Title: Tldr; I&#x27;m an architect (in a niche industry) trying to get a job in another industry but find myself constantly rejected for either having not enough experience for a similar architect&#x2F;lead role or being overqualified for a lower role (i.e. dev, support, etc).<p>I&#x27;ve been in the telco industry for 12 years where I started as a systems tester, became a support engineer, got into a lead role for a team of support engineers (i built the team from scratch at a startup!) and eventually ended up as an architect for a vendor (think Cisco) where I do pre-sales, architecture design and lead the onshore&#x2F;offshore teams to deliver client projects.<p>Early last year, I noticed a big shift in my industry to Managed Services and knew that it is a space I need to get myself involved in if I were to stay relevant for the next few years. Unfortunately, the company I am with is neither in this space nor have any plans in the future to be in it hence I started to look around for jobs at other companies in this space. After 3 months in, I&#x27;m now feeling utterly perplexed.<p>I tried applying for lead&#x2F;architect roles and was rejected (without even going to the interview stage) being told that I don&#x27;t have enough experience or expertise. Fair point I guess since I&#x27;m in a niche industry thus I started looking at roles that allow me to start at the bottom (i.e. dev, support&#x2F;operations, customer success). Even then, I keep getting rejected with the common trope that I don&#x27;t have enough experience or I am either overqualified and&#x2F;or will not be a good fit for the team!<p>I asked my professional network for some inputs on the matter and I&#x27;ve been told that I&#x27;m in an age group (30-40) where companies are not that keen to hire cause I&#x27;m considered too old (ageism). Is this possible? I&#x27;m barely in my early 30s so I find that very strange cause I don&#x27;t consider myself old at all.<p>So, have any of you ever been in the same situation and do you have any advice on how should I overcome this?
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