Try NEW Toni (Work From Home) Permanent

August 9, 2021 2:34 PM

Burnt-out higher ed. professional seeks new career path. Details inside.

I've been working at the coordinator level in higher education for the past three years. Like many others, we were able to work from home for most of the past 16 months - something that we were not able to do at all before this. It has been a godsend, and it's given me time to assess my current position. I've come to realize that I'm ready to move on and try something else.

I like a lot of aspects of my job (great coworkers, lots of vacation time, making a difference), but the negatives (low pay, even for the industry and state; low/boring workload; few opportunities for raises or promotions) are becoming too overwhelming to continue.

I'm looking for a new career path - for various reasons, I absolutely do not want to stay in higher education. My current requirements include (from most- to least-negotiable):

-100% remote/WFH.
-Standard workweek of no more than 45 hours
-Average starting salary of $50-60K USD
-Requires no more than 1-2 years of training, if any (I do have my master's in Higher Ed. Administration, and I have strong writing/editing skills, but I don't know how transferrable that's going to be to other areas. I'm willing to pursue additional training/certifications/degrees).

Hivemind, where should I start looking?

posted by DRoll to Work & Money (8 answers total)

I would imagine you could transfer your skills to any number of jobs in tech that revolve around program management, training or writing. Agile coach, delivering remote training - which is very much in demand right now - I can imagine quite a few jobs at the company I work at that are just beyond starter level that would pay what you're looking for and would train someone with your qualifications into the role. e.g. a program coordinator or project manager.
posted by jzb at 2:45 PM on August 9, 2021

What ed-tech did your campus use? Check their website for CAREERS or call them! They LOVE having people who have worked in higher ed institutions to help translate what they can do for clients. Lots of jobs would suit - marketing, technical writing, etc.
posted by nkknkk at 2:47 PM on August 9, 2021

Yeah, I have a lot of clients in edtech, corporate training, enablement production or companies who have significant enablement programs, and many of them are from education backgrounds. Big companies with significant onboarding/enablement/training initiatives sometimes run those from departments that will seem weird to you when you're perusing job listings (HR, Operations, sometimes even Finance depending on the nature of the business) so don't let that put you off, just look for the jobs that are looking for an education background and start collecting the critical keywords you'll want for better searches.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:52 PM on August 9, 2021

Whoops - I miswrote earlier! Those characteristics are from least- to most-negotiable - sorry for the confusion.

Also, one aspect of my job that I failed to mention is that I do a lot of classroom presentations and outreaches, which I do enjoy. I'd like to think that I'm a competent public speaker, so anything involving training or speaking would work well, too.
posted by DRoll at 3:54 PM on August 9, 2021

Suggest BA, PM, or trainer. We hire lots of them at work - we are all WFH, though we're also all contractors (deloitte, caradira, others) so I'd suggest applying for those positions.

General organization, flexibility, and people skills are what we see a need for more than any specific technical, writing, or official project mgmt skills - those are all easy to learn given a great base, which it sounds like you have!
posted by esoteric things at 8:30 PM on August 9, 2021

nkknkk's suggestion is spot on. I've had the exact same thought process about work from home, and my experience/level is pretty much exactly yours (though I've been in higher a bit longer and have almost finished with my PhD instead). I was just hired by a company that makes a specialized software to work with customer feedback, the development process, and documentation and training for this software. The position hits all of your desired elements.
posted by past unusual at 8:59 AM on August 10, 2021

I work in a large financial institution. There are a lot of training related roles, as there is a huge ongoing stack of mandatory training required by regulators, and because there is always something new being added. I know quite a few people who work in training teams either developing/designing training, dealing with training logistics as well as actually delivering training. There are a lot of regulatory requirements and documentation requirements involved.

You might also want to look into professional institutions - like accountancy, actuarial, audit etc - they have training programmes for their qualifications, and ongoing professional development programmes, so there may be some possibilities there.

Good luck to you!
posted by ElasticParrot at 7:51 AM on August 11, 2021

Thanks, everyone! I appreciate the feedback. :)
posted by DRoll at 4:51 PM on August 16, 2021