We are discussing switching careers with someone who successfully moved roles from Accounting to IT.
How did he do this?
Dami studied Accounting and worked as a Finance Officer in Nigeria in 2016. It was exciting at first, but the excitement wore off over time as the pressures of the role and the rigidity of the profession began to outweigh his spark. Two years later, he was introduced to Fintech when the Wema Alat app was launched, and it sparked an interest in technology, data and business. Speaking to his brother helped him decide on a Master's degree in Financial Technology and taking free courses on Coursera, edX, Linkedin and Udemy such as Python programming, R programming and statistics.
While studying for his Master’s, he looked for part-time opportunities that would give him experience but ended up with a part-time job as a Healthcare assistant.
After completing his Master's degree in 2022, he applied for roles in Data Analysis, Business Analysis and IT but was unsuccessful. He believed his applications were unsuccessful because of his lack of experience in tech and in the UK. This led to him making some comfort zone decisions and applying for roles in accounting/finance. While in that role, he carried on his job search and learned to introduce tech-based scenarios in his responses in various interviews.
In one interview, the interviewer was fascinated by his interest in tech, and combined with their conversation around tech and data, he landed a role as an IT analyst in the Financial Services sector.
We spoke to Dami last week, and he mentioned that he is enjoying his new role. He added that pursuing growth through self-learning will also be his kryptonite.
Call To Action/Learnings from Dami’s Experience:
Understand why you want to switch roles. For Dami, it was that working with tech and data challenged him positively. Finding your why helps you move in the right direction despite setbacks.
Make sure you are switching to a role you are truly interested in.
Be curious and put in the work. Dami’s curiosity helped him gather some of the skills he needed even before his Master's degree.
Learn the skills required in the new field. Online courses, longer courses, podcasts, and books can help.
Learn about your transferable skills - this will help you if you are switching industries.
Look out for internships and volunteer.
Network and make good use of your connections. Dami leveraged his brother who was already a cloud engineer
Try, try, try again. If at first, you don’t succeed.
We hope this gives you the courage you need to take bold steps in 2023.