Don’t want to hijack the last thread any more than I already have but I’m looking for guidance on a career change. I’ve been doing odd jobs and part time gigs since being laid off a year and a half ago. My professional experience has been in PPC (basically making and optimizing Google/FB ads) for years but I desperately don’t want to go back for many reasons ethical and personal. I’ve looked into some of my options based on skills, strengths, experience, and interests, and this is what I’ve come up with: • Financial services. Branch banking, client service associate, etc. for a reputable institution could be a good foot in the door. I like the idea of helping people get better about managing their money (and especially the volunteer opportunities a credential could provide), but I have no delusions about the sales aspect that comes with it. • Data/business/other analysis. I’ve gotten very good at Excel and using data to find trends and make recommendations. I know I’d need VBAs, Python, SQL, visualization tools like Tableau, or some combination of the above to be successful. • Operations, project management. Throwing these in here because ChatGPT suggested them but I don’t have the first clue how these tie into my experience or skill set. I don’t need glamour and I don’t expect to be rich overnight. I need stability, good ethics, opportunity for advancement, and the ability to provide for my family. I’m based in Pittsburgh where the big industries seem to be healthcare and banking. A lot of the community members work remotely in tech or in person for one of our mosdos. My networking hasn’t been too successful yet. The majority of leads I get are from the mosdos for part time work (for example I work part time fundraising for Pittsburgh Zal, which is teaching me that cold calling isn’t my thing) or substituting. BH my wife is a preschool teacher and we’re getting a lot of help so our bills are covered. However I want to get back to building our savings, paying off my student loans, and overall getting into a more comfortable place. I ballpark $50K for me or $75K household would get us there at least for now (obviously with a need for growth as we want to grow our family). Any ideas, suggestions, criticisms, referrals, etc. welcome. Thanks in advance.

If I may comment on the data/business/analysis idea - By all means learn VBA, Python and SQL because it’s good to know HOW these things work or how to think about data and algorithms, but expect the tooling and language to evolve. So learn these things, but more importantly, learn how to think about these things properly with the consideration that you will be guiding AI on what logic and process you need.

“Operations, project management.“- > this is the most generic one and useful since it can transfer over to almost any business. I would recommend finding someone who already does it and work with them to create a resume that showcases this based on your experiences.