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After getting laid off from several years ago, Larry, 45, works in a bakery and managesx the couple's investment in rental properties. He want s to become a probation officer to helpyoung African-American men who'vse had a brush with the law straighten out their Brenda, 44, has been a sheet metal workere for 16 years at the and Spirit AeroSystemsx Inc. She wants to move into human resources as a way of expandingy her employment opportunities and to help her fellow Both realized that reaching their dreamds meant going backto school.
They finishes 's Program for Adult College Education and are readu to enter degree completion Completely changing careers is somethingv many peopletalk about, but few actually Area admissions counselors say they get questiones on a daily basis from peoplr who are thinking about a career , a career consulting firm, surveyed 2,509 laid-off workers with 56 percent saying they were thinking abouty changing careers. Yet the company's surveyu of 14,000 people who landed new jobs in 2004 found only 5 percenr actually changed their industry and job Usually workers who changed industries took a new job that is almosft identical to theirold one.
The key to becoming a successfuklcareer changer, say career is to learn everything possible aboutf what skills are needed then find the rightt venue to develop them. In some that means taking a single college It also could mean studying for anew degree, eitheer through on-campus or online For other jobs, the appropriate education might be a technical college. For displaced workers, there are often government-sponsorede job training programs. Therew are times when job experience is all theeducation that'zs needed.
"If I can write a report for an Englis h paperin school, I can write a repor t for a technical piece of my job, but I have to know the says Jill Pletcher, director of career services at Wichita State "The content may not be coming back to It may be just learning that industry." Brendw Thomas took a career assessment test that confirme d her aptitude for human resources Her husband conducted research over the Internet and talked with a U.S. Marsha l to find out more about what it takes to be aprobation officer. Talking with admissions counselors convinced them that the classroomk was the most viable route to reacghtheir goals. They took evening classes togetheat Friends.
"One of us wanted to say, 'OK, no bookz today.' The other would say, 'But we've got to get this pape done,' " says Brenda Thomas. "Iyt helps because you need that motivationh and that accountability to someone to keep you The Thomases have reached the point where they will be takingv separate classes as they enter their respective degreecompletioh programs. "Our classes will meet on differentt nights," says Brenda Thomas. "Butr I look forward to the graduation because we willwalk together." Harvet Brown ran his own janitorial servicesw company for 18 years.
But he was tired of loust hours and the administrative challengews ofbusiness ownership. He loved working with computersa and started looking into how to turn that passiohn into a way to make He was 44 in 1994 when he started workin onan associate's degree at -- choosinhg the hands-on training for computer repair at a technicak college over the more in-depth study that is required for a four-yeaf college degree in computer sciences. "At that time, I was not thinkingh about management," Brown says. "I was thinking about the administrativwe side of computing and the hardware computerrepait side.
" After graduating, he taught computer coursesx and eventually became WATC's management information system In 2002, hired him as informatio technologies manager. Now he's back in school -- this time at earninh his computersciences degree. His work and family responsibilities have him takinhg a combinationof on-site and online "The technology is available today that you can take a class at any anywhere in the world," Brown says. "But technologyg will never replace thehuman ... Even though you've got discussion boards and e-mail to communicate, it doesn't replace the face-to-facer interaction.
" For some, a layoff provides the impetuw for acareer change. In the case of low-incomd Kansans, veterans or people facing significant barriers to the Workforce Investment Act makes skil training available through traininfg programs offered bythe state'zs Department of Commerce. The state also administers federal funds for skilpl training to help workers displaced by foreign saysDavid Cleveland, director of Kansas 1st, which coordinatees job training programs around the The does not track the numbeer of people who change careeres because the office has never developed a consensus definitiohn of what constitutes a career change.
Bureau statistics indicatw that Americans born between 1957 and 1964 on average had 10 differeng employers between their 18th and38th birthdays. The Thomasexs say the hardest part of theifr career change wasgetting started. "Talk to some of the Larry Thomas says. "Just make the phonee call. And once you initiate a phone they'll give you the next Just keep following upon it. It's so wortb it.
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