Crisis question

[Tincer]

Hie all, I have aquestion that maybe a little wierd but bear with me please. So I am currently a strategic management and innovation management lecturer here in Belgium at the equiavalent of what you would call a community college over there..I am 31 and I started lecturing at 23 as I initially got hired by the school I graduated from due to my high grades when I was pursuing my Bsc. there. I have just learned that my contract will not be renewed it runs out in December 2020. I need new skills, I know an eduaction will not give me skills but it will potentially get me through the door at a company where I can hone in on a set of skills....

I have no passion areas really to be honest, so I am open to suggestions....i know this maybe stupid but I just need a help finding direction...I have no bearings at all and its keeping me up at night...I need skills that are markatable!!!!My experience and education has no tangible skills...no one is looking for an innovation manager or any kind of manager straight from academia...so please suggest, programming, accounting, anything really I could do between now and March 2021.

Much love

Tince

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So in short I have an Masters education and no skills, maybe reading long journal entries and lecturing if that is considered a skill..I have no future in academia, so what do I do to get ready for the private sector by Mrch, latest May 2021?

[CarpeDiem8]

Hi Tince!

It sounds like you are referring to what they call as "hard" skills.

I would say every skill, most especially "soft", is marketable as it depends on how you spin it to prospective employers.

For example, you could try to get a job as a Customer Experience Manager and explain that your background and skills in education and management greatly mirror that of the emerging customer experience and customer success fields (which it does). And then you lay out specific xyz and sell it from there. It's all about connecting those dots for them in your cover letter.

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/1271489125/

It's always about who you know and how you spin something.

My questions are:

How many languages do you know? At least here in the US, bi-lingual is a highly sought after skill.

Are you planning on staying in Belgium after your contract is over?

How much interest do you have in tech? And if so, what area? There are sooo many directions one can go with tech, so it all depends. There's front end web / back end web development, software, big data, analytics, machine learning, the list goes on and on and on.

Good luck!

[cardiacclep]

Hi Tincer,

You probably have a lot of skills that you take for granted. You have a decade of professional teaching and public speaking experience. Those are real world and hard skills in my opinion. If you have great people skills and can speak confidently in public you are way ahead of many professionals. Things that come to mind are sales or project management just to name a few occupations. You could get a quick project management cert or a basic tech cert to show motivation to get your foot in the door for tech sales. Don't sell yourself short, I have seen people climb the ladder with confidence and public speaking skills passing over technically superior colleagues. Just my two cents. Good luck on your journey....you have more options than you think.

[Ideas]

What is in demand in Belgium? Or might you move? I don't know what the market is like in Europe. Over here (U.S.), I'd say that you could go into corporate training. Seems to be in demand, well paid, etc though I guess you'd start near the bottom.

If you feel up to doing sales, I think that's a great area, like cardiacclep said. In my opinion, it doesn't have to be tech sales, but that's a good area.

[Jonathan Whatley]

To the excellent suggestions of career fields here, two more: Technical writing. And public relations and corporate communication, including government relations. You can talk to external stakeholders about how their strategic priorities and your employer's strategic priorities can align.

[cookderosa]

this may not be what you're looking for, but can you promote UP instead of OUT? Administration in a college is a nice career. I did it for many years and it wouldn't have to be at your SAME college, you could apply elsewhere. Colleges love to promote up from faculty ranks.