Anonymous wrote:I shifted to fed foreign service at 50.

Op - how has that transition been? Was it hard to do?

Anonymous wrote:That’s pretty decent. Maybe look at adjusting your lifestyle to fit your salary? How much does your wife make?

Op - we are in nyc so col insane.
Wife makes about $650 - 750 (depending on bonus). But again in nyc that is prob equivalent of $250 in dc.
I would like to make it more even so she can step back

I shifted to fed foreign service at 50.

That’s pretty decent. Maybe look at adjusting your lifestyle to fit your salary? How much does your wife make?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Describe media. I am 45. I make a little over 150k. Association writer/editor.

Op - journalism/ content/ social. Make about $160.

Real estate and product development interesting ideas. Would love tech but they are laying ppl off like crazy right now.
Am kind of a generalist so not a ton of deep contacts

I was about to encourage you by saying my husband just made the shift from journalism to content/marketing for a company in the industry he covered for 20 years. But he went from $90k to $130k and we are thrilled!

Anonymous wrote:Describe media. I am 45. I make a little over 150k. Association writer/editor.

That's a lot of money! I do nonprofit editing/writing and am just starting a new job that pays $85k - and I thought that was decent. I guess next time I am ready to try for something new, I should look at associations!

Switch to comms/PR.

Anonymous wrote:How about real estate? Your skills should be able to do a great job marketing properties. You can target residential or commercial.

Not unless you already have a huge book of personal contacts in your market.

Anonymous wrote:Describe media. I am 45. I make a little over 150k. Association writer/editor.

Op - journalism/ content/ social. Make about $160.

Real estate and product development interesting ideas. Would love tech but they are laying ppl off like crazy right now.
Am kind of a generalist so not a ton of deep contacts

Describe media. I am 45. I make a little over 150k. Association writer/editor.

Thomson Reuters is a good idea. Also, a lot of the consulting companies are often advertising for copy writers, or content developers, etc. Good luck!

Maybe look into product development where you could exploit your media experience? A lot of tech/media companies have product development roles that pay a lot better than journalism and are a totally different change of pace. If you can spin your media experience as deep knowledge of audiences/markets (depends a bit on your experience but I bet you have more to offer here than you might think), then combined with your MBA that could be a good fit.

Look at companies that have legacy media product lines but are looking to develop more paid products. One that comes to mind is Thomson Reuters -- they have a lot of product lines that are geared towards harnessing Reuters and some of their legal products and other companies they've acquired over the years to create proprietary services they can sell B2B. I'd also look at all the big tech companies which are all doing similar things, as well as smaller tech firms and start ups.

It's a bit hard to advise further without knowing what kinds of roles you've held in media and what your coverage area is (general, politics, culture, business?) because those all have different trajectories. But a 20 year career in media usually means lost of contacts within the covered industries/areas and deep knowledge in at least a couple subject areas. I'd look at that and think of how you can commodify those assets on the job market. There are absolutely people who will pay you for that background, you just need to figure out who needs those assets and can profit most off of them.

How much do you make now and how much do you want to make?

How about real estate? Your skills should be able to do a great job marketing properties. You can target residential or commercial.

Have been working in media for 20y and am so tired of making low to average money. I got an mba hoping it would open more doors but it really hasn’t (not helped by pandemic). Is there anything I can shift to that would guarantee to be remunerative? My wife has been shouldering the financial burden for 8 years now, through cancer, and I would love to be able to shoulder the burden so she can step back. Any advice super welcome!