Are you ready for a career change? Have you ever set out to find the job that’s right for you?
This is what happened to Maureen Kelley Stewart , who, after 30 successful years in media sales, set out to find something more meaningful.
“I was seeking to utilize my sales skills to explore and break into a new world: Development/Fundraising for Non-Profits,” Stewart says. “Unfortunately, my timing was totally off for this transition. The year was 2008. A very difficult time to transition…anywhere.”
For anyone, this would be quite a dilemma. Though perhaps not entirely satisfying, it would have been safe for Stewart to stay where she was. But the desire to apply her skills in a more meaningful way was so strong with Stewart that she pushed forward. “Despite my bad timing, and with determination to apply my newly learned strategies from GetFive, I began to actively network in the non-profit, development world.”
While Stewart applied the tactics she learned with GetFive, she grew her network and made a great many contacts in the nonprofit world. Unfortunately, none were able to hire her during the difficult economic time.
So, she decided to work pro-bono for a non-profit whose mission was to prevent homelessness among vulnerable populations.
“I worked for this organization for eight months, learning all I could about the development world, including grant writing, events-planning, and a range of fundraising techniques. While I dove [in] wholeheartedly, I was ultimately quite surprised to discover that I was personally not comfortable in this milieu, which I had long thought and planned as my next career after media sales. While it may have been my experience at that specific non-profit, I was fairly stunned by this realization.”
Fortunately, all of her networking paid off and a former media-sales colleague contacted her about a job offer with a company that was undergoing significant changes from print to digital, which was a new challenge for her.
“I was pushed into learning how to articulate and sell digital media advertising, and suddenly, I was doing it on a full-time basis. I am happy to report I successfully sold digital media for this national brand until this past spring 2016.”
Now retired, Stewart reflects that though things didn’t go as planned, there were some valuable lessons to be learned from her experience:
“Have the courage to explore every area of interest. Talk to everyone. Take chances if feasible for your situation. Get hands-on experience in your “dream” field, even if it means doing it for free. What I discovered was my best fit (my “tribe”) was really where I was in the first place. Luckily for me, the parameters of the job had changed in that area, and despite my fear of failure, I was able to adapt to it — to my utter surprise and delight. More importantly, this happened as I was entering my sixth decade. Bottom line: There is work (no matter your age) — great and satisfying work — if you focus, focus, focus, and just stay energized!”
