Success Stories

Celebrate stories of successful career changers, their motivation for switching paths, and practical advice for making your own transition.

A Chance Meeting Led to a Career Change

For Dominic Proctor, 39, a chance meeting with an old school teacher led to a career change that has, in turn, changed his whole life. When Dominic went back...

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 di...

Asking for Work-Based Training

Some companies are much better than others at providing work based training for their employees. If you feel that you need some, you need to approach your ma...

Brother's Illness Gave Me a New Career Focus

When her seven-year-old brother Joel was diagnosed with autism, Melanie Goldman had no idea that it would lead to a fulfilling career for her. As the family...

From a Bank Manager to a Business Advisor

For many people that decide to change career after a long period of time in a particular role, they have not come to the decision lightly. More often than no...

From a Dietician to a Life Coach

A client recently contacted us to discuss their feelings about their career. Having spent many years as a dietician employed by the NHS, she was very confuse...

Going Bankrupt Gave Me a New Career: Case Study

There are very few people whose lives have not been touched in some way or other by the global recession. Although for some it has been a reduction in overti...

Holiday in France Made Me Change Career

For many people that want to change career, an important hurdle to overcome is deciding what they actually want to do. It’s all well and good if you know e...

How I Learned to Love Networking

An exciting career change doesn't necessarily mean you'll keep all the good bits of your old job without any of the bad. There are often aspects of your new...

How I Made the Most of Recruitment Agencies: Case Study

Although the recruitment industry can get a bad wrap for being all about hitting targets and not so much about finding candidates great jobs, there are certa...

I Changed Career from a Nurse to a Doula

For Sue Prentice, 56, from Leeds, her out-of-the-blue redundancy gave her the opportunity to fulfil a career change dream. Although she was shocked at the Re...

I Found the Career I Was Meant For

For many people, work is simply a way to make sure your mortgage and bills are paid, with any particular enjoyment of the actual work more of a bonus than an...

I Fulfilled a Dream of Being a Wine Maker

It is rare that a new client knows exactly what it is they want to do. Usually they will have a very clear view about what they don’t want to do, and often...

I Gave Up Consultancy to Run Cycling Holidays: Case Study

"It was all a bit of a shock really, one minute I thought things were just rolling along, you know, the way they do, then suddenly everything, all at once, c...

I Had a Great Idea for a New Business

For some people, a career change presents itself and they just can’t shake it off. This is what happened to Marie Simons, 32, when she was on maternity lea...

I Handed in My Notice Before I Found Another Job: Case Study

Just because the global recession has created a tough economic climate for many industries and people are being made redundant left, right and centre, it doe...

I Knew I Had to Change Career Direction

As many of us spend at least eight hours a day, five days a week at work, the impact it can have on our health and wellbeing is not to be underestimated. If...

I Knew I Wanted to Work from Home

For many of us, we know what we don’t want to do and we know what we do want to do, but it can be really hard to work out what career will give us what we�...

I Learnt to Appreciate My Nursing Skills

It is all too easy to undervalue our own skills and overvalue those of others. A recent client came to us to talk about her feelings of underachievement in t...

I Left Teaching After 20 Years

Often, when a new client makes their first appointment with a careers advisor, what they think are their issues are not really the problem. New clients think...

I Retrained as a Reiki Therapist

Reaching a milestone age can be a turning point for many people. A ‘Big O’ birthday can make us reassess our goals, achievements and circumstances, often...

I Set Up a Marketing Business With £250

If you’ve ever wanted to set up your own business but convinced yourself that it’s just impossible to manage without a hefty sum of money behind you, you...

I Sold My Business and Retrained

Although being your own boss is a dream for many people, for some it is not quite so fulfilling. For David Trent, 34, from North London, his expectations of...

I Sold My Treasured Possessions to Fund a Career Change

Thinking about a career change is a popular daydream, but for many people the cost and the hassle is enough to put them off turning their dream into a realit...

I Started a 5 to 9 Business: A Case Study

Although Deborah Franks, 36, enjoys her full-time job as a logistics administrator for a haulage company, her real passion lies in a completely different pla...

I Turned My Dressmaking Passion Into a Career: A Case Study

For Lynne Coulter, 45, the recession has given her the boost she needed to start her own business. Lynne told us, “I’d been working as a part-time manage...

I Used My Career Experience to Find a New Direction

A career change is an exciting opportunity to grab life by the scruff of its neck and really do something we want to, something that’s actually going to ma...

I Was Headhunted at 63

For many people, approaching their mid-60s is a good time to slow down and get to really enjoy the fruits of their labour. But for Elizabeth Nicholls, her 60...

My Husband and I Bought a Franchise

For Joe and Lynda Beckett from Leeds, the idea of being self-employed had long been appealing, but it wasn’t until a chance meeting with a franchise owner...

Redundancy Forced Me to Make a Career Change

Redundancy is no longer the great disappointing stigma is used to be, as more and more of us have to deal with at least one redundancy at some point in our l...

Socialising with Work Colleagues

Working long hours, you often end up spending more time with your work colleagues than with your friends and family. So it is important that you get along we...

The First Six Months in My New Career: A Case Study

Will Turner’s first six months of running his own business have been a rollercoaster ride of excitement and hard work. The Idea Since graduating in Creativ...

The Recession Helped Me Succeed in My New Career

Although the recession has proved to be a very difficult time for many thousands of people, for Mary Stone it has brought an exciting set of challenges. As a...

Transferable Skills for a Variety of Career Options

Flexibility is important for any career today. With job security a concern for many, developing a variety of skills that can be used in a wide range of jobs...

Types of Military Careers

The military is defined as an organisation that is authorised by its country to use force, including weapons if necessary, to defend the country. Thus, the m...

What I Learned About Myself from a Career Change

Although for many people a career in television production would be a dream come true, for one graduate it was a bit of an accident. Louise Oliver, 34, from...