Do you wake up in the morning and frown at the thought of going to work? Have you felt a burning desire to switch your current profession for some other field that promises job satisfaction? You are not alone.

Career counsellor Swati Salunkhe sees a sudden spurt in the number of young professionals opting for a career switch. Over the last few years, more than 400 professionals had looked for career guidance on various platforms and the number is increasing each year, says the founder of Growth Centre, a Mumbai-based counselling outfit. Most of them were from the information technology, engineering and BPO sectors.

Chennai-based Arvind Ashok had a dream job in the Mecca of the technology industry — Silicon Valley. But he soon realised that it was fitness he was really passionate about. It was only a matter of time before he quit his job and returned to Chennai to open a fitness centre. “When I realised I wanted to pursue a serious career in fitness, I attended a lot of fitness certification courses back in the US. Now, with my partner Raj Ganpath we run Quad Fitness Centre and I enjoy my job,” he says, determined never to return to the corporate world.

Following their heart

Living up to his family’s expectations, Abhilash Gupta became a gold medallist in his computer science engineering course before landing an MNC job. But he had other dreams of his own. After a year in his job, he quit in 2010 to set up a music production company. Recently, he and his team scored the music for an upcoming Hindi feature film. To others who may be inspired by his choices, he has this advice: “It is very important to be passionate and 100 per cent sure of steering your new career path. Apart from enhancing my singing and learning piano and guitar, I also did a lot of networking with the people in the industry while working at the IT firm.”

Music proved irresistible for Jishnu Dasgupta too. Confesses the lead bass guitarist of Bangalore-based Indian folk/ fusion band Swarathma: “I am living my dream. I just hope I can do justice to the blessing I have of living as a musician.” An alumnus of Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad, and premier business school XLRI Jamshedpur, it was not easy for Dasgupta to convince his parents about his decision to leave a 5-star hotel job. “They were concerned, and it was totally justified as I had just got married. But credit goes to my wife Shreya, who helped me take this decision and live with it peacefully. Swarathma is doing great and my family is now very happy with me. Considering I majored in marketing, I do some consulting projects, as also apply marketing concepts to the band.”

Anxious parents and friends routinely approach Saras Bhaskar, a counsellor, psychology coach and co-founder of Chennai Counsellor Association, when a loved one decides to switch careers. “The way to tackle the situation is to take time to explain to the family members the goal, objective and the ultimate satisfaction it will bring in one’s life. You may have to repeat this like a broken record sometimes, but don’t lose patience,” she advises.

The prospect of losing talented employees has forced IT companies to sit up and devise ways of nurturing the creative side of staff members. The Web site of Tata Consultancy Services mentions an initiative called Maitree, a platform to encourage hidden aspirations and talent of employees. It conducts workshops on theatre, yoga, origami, flower arrangement, chocolate making and several other hobby-related activities.

Requesting anonymity, a software engineer working in a leading IT firm shares his dream for the future as a trained Carnatic singer: “I eventually want to become a musician, as I am passionate about playing the guitar. Currently I am performing with our in-house office rock band. We play at the annual day and all festival gatherings in the office. At the same time I am building up my capital, which is an essential requirement.”

Lack of job satisfaction is a crucial reason for some of those seeking a career change. Aishwarya Iyer loved to write and worked as a journalist at a leading national daily. But little did she know that one day she would get tired of it. As she recalls, “I enjoyed covering the city beat for a year but got stuck there for three years. I could not go beyond 500 words per article, and thus my whole passion for writing as such was not fulfilled.” Happy in her current job with an NGO, she says, “Although I am not in the media world and do not have the tag of a journo in my present job, I am using the skills I enhanced in journalism and have ample opportunities to write a lot.”

Midlife career shift

The decision to leave for newer pastures is not restricted to the younger lot, as even entrenched professionals increasingly feel the urge to break off for something they could not pursue in their younger days. “I come across several parents who have worked for more than two decades in an industry — engineering, finance, medicine, management — and are now opting for a switch to advertising, interior design, event management and the like,” says Saras. In fact, some of them enrol in a course along with their children to jointly set up a company.

Quitting her banking job, Sarada Ramani had enrolled in a computer science course, found it interesting and went on to set up Computer International Technologies in the late 1990s. “I made this move when my children were independent enough to take care of themselves. To be your own boss was good, but far more challenging. However, I had the support of my husband,” she says.

The need to strike a balance between home and work life sees many women in high-profile corporate jobs shifting to a career in teaching. Says Rekha Rao, who worked in the IT-enabled services sector for seven years in the US, “When my daughter was born, I decided to spend quality time with her.” She quit her high-paying job and trained at the American Montessori Society. She will now teach in a Montessori preschool.

When making a career shift, professionals often seek guidance from career counsellors and career centres; it also helps to have some hands-on experience of the new job before leaving the old one. Bangalore-based iReboot conducts workshops geared to this need. Says Mahalakshmi Viswanathan, partner and managing director, “We invite professionals from different industries to conduct workshops for interested individuals.

After the workshop, participants stay in touch with the professional and even go with them on assignments. Our workshops have covered DJ-ing, photography, music production and radio jockeying.”

Those who are happy and doing well in their chosen new careers are now playing role models for other professionals seeking the change.

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