At the time of her redundancy in 2018, Lee Longmire set herself a goal to set up a consulting start-up from her Narrandera home by March 2021.
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If only she'd had a crystal ball at that time, she may have been able to predict that she'd be launching her new business at the height of a pandemic.
In hindsight now, Ms Longmire considers the time to have been her greatest challenge with a corresponding high reward.
"I launched as COVID shut everything down, it was not ideal," Ms Longmire said.
"It was bad timing but in the end, it helped."
While tending a small farming enterprise with husband Geoff, the Narrandera mother had carved a lengthy career in the public service before her redundancy in 2018.
With her background in administrative services, she turned her focus to creating an administrative empire. with The Organiser & More.
She returned to TAFE in Wagga, renewing her qualifications 25 years since she first completed the equivalent to her Certificate IV in business administration and began on her way to her start-up.
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Now, from her home in Narrandera, she helps businesses across the country with their administrative work.
In that sense, she believes she was well-positioned to begin her work during the pandemic when the world became much more aware of working-from-home solutions.
"During COVID there was a massive shift, it had to change overnight and people were open to having a consultant come in to explore how to do that," Ms Longmire said.
"COVID made people realise that the way it's always been done, that option was taken away. People become much more open to virtual workers."
Ms Longmire was not alone in her efforts to drastically change careers during the pandemic.
At the height of the first lockdown around March, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released data showing nearly a million jobs had been lost in just five weeks.
Worldwide, a US-based Gallup poll surveyed 117 countries and found one in two people had their earnings cut due to the pandemic.
With so many out of work, hundreds across the Riverina turned to JobSeeker payments to survive. ABS data indicated a sharp rise from the Newstart payments in December 2019 to the JobSeeker recipients in March 2020.
At the height of the pandemic lockdowns, Nikita Nicoll made a drastic career change, leaving her PR business and re-entering study at Charles Sturt University to become a nurse.
"Pre-COVID, I had started my business but it wasn't having much luck," the 26-yer-old said.
"I realised communications wasn't where I wanted to be, I wanted to help people more proactively. Nursing felt like a good fit."
Her company, Yellow PR, had been running for eight months by the time she pulled its plug.
Starting down a new career path - especially one in the health field - was not without its challenges. When the lockdown hit, Ms Nicoll began her studies from home instead of on-campus as she'd expected.
"I thought I'd be getting into the practical parts of the course, but it was mostly online," she said.
"It was really an eye-opener, I saw the reality of what doctors and nurses were doing and it confirmed to me that's where I want to be."
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According to Charles Sturt University's enrollment data, Ms Nicoll was part of a strong trend toward returning to academics during the pandemic.
This year again, there has been a 5 per cent increase in the number of mature-aged students returning to study at CSU.
"This number has increased by 12 per cent since 2019. The corresponding number of students over the age of 35 years has increased by two per cent year-on-year for the first half of 2021," a spokesperson for the uni said.
Upskilling in subject areas is also on the rise following the first year of the pandemic.
During the first half of this year, the university has also seen a 34 per cent increase in students commencing diploma level subjects, as opposed to embarking on full degrees.
The university spokesperson said it was likely the government's Job-Ready Graduates program that had promoted the increase.
Yet, the decision to seek tertiary qualifications in the pursuit of a new career is something that is driven by individual aptitude.
Especially during a pandemic, a sudden job loss or a change in career comes with perils.
Given her experience having done so, Ms Nicoll believes it is a decision that is not weighed lightly, but which has its corresponding rewards.
"I think you're never too old to change your career, if you take the first step, the rest usually works out," Ms Nicoll said.
"It's all a learning curve."
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