Chalk one up for a career change

Swapping careers can be daunting, so Cathy Box went to a career coach.

Cathy Box with Charles Williams, Aydin Ilhan, Cooper Chilcott, Rishi Mahendranathan and Josh Fletcher. Picture: David Geraghty.

The pressure was mounting as her seniority was rising. Life in tax and financial advice was increasingly stressful and Cathy Box, then in her mid-30s, began to realise it was hard on her children when she was not home to put them to bed.

Box’s story of life climbing the corporate ladder would be similar for thousands of women with young children, trying to balance a career, family and doing the hard yards.

For Box, the answer to cutting back on stress and potentially missing out on watching her young girls was simple. She changed careers and became a primary school teacher.

“It wasn’t so much an epiphany, I was progressing through the ranks and I was at the point where I was going to make partner and was on that track, but it required more and more than I wanted to give,” Box says.

“As the pressure increased, my enjoyment decreased. My aspirations were always to be a partner but I was required to commit too much of myself.”

Box was working incredibly long hours and not getting home at night to tuck in her daughters, now seven and 10. She says she did not want to be “that” type of mum.

“That’s not to say women can’t do those jobs, but you find the balance that you’re happy with and everyone’s balance is different, and you have different priorities and ideals about what their profession is like, and what motherhood is like,” she says.

Before resigning, Box sought a career coach and spent six weeks working out what she was good at, what she enjoyed and what career and profession suited her most.

“We went through my strengths and weaknesses and did almost a health check of my skills,” she says. “I wanted a career and to feel like I was contributing.”

Teaching won, and after considering university lecturing or high school maths or economics teaching — given her accountancy degree and role at Ernst & Young for the previous 11 years — she chose primary teaching.

Box loves children and their energy, and chose a graduate diploma in education. She studied a new teaching course online with Swinburne University, and says it allowed her to choose her own placements.

She strategically picked schools near her home including her final placement, Brighton Grammar School in southeast Melbourne, where she has taught for the past two years.

With a corporate background Box brings a different perspective to the classroom. She shares her unit with a teacher who has 10 years’ experience, another who has 35, and two 20-year-olds who graduated this year and who keep things relevant and current.

But she says changing careers, quitting a long-term job and taking risks are not easy and can be daunting.

Jumping into a teaching career can be tempting, she says, particularly for mothers in high-pressure professions working long hours.

The holidays are attractive, the hours look great, but most people fail to consider lesson preparation time, assignment marking, school camps and the stress of dealing with children daily.

“There are a couple of important things for people to consider — gone are the days that people thought teaching was an easy career. It’s not,” she says. “I’m still working from 7.30am to 5pm but there are many benefits. I’m still spending all the holidays with my children and seeing them every day, but it’s not an easy profession.

“It takes a certain personality and to think it’s an easy choice would be unfair. But my personal stress levels are far less than they were. It’s a different stress now.”

Education is a thriving profession and recruits will always be in demand, particularly those working in science, technology, engineering and maths.

There are also leadership roles for people who had seniority in the corporate world.

Box says her experience can also serve as a lesson to students considering careers after high school.

With an increase in tech-focused jobs and professions changing rapidly, Box says it is OK to change your mind.

“I have friends with kids going through school and they’re so stressed about what they’re going to do for the rest of their lives, but they can change careers,” she says.

Career coach Matt Gaffney, who heads Enindico, in Melbourne’s Kew, has been helping people take different paths for the past six years, and helping organisations see the potential in their employees.

Gaffney sees career coaching as personal strategic planning for the next five to 10 years, and works backwards with people by setting shorter-term goals to help them arrive at their endpoint.

But career coaching is not always about making drastic job moves or even resigning, he says.

“I’ve helped people value they’re in the right place, but they just need to tweak things,” Gaffney says. “That’s helped two partners of big four firms stay where they are.

“I’ve also helped mothers of young children … I’ve helped reinforce they’re young stars and that they can achieve what they want to in due course, but they may not get all of that at once.”

Gaffney says making big moves because of dissatisfaction in the workplace is not always a positive thing either, and he uses a saying from a former colleague: “The grass is brown on both sides of the fence.”

He says: “Going from an organisation where you’re not happy but you know the people and you know the environment, there might be a way to manage who you report to if you have a difficult manager, rather than going somewhere where you’re seen as new and not valued — which may end in tears.”

Instead Gaffney advises people considering their future to build two-way connections, analyse their credentials and aspirations, and think about the role their families and lifestyles may play in their future.