3 Tips For A Successful Mid-Career Change

It can often feel as though, the longer you spend in any one role, the longer you’re destined to spend in that role––or, at the very least, in that company. The longer it’s been since you refreshed your resumé, trawled through an online jobs board or sat down to interview for a role you really want, the more you may feel as though you’re simply too far out of the game to even risk rolling the dice.

After a certain number of years, it can be easy to feel as though you’re past it: you don’t know what it’s like out there in the jobs market; you know and love your co-workers; and you’re not as young as you once were, which worries you that you won’t be able to keep up with all of the recent graduates and “digital natives” who have flooded into the tech industry since you graduated.

But what if you’re coasting in your current job? What if the ideal role – the one that will give you the perfect work-life balance and leave you feeling incredibly professionally fulfilled – is out there just waiting for you to fill it?

Never too late

It’s never too late to look for a new role, and the good news is that all of those soft skills you’ve been building up through your years of experience––leadership, people management, negotiation and teamwork––are more valuable than ever before, and will truly mark you out from the competition. Plus, according to the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), there were a projected 8.9 million tech jobs in the U.S. in 2022, 178,000 of those newly created roles, ripe for the picking.

Here are three things to keep in mind, should you find yourself searching for greener pastures:

1.  Figure out your goals

What is it that you’re looking for? Why are you considering shaking up your career now, and what do you hope to get out of the change? Identifying this will allow you to truly get granular in your job search. While there are tech roles in almost every industry, you might have an idea that you’d love to work in music technology, or in the growing fields of food or green tech.

Identifying what it is that you’re on the hunt for will make things infinitely simpler when it comes to refining that job search.

2. Identify your new skills

So it’s been a while since you sat down for an interview or updated your resumé. What skills and expertise have you added to your lexicon? Perhaps you’ve gained experience in managing a team of people or you may even have become an expert at a particular software or technology that was introduced to your role after you started.

Look up similar roles to yours: What do they say their ideal candidates should have? Chances are, they’re all skills you’ve acquired through your years doing that very job.

3. Bone up on the essentials

You may also see some gaps in your knowledge and experience that will trip you up, come job application time. Is there an online course you can do that would fill those gaps? Can you engage in some extra training that would give you an advantage?

Need some further inspiration? Take a look at these current vacancies, and find plenty more on the Tech Wire Asia Job Board.

Principal Software Engineer at Autodesk, San Francisco

Autodesk is recruiting an experienced full stack software developer to fill the role of Principal Software Engineer in its San Francisco team. You’ll develop high-quality, scalable, secure, stable code for use in products and solutions for customers, making it easier for other developers to maintain, enhance and reuse. You’ll need a degree in software engineering or IT, as well as a minimum eight years’ experience in full stack software development. Two years’ of big data experience would be a distinct advantage. See further details of this Principal Software Engineer here.

Multi-Solution Specialist, Advertising Cloud Trading & Integrations at Adobe, NY

The Trading & Integrations team at Adobe Advertising Cloud is looking for a Multi-Solution Specialist to help clients realize the value of the Adobe Experience Cloud product stack. You will support internal teams and clients alike to strategize, activate, and analyze data points to deliver a comprehensive view of paid media efforts across channels. The ideal person for this role will have two years’ experience working with Adobe technologies, specifically Adobe Analytics and Adobe Audience, as well as experience working for or with a DSP in an Account or Campaign Management capacity. Apply now for this Multi-Solution Specialist role.

Application Developer at Apptad Inc, New York

Data management and insights consultancy Apptad is currently looking for an Application Developer to join its team on-site in New York. You will develop and support financial services applications related to equity and portfolio swap life cycle and life cycle events, synthetic prime, portfolio, equity and total return swaps, and equities and equity trading, as well as designing and implementing technologies to reposition the existing Apptad platform for future success. You will need a degree in software engineering or computer science, as well as several years’ experience in an equity swaps environment. See a detailed list of requirements for this Application Developer role here.

Want more opportunities in tech and beyond? See the Techwire Asia Job Board here

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