Advice On My Present Situation/career Change

Dear All,
This is my first post. I am 48 years old and have been in manufacturing line for past 24 years. I am a plastics technologist with tooling & processing as my expertise. Then on suggestion of my friend , who was with an MNC got an offer and joined the MNC. It was my dream to work for an MNC as I was always with private firms.For the Last 2 years I am with the MNC and now I am in Business development. I am struck here as I feel that I am not doing justice to my position nor I am using my experience of plastics in this field. The only skills of leadership is being used. I am pretty confused if I should change back to my plastics domain or continue to be in Business development. I tried to apply back to Plastic Industries but my current experience is not giving the required weight age. I look forward to your suggestion on what should be the approach and how should I address my current experience in my resume.
Thanks...

Hello Murthyrao,

First & Foremost, you need to MAKE-UP YOUR MIND in which direction you want to move from here.

When you mention you want to go back to Plastics domain, I presume you want to go back to hard-core technical line--pl correct if I am wrong.

Coming to your present experience in the MNC, you haven't mentioned the domain they are into. Your options depend A LOT on this aspect/factor. There are MNCs galore in every domain.

However, going by your wordings, I assume that it's NOT into Plastic domain. Then WHY did you make that move, just by getting over-awed by the MNC tag? Now pl don't get me wrong. There's a Quote that would match your situation: "There are no 'rights' or 'wrongs' in nature--ONLY consequences". Hope you get the point.

Coming to the Action-Plan for your situation, since you have experience in BOTH technical line [in Plastics domain] & Business Development, a good line to go from here would be focusing on positions where BOTH your technical background & Biz Development exp will be needed--like Technical sales/marketing, Product Support//Selling, etc. This is with a PRESUMPTION that you DON'T HAVE any sort of dislike for the Business Development role/line--only a LONGING to go back to your technical line.

There's also another aspect you need to bear in-mind: as one moves up the corporate ladder, a lot of straight-jacketing [meaning single-skilled experience] expands into multi-skilled/disciplinary role--FROM the Organizational perspective. Whoever fits into such a role would obviously be the 'chosen one', so to say. Gone are those days when Corporates hire one person per role--the more roles a person can handle, the merrier for them.

While there are always exceptions--given your current state of affairs, it's best to focus on gathering exp in whatever role you find yourself in & keep looking for MNC positions in the Plastic domain--or any related domains ['plastics' is such a wide ocean today.....many new technologies have come into the scene]--that utilize EITHER all OR most of the skills you gathered over your vast experience.

All the Best.

Rgds,

TS