Carol studied engineering at university but then made a career change to management consulting. Later she made a career change to become a Learning and Development Manager and finally a HR Director. In between, she also completed a stint as General Manager for a not-for-profit organisation. Carol has experienced many career transitions in her life!

In her interview with CareerAbility, Carol shared her career story – how she found each new opportunity, why she made the transition and what she did to establish herself in each career role and achieve success. She also draws out some key themes from her journey which could help others considering a career change and wanting to know how to make it work.

Career 1 – Engineering

After high school, Carol completed a 5 year work-study program to become an engineer. This included working for several multi-national companies, one of which offered her a permanent job.

However, Carol soon decided that she didn’t want to pursue engineering as a career, as the projects she was involved with were very slow to develop and she found it quite boring. At that time, it was also primarily a male profession and didn’t feel a good fit for her.

Career 2 – Management Consulting

Carol decided to change career direction by completing an MBA. However, she couldn’t commence this until she had at least a few years of professional work experience, so she continued working in engineering for several years.

Attending business school was life changing and expanded her thinking. After graduating, she took a role with a management consulting company because she saw that as a great way to learn, build her skills and develop knowledge and experience in a range of industries.

The greatest challenge in transitioning to management consultant was learning to deal with lots of ambiguity and no absolutes. It was hard to adjust to making the best decision based on the available information at the time, but she learned to do so with practice and experience.

Career 3 – Learning and Development Manager and Consultant

After some years in management consulting, Carol took a break to start a family. During this time, her husband worked for another consulting company and someone from that organisation asked Carol to come in for a chat about a temporary role to fill a 3 month gap they had.

Carol thought a conversation wouldn’t hurt, and she was subsequently offered a permanent part-time role as Learning and Development Manager.

Whilst Carol had no experience in this area, she was hired because of her management consulting background. This meant she understood the people she was going to develop, the environment in which they worked, and she had the skillset they needed.

Combining this base with hard work and her love of learning, she established herself in this new field. She found she had a passion for helping people learn and develop and she was able to continue this role as a contractor over many years while she raised her children.

Career 4 – Not for profit Managing Director

Towards the end of this time, Carol submitted her CV to express interest for a volunteering role in a new not-for-profit organisation. They invited her in for a conversation, which culminated in them offering her a full-time paid role as Managing Director.

Carol was very interested in helping set the organisation up so they could “tackle the problems and the issues that [they] stood for”. She describes this role as “the biggest learning experience ever in my entire life.”

She had no knowledge of not-for-profit and it was very different from what she expected - including front facing media work and lots of major fundraising. She learned an enormous amount in 18 months but faced burn out and decided to step away.

Career 5 – HR Director

After a period of recovery, Carol walked past a senior manager in the street, who worked for the consulting company where she had been Learning and Development Manager. She was invited by this manager to discuss a potential new opportunity, resulting in an international role as a HR Director. This was a huge change for Carol and involved a very steep learning curve about what HR do, HR laws in different countries and much more.

For the first 3 years in this role, Carol experienced imposter syndrome. She succeeded by working hard to learn the basics; drawing on her management consulting and learning and development experience, problem solving and analytical skills; working out where she could add value and investing a lot in building relationships. This gave her good support networks she could seek information from to solve problems.

Her manager was also an excellent coach and mentor and she drew on her expertise. “It was just kind of the perfect culmination of everything that I've done, in the right environment, with a leader that I really respect, in an organisation that I just think is amazing”.

The keys to Carol’s career transition success

Carol has never had an over-arching career goal or passion across her career.

Each career decision has been driven by curiosity, a desire to learn and be challenged and a belief that this new step could open up further opportunities. “Every time I made a decision it was always driven more by - is this interesting? Am I going to learn? Does it have opportunity attached?”

Understanding her motivations has enabled Carol to evaluate and embrace a range of career opportunities.

Authentic networking and serendipity have both played a major role in Carol’s career transitions. She has always been willing to have a conversation, which has led to some very interesting roles.

Carol has also approached new opportunities with a ‘why not’ attitude. She has not been afraid of trying something new or making a change. “Do it, let's see where it goes.”

Finally, she has learned that you can grow and learn from every role you do, even if you don’t always love it.