"If your horse dies, you can't ride any further"

Mathias, you have spent 25 years writing about people experiencing major changes in their professional lives and are the co-author of the book "Aussteigen Umsteigen". Where does your interest in this topic originate from?

As a child I experienced first-hand how stressful it can be if someone is in the wrong profession. My father would have loved to be an artist or doctor, but he gave into pressure from his parents and was a civil servant for many years. He often ranted about his superiors or colleagues when sitting round the dinner table but I believe that he was basically annoyed with himself for not having had the courage to follow his own ambitions.

How did you find your way professionally?

I took a mini career break when I was 20 and decided to take a gap year between school and university. Having spent years sitting at a school desk, I wanted to get a real job and earn my own money. This timeout, which I spent working in telesales at Publicitas and where I had a boss who really pushed me, was more important to my future career than school and university combined. Selling advertising, I came into contact with editors from the Bund daily newspaper and discovered you could make a living from being curious and writing. So as a student, I regularly wrote for the sport, local, cultural, financial and foreign sections of Bund.

For over 20 years you have written weekly in Tamedia papers about people who at some point in their lives have embarked on new career paths. Have you never been put off the subject?

No, in fact quite the opposite. I have always been impressed by the courage of the people I have got to portray. A guy with a doctorate in theology, who recalls his childhood dream and becomes a fireman just before getting his postdoctoral qualification, a lady who sells glasses, refuses to retire and becomes a self-employed private detective, a manager who can no longer standing being the boss and trains to become a palliative care provider and tantra masseur ... stories like these show that we shouldn’t cling onto our plans too tightly if they don't feel right any more or if we feel the urge to try something new.

In your writing, have you wanted to encourage people to switch careers?

No, but I’ve had more and more calls from people wanting to talk to me about their professional situation. So my own focal point has changed over the years: today, I am no longer employed as a journalist, but my own boss and work mainly as a careers coach and in adult education. My own example shows that switching careers does not have to mean suddenly turning everything on its head. You can build up something new gradually over time and reduce your hours with your former employer. Or you can combine several jobs like a media specialist I write about with a doctorate who decided not to become a professor so that alongside a stable job in a federal office he was able to produce tonic and aperitif concoctions with friends.

What are the most common reasons for people making career changes?

Psychological stress or a yearning – or a combination of the two. Psychological stress is more direct and stronger: if you have overworked yourself to exhaustion, if your relationship with your boss is difficult or if you work in a declining sector and are laid off, you have the perfect springboard for a new career. When we reach middle age, the desire for change can also be a big driver. Sometimes people suddenly recall something that was important to them at some point or achieving something in life takes priority over potential earnings and promotions. I have seen cases of a lawyer becoming a hypnotherapist, a graphic designer training to be a nurse and a multi-skilled mechanic developing a vegan cheese substitute.

What kind of questions do people wanting to switch career have for you?

Many of them face the challenge of being certain of what they don't want to do but not having a clue about what their new career could be. They would really like to have an exact plan, which eliminates all risk. But experience shows that you often need to be prepared to break away from the familiar and accept a degree of uncertainty. A lot of people also worry about being able to let go of something that they have invested 10 or 20 years of time and energy in. I totally understand that this takes a lot of effort but if your horse dies, you can't ride any further – you just need to get off and walk.

Do academics find it harder to switch careers than other people?

Yes, they do tend to because they have invested more time and money in their education; and social status often comes into play too. If your whole family is proud of you because you are the first to have gone to university, it takes more courage to then switch to a manual trade. One of my colleagues didn’t have the heart to tell his parents that he would much rather drive a post van than become an academic and spend the whole day glued to a screen. He only achieved his dream once his parents had died. A lot of career decisions are heavily influenced by birth family, which is why it is important to always analyse the situation honestly. We do not owe anyone anything and should find our own way in life. Meeting other peoples’ expectations or simply sticking with what we know can be very stressful.  

What do the statistics show: is the number of people choosing to stop working or switch careers on the increase?

I am not aware of any study that covers the entire subject. The number of people changing career has remained relatively stable for the last twelve years. But that does not tell us anything about how happy the people who stay put are – perhaps they are just delivering the absolute minimum and have long since given up internally. There have been some analyses into individual aspects, such as the career mobility of younger professionals but their motives may be very different. Do people switch jobs for personal reasons or because a robot is better able to do their job? Generally speaking, employers are faced with the problem of more people retiring than younger people becoming available to fill the gaps. This makes it easier for people to switch careers. It is also clear that the working world is in upheaval, there is virtually no job security these days and work is increasingly organised outside the boundaries of the company. So the key thing is whether you are passionate about what you do and whether you are developing as a person.