • Jimothy Wongingtons on 14/03/2024 - 10:25

    just fully rejected at application or do you get interview then rejected?

    • iceteacake on 14/03/2024 - 10:32

      Fully rejected. I got an interview like once or twice but it’s related to healthcare administration.

  • Tsubasa on 14/03/2024 - 10:28
    +1

    Would you consider another industry e.g. aged care where there is direct skill transferability?

    Or upskilling to a role with more career prospects e.g. getting the clinical certification that makes you an AH professional instead of an assistant?

    If you work in government, clinical or ICT projects tend to look for business analyst type roles that have a clinical / domain knowledge. These could be a lateral move.

    • iceteacake on 14/03/2024 - 10:42

      I wouldn’t want to transfer to aged care as I am trying to get out of healthcare.

      I work with AH professional and I don’t see myself being one. The pay is one factor and also it’s not an interest of mine. I have a bachelor degree in commerce already so if I was to transfer it would be somewhere back to commerce.

      • Tsubasa on 14/03/2024 - 10:46

        What were your commerce majors?
        Have you any recent experience that demonstrates the other skills you learned?

        Would you consider the defence force as a pathway? There is travel and education perks.

        • iceteacake on 14/03/2024 - 10:51

          Accounting.
          I only have 6 months in corporate and that was like 6 years ago.

          I’m not into military kind of jobs.

  • Fredfloresjr on 14/03/2024 - 10:31
    +1

    Do what you like and always take the risk. Good luck OP.

  • holdenmg on 14/03/2024 - 10:33

    Elsewhere is a big field and potentially means "anywhere other than Allied Health"

    Try and identify sectors that allow you to progress across and leverage your existing skills highlighting people skills, record keeping, confidentiality and privacy, IT etc.

    • iceteacake on 14/03/2024 - 10:36

      Yes I am trying to get away from healthcare. I love to travel but I think it’s such a niche market here, atm I want to get a position that allows me to diversify.

  • pharkurnell on 14/03/2024 - 10:34
    +2

    WTF is a "careers coach" ? What course do you do to become accredited? LMAO

    • holdenmg on 14/03/2024 - 10:45
      +4

      Someone you pay to be told stuff you can work out for yourself.

      • pharkurnell on 14/03/2024 - 11:42
        +1

        Like an influencer effluncer

        • holdenmg on 14/03/2024 - 11:51
          +3

          I liked Kath & Kim where she wanted to be effluent (as opposed to affluent)

    • Jimothy Wongingtons on 14/03/2024 - 11:12

      usually just those ultra confident super charismatic people - and give you tips like fixing body language, speaking, conversation work (Eg asking open questions, building rapport etc) -

    • Ughhh on 14/03/2024 - 20:23

      Someone who can help and answer Ops question?

  • Dollar General on 14/03/2024 - 10:52
    +2

    Have you had your resume professionally done?

    A few years back I applied for jobs with barely any interviews. A recruiter told me software scans your resume for key words and my resume was lacking here. Got it professionally done and was blown away by the change. Out of 8 jobs I applied for, only 1 I didn’t get an interview for.

    • Fredfloresjr on 14/03/2024 - 11:13

      Politician did your resume?

  • Ryanek on 14/03/2024 - 11:01

    How about a mining job in WA.

  • zonra on 14/03/2024 - 11:10

    Have you considered upskilling?
    If you’re working as an assistant now you would’ve worked with quite a few different health professions.
    Have you seen anything that tickles your fancy, grabs your interest or can see yourself doing?
    As someone who reskilled into health in my 30s I think this field offers a lot of opportunity for growth and job variety, plus a lot of the knowledge and skills are transferable between roles.

  • punkindrublic on 14/03/2024 - 11:34
    +10

    Having been through a number of career changes over my working life, I'm happy to offer you my two cents about my experience. First, some caveats: I'm not sure what your age is, your specific career goals, jobs you're applying for, how you perform in interviews, etc. All of these factors will impact the specific advice you need, but hopefully my more general/personal observations will help to some extent.

    I am looking for a new career prospects (realising that this field does not offer any growth for me and it is no longer of my interest).

    My first full time job was as a technical officer in the engineering industry (i.e. TAFE qualifications), which I went into because I had no other ideas and was getting sick of living with my parents and working a part-time retail job. I was fortunate to really enjoy my work, but my career was going nowhere and nobody was interested in offering me any meaningful training or work experiences to upskill. My wage was rubbish too (barely above minimum), and by that point the GFC was well underway, so I cut my losses and moved on.

    I agonised over what I wanted to do for a long time - change companies, go back to do a full engineering degree, backpack around the world. Eventually I decided to try a journalism degree, which morphed into a law degree, which I ultimately never used as I ended up in government and management consulting.

    Looking back, I laugh at how much I was freaking out over being stuck in a dead-end career, that my choice of degree would force me down a single job pathway, that it'd be too late to change jobs after hitting some arbitrary age. And maybe if I was 60 years old some of those concerns would be valid. But I was in my mid-20s, so if you're still young then my advice would be to just find something that looks interesting to you and give it a crack. At worst, it's not for you, and you pivot to something else that suits your current stage in life (e.g. if you're 25 you could take a big risk, if you're 50 with kids, maybe just find something to pay the bills).

    I am considering to get a careers coach but I am unsure if it will improve my chances or it is just a waste of money.

    I went to a careers advisor once I decided to leave engineering. Coaches/advisors are good for general advice - because I had no clue about what I wanted to do, I did an aptitude test to get a sense of my skills and what career paths I could consider. However, beyond general guidance, my advisor didn't offer much by way of specific tips about entering a certain career. She'd tell me about the university courses I could do for certain jobs, give me job description pamphlets about what you might expect as a hotel manager, doctor, etc., but there was no guidance about how to get these jobs, let alone how to succeed in them.

    So no, it won't improve your chances of getting a job - it will help give you ideas about what job you might want to do.

    I’ve tried to apply for jobs in other industries that have similar skills requirements, such as administration, customer services, still no luck. … What is the best way to stand out in an interview and In order to improve, what should I do?

    As a starting point, reach out to the interviewers when you're knocked back to find out why you were rejected. Often it's simply because they liked someone else more, and you'll get some vague non-answer from the recruitment team. However, on occasion they can offer you valuable feedback as to why you weren't a good fit - perhaps you lacked experience or required qualifications, perhaps you didn't present well at the interview, etc.

    Once you get a better sense of why you keep getting knocked back, you can start addressing these shortcomings. If you're presenting poorly, you can do some more practice beforehand and try to come across in a more polished way. If you're lacking qualifications, you can go back to study the appropriate course. If you're lacking experience, you can look for jobs that better suit your current experience in that field.

    In terms of general interview advice, the one tip I tell everyone I know is to use the S.T.A.R. method (situation, task, action and result) when responding to questions. It's basically an easy way to take a long, complicated work story and distill it down to the key elements that are relevant to an organisation. For example, if you were asked to describe a time where you successfully ran a team, you'd present the story in this format:

    Situation: My team leader was ill and I was asked to manage the team's work on short notice
    Task: Our team was responsible for cleaning the ward in a timely manner, helping patients get to and from their beds, and our work needed to be divvied up evenly and fairly
    Action: Having done this work for some time, I spoke to the team and advised them that I was managing the team that day. I assigned tasks to different people, making sure that a particular staff member with limited mobility was performing appropriate tasks
    Result: The shift ran smoothly, with no major disruption to ward activities or confusion as to what needed to be done

    If you try to follow this structure, you're giving the interviewer the most important information in a concise way, rather than going off on irrelevant tangents and boring them with how Lucinda the ward assistant is 60 years old, and has a bad back, and there was this one time where she tried to lift a patient and injured herself, but she's stubborn and wants to keep helping even though she's risking her physical health … sorry, what was the question again? Interviewers don't really care about those details, they want to know how you respond in a challenging situation, and get through the interview quickly so they can go on a lunch or toilet break and get on with the rest of their work tasks that day!

    This was a long answer to your questions, but hopefully you'll read it and feel a bit of relief that you're not alone in wanting to change careers and feeling utterly clueless about where to start. If there's one thing to take away from this, start asking questions of employers to get an idea about whether you're qualified for a job, and if not, what you'll need to be considered.

    • iceteacake on 14/03/2024 - 13:05
      +1

      Thank you for the insightful information.
      I have a degree in accounting but ended up in corporate for 6 months. I just finished university so I had no work experience compared to others and I had no idea about this. I was dismissed due lack of work and I decided to do TAFE allied health assistant course which landed me this current job and I realised how there are no progression within this field. I want to challenge myself so that’s why I’m looking for a new opportunity. I don’t think i will be suitable for accounting, since I’ve realised that I cannot be in front of a computer for so long as well as the tasks related to that field.
      I’m keen on travel and tourism but I don’t think my experience would lead me to a job in that field, as I am from health.
      I don’t even mind doing some administration in a bank etc just so I can get some experience which I can then move forward (I still get rejected).
      My friends also said that I have patient/customer services experience which can be relevant to other customers services jobs so clearly I’m not lacking in transferable skills, I do find myself to be anxious in interviews and cannot think clearly, I don’t even know if a psychologist could help.

      • punkindrublic on 14/03/2024 - 14:23

        It sounds like travel/tourism might be something you'd want to look into a bit further. The specific roles you're applying for might involve some additional study or training, but if you've already got customer service experience from your current role then that would surely be a key skill for the tourism sector. After all, you're working with tourists and travelers, so you'll need to be able to manage their needs and expectations. And although returning to accounting may not be for you, it could very well give you a foot in the door to some tourist or travel companies. Any business will need someone to work the books, so it could function as a entry point for some roles, giving you the opportunity to move around internally down the track.

        As for interview anxiety, I can empathise - I struggled for a long time as well and thought I'd never be able to get the hang of it. The key is practice, practice, and more practice, which probably sounds absolutely terrifying, but the more you repeat the same spiel and stories to demonstrate you abilities, the easier it gets. For me, going through about 20 legal clerkship interviews in a 6 week period was what helped me get the hang of it (eventually - the initial interviews were horrendous). If you don't want to go straight into the crucible like me though, have a couple of practice interviews with your friends to get more comfortable with the questions they're likely to ask. And write down some standard answers to common questions as well - you'll be amazed at how often you just repeat the same 1 or 2 S.T.A.R. structured stories in interviews!

        EDIT One additional comment about interviews - don't be too downcast if you keep getting knocked back. Those clerkship interviews I did? By the end I was aceing them all, with the interviewers wholly positive about my performance, academics, relevance of my past work experience, etc. etc. And yet I ended up with zero job offers - sometimes you're everything an employer would want, but there's this one other person they gel with that little bit more. Don't let that discourage you - just keep chipping away, practicing and seeking feedback, and eventually you'll get that job offer you're chasing.

  • El cheepo on 14/03/2024 - 11:35

    What kind of growth are you hoping to achieve?

    As in, whats your end goal?
    Have you got something/some amount of money your hoping to earn by 20xx?

  • fossilfuel on 14/03/2024 - 11:57
    +1

    I found Dan Clay's How to Write the Perfect Resume very helpful. How you present your experience and skills in a resume rather than just listing them can make a massive difference to whether you land an interview or not. It's made a huge difference when I've applied for jobs and landed more interviews.

    He also has excellent resources and resume templates on his website.

  • Benoffie on 14/03/2024 - 12:00

    As a teacher currently in the middle of jumping ship, can i recommend trying to find a professional group on either FB or Whirlpool who are discussing these issues? Teachers have one and the collective thoughts on resumes, applications etc (whilst protecting yourself and your own interests) is great.
    Career coaches are worth it but before that, see whats on YT etc. Many of them put free advice out on FB, YT, LinkedIn anyway.

    Questions you need to answer (at some point):

    What job/field do you want?
    What research have you done?
    Have you assessed your skills against these JDs?
    Have you identified skills gaps?
    What have you done to fix those?
    Have you updated your resume?
    Have you considered a transitional job?

    I have found in the teaching forums, teachers come in and state 'thats it, i want to leave and because i believe im highly qualified and earning x, i should be able to get job y. But no one wants me'

    First, its attitude. Theres a total lack of humility and appreciation that other jobs/fields have qualified, hard working people in them with more aligned skills than them. Then there's the unwillingness to take a hit in pay or ego, even for 12 months, to get a foot hold. And there's no strategy. No JD analysis, no free course taking, no volunteering, no networking. Just Seek and FB begging.

    Career changes dont just happen. They have to be worked at. Im still working at leaving teaching and its taken 18 months at least.

    Make a plan and work it 👍

  • 7ekn00 on 14/03/2024 - 12:46

    Learn to code!

  • netjock on 14/03/2024 - 14:26

    allied health assistant

    Use you knowledge of the job to get into management. Like if you are doing NDIS don't be the doer be the manager and work your way up. Managing people and taking a cut is where the money is! If in the right space like mental health can probably get into employee assistance programs those big corporates subscribe to. But when you talk about allied health it is pretty broad.

    PM me if you want a few tips. Can't guarantee they will be essays but might be helpful to get you exploring what options there might be.

    Also don't be a career coach. It is painfully hard. Even the ones who come out of high level corporate roles will give you canned advice because they had to invent something due to them being the right color on the Dulux colour chart.

  • original15 on 14/03/2024 - 16:02

    Is standing out in interview the problem or are you not even getting to this stage??

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join