A Retraining Diary

Taking the brave decision to retrain is not one to be taken lightly. All too often people go on some terrific holiday and get all fired up to do something different and hand in their notice as soon as they return to work.

Of course, that’s one way of doing it and, for some people, making a crazy decision is the best way to make something happen. But for the majority of us, a major decision such as deciding to retrain is one which needs some consideration.

Career Advisor’s Casebook

When a client contacted us and asked for guidance through a period of retraining, we were only to happy to hold his hand through the process. Retraining is not necessarily a sure-fire way to get a well paid, stimulating career, so you can’t just launch yourself into a retraining programme and assume you are making a good move.

Career Advice

During our initial meeting, the client discussed his plan to retrain. Having spent fifteen years working in insurance, following a history degree at a respected university, he was keen to start afresh. The client felt that he had ‘drifted into’ working in insurance and, while it provided a good standard of living for his wife and young family, he did not feel fulfilled or challenged.

The client was well aware that his job was secure and purposeful as he was a broker for life insurance for his local market town and had a good local reputation, but he felt like each day was the same as the last and the same as the next.

The Key Issue

The key issue seemed to be that he felt this was his ‘last chance’ to feel fulfilled. His children were at the local state school and were years away from planning expensive developments like university or marriage, his mortgage was easily affordable and he had his wife’s total support.

Although all this support and practical positivity may seem like a help in planning to retrain, our client actually felt guilty, as though he had it too easy and should not make things more difficult. It also made it hard for him to appreciate exactly what he did want to do, other than the knowledge of ‘something different’.

Our time was spent talking through different times in his life that he felt truly alive, holidays he had really enjoyed and people he looked up to. Initially appointments were all about understanding what he wanted to move towards, rather than simply move away from. We talked about what drew him to study history at university and what he had ‘wanted to be when he grew up’.

If You Can, Teach

It became clear that our client had a passion for history and for sharing his passion. Insurance filled a need to deal with people on a daily basis, but he was often tired of dealing with jaded adults. A later discussion showed that he had wanted to take a PGCE course after his degree but his parents were not keen, seeing teaching as a ‘lazy option’.

We talked about this viewpoint and he realised that a great teacher is very different from an average teacher. We looked into possible funding and the new Government scheme to encourage new teachers, allowing on-the-job training that ensured both payment and potential for becoming a fully qualified teacher from day one.

As this scheme has regular state dates throughout the year, we were able to complete the application form in time for the next intake.

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