Is Changing Careers At 30 Years Old A Good Idea?

Not too long ago, I thought I was too old to do anything more with my life professionally. I thought I had kind of hit a glass ceiling of growth and performance in my engineering endeavors in the space industry. This was especially true after the space shuttles were retired; I wasn’t really sure where to go next.

“My pencil lead broke AGAIN… I just can’t take this anymore.”

I’m just a little over 30 and you know what? After looking around a bit more, I realized that there is so much life left. Even if retirement is somewhere between sixty-two or seventy, there are a couple of decades that should be left over after that. So at thirty, you are looking at forty to sixty more years of awesomeness!

So yes, changing careers at 30 is a good idea if you are seeking growth and development for the rest of your life. So get mentally unblocked, start growing, you can beat whatever roadblock is stopping you. Here are a couple things to help out.

Mid-Level Means Higher Positions

At thirty you are somewhere around your mid-level career qualifications. You are not too far down along a path that a switch would be especially tough, not impossible, but tough. And you are not so early on in the path that anything that is worth your time would reject you for not having enough experience.

You are at a really nice place, because a lot of positions that are in different industries or different companies require some level of professional experience that isn’t necessarily tied to your degree or field. And at thirty, you already have that under your belt. So know that there are higher positions and there are plenty available with the great work you have already done as proof of eligibility.

Plenty Of Directions

With all of that experience under your belt, and the base level inventory of skills that you’ve gained, you’re able to do so much more. These are the people skills that you have picked up, the professional skills that you have picked up, and maybe even the technical skills that you have gathered along the way.

This means that no matter what you are doing you can probably head over to a leadership position, a sales position, or maybe even a technical position, if your current job isn’t one of those already. Chances are you’ve dealt with these different departments within companies you have worked for. You have decent enough experience that, with the right amount of proof of your qualifications, you could do quite well.

No Industry Is Locked, Yet

You are not seventy years old, and a surgeon for foot cancer. You are thirty years old-ish and basically a teenager in your career development journey. You have any which way and direction you want to go ahead of you.

Whether that’s up, whether that’s sideways, whether that’s down, whether that’s on your own, the possibilities are endless at this age. Don’t block yourself and know that any other industries out there would be interested in the skills that you have gathered if you are willing to try something new.

30 Is The New Awesome for Your Career

Changing careers at thirty could be a great idea for you, I’m thinking it is for me. And I know that I am at my mid-level, there are higher positions available, there are plenty of directions I can go, and that I am not locked out of any industry yet. The same is true for you and to prove it to yourself, you can decide to take the single biggest step toward making your future path more clear: find your strengths and use them. It’s time to take the doubt out of what’s ahead, train up, and get growing.