I'm comfortably retired with no interest in pursuing a second career now, but for some reason the other day I got to wondering just what other people who had done the career I had followed (academic librarianship) did for a second career, if they did that.
On to Copilot:
Q: can you predict the most likely post-retirement second career for a person based on what his first career was
A: I can absolutely predict a person's most likely second‑career path — but I clearly need one key piece of information first:
What was the person's first career?
Different first careers lead to very different what are sometimes called "encore careers," especially for retirees. For example:
1. A retired engineer often moves into technical writing or consulting
2. A retired teacher often becomes a tutor or corporate trainer
3. A retired police officer often shifts to security consulting or investigations
4. A retired business executive often becomes a nonprofit advisor or small‑business coach
Once you tell me a person's first career, I’ll give you:
1. His top 5 second‑career predictions.
2. Why those transitions are common.
3. The skills that carry over.
4. The income expectations.
5. The training (if any) needed.
Just tell me the first career title and I’ll map it directly.
So I told it I used to be an academic librarian (librarian at a university or college), and it gave me these five most likely, statistically speaking, encore careers:
1. Archivist consultant
2. Research consultant
3. Instructional designer
4. Community instructor
5. Nonprofit coordinator
(It's of course important to note that all this just follows a statistical pattern that the AI app picks up. In my case, the above "encore careers" are simply what Copilot compiled from examining the post-retirement careers that a number of academic librarians such as myself had pursued after completing their original library careers).
(And obviously, the above listed "encore" careers just happen to be the ones that a lot of former academic librarians decided to pursue, while whatever appealed to them could well have been what any number of them actually went after. We've probably all heard stories of something like the high-powered big-city business executive who retired and then went off to run a rural fishing camp somewhere. Because he wanted to!).
But it's still informative, perhaps even useful in some ways, to see what other people like me did, what they pursued, to get back into the workforce.
And perhaps, just for fun, you might like to try it yourself!
Get on Copilot, or one of the other AI apps if you prefer, and ask it:
Q: I am a retired [what you retired from]. What jobs do people like me tend to select as second careers?
and see what you get.
Even if you're like me, happy to be retired and wanting to stay that way, it still might be fun just seeing what, statistically at least, might be possible for you to be doing, again speaking statistically, if you did decide to work again.
Age: 80
Chronic prostatitis (age 60 on)
BPH w/ urinary obstruction, 6/2011
TURP, 7/2011
Ongoing high PSA, 7/2011-12/2011
Biopsy, 12/2011: positive 3/12 (90%, 70%, 5%)
Gleason 6(3+3), T1c
No mets, PCa likely still organ contained
IMRT w/ HT (Lupron), 4/2012-6/2012
PSAs (since post-IMRT): < 1.0
A fair number of retired people move away from what they were doing in a previous life for obvious reasons, especially those in the “management” field that does not represent anything specifically.
Retirement in the classical sense (65 yo) is different than changing jobs later in life where your previous experience is quite important to your value in the marketplace (what pay level you can obtain).
A neighbor who was a director at Fortune 500 company built homes with Habitat for Humanity after retirement. My father pursued photography after retirement. I was an engineer/manager and the last thing I want to do is engineering although I will help fellow old people with electronics.
Big difference between people who retire comfortably and those that have to work to pay bills at 70.
7/2018 (66yr), PSA 4.1->5.1
8/2018-MRI PI-RADS 5, MRI guided biopsy, 8/14 cores, G7(4+3)
9/2018-CT/Bone scans clear
11/6/18-RALP Surgery
11/2018-Post-Op Path G7(4+3) Tert Gr5, pT3a pN0, Grp 3, SM, EPE, <3mm
11/2018-Decipher 0.47, Ave Risk
1/2019-Epstein-G9(4+5) Grp 5, pT2x, margin vs. incision not clear
4-6/2019 ART 37 sessions
PSA<0.10: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
Retirement in the classical sense (65 yo) is different than changing jobs later in life where your previous experience is quite important to your value in the marketplace (what pay level you can obtain).
A neighbor who was a director at Fortune 500 company built homes with Habitat for Humanity after retirement. My father pursued photography after retirement. I was an engineer/manager and the last thing I want to do is engineering although I will help fellow old people with electronics.
Big difference between people who retire comfortably and those that have to work to pay bills at 70.
7/2018 (66yr), PSA 4.1->5.1
8/2018-MRI PI-RADS 5, MRI guided biopsy, 8/14 cores, G7(4+3)
9/2018-CT/Bone scans clear
11/6/18-RALP Surgery
11/2018-Post-Op Path G7(4+3) Tert Gr5, pT3a pN0, Grp 3, SM, EPE, <3mm
11/2018-Decipher 0.47, Ave Risk
1/2019-Epstein-G9(4+5) Grp 5, pT2x, margin vs. incision not clear
4-6/2019 ART 37 sessions
PSA<0.10: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025