Barely six months into his first job, Sandeep Kumar started experiencing the negative impacts of unrelenting sales stress on his health. Working almost 72 hours a week in field sales took a toll, with recurrent fever and physical weakness making it difficult for him to perform well at work. He relied on over-thecounter medication for some time, but that didn’t help. “I lost around 15kg and became extremely frail. I wasn’t eating properly,” Sandeep says. “I knew I couldn’t continue, and was left with no option but to resign.”
Sandeep left Hyderabad in August 2018 for his hometown Anantapur, and was soon diagnosed with typhoid. He decided to take a break from work to focus on his health. He was on complete bed rest for about two months. He gradually recovered, but was still unfit for a full-time office job. By early 2019, Sandeep was ready to restart his career. “The finance company I was working with offered the opportunity to rejoin the sales team, but I turned it down,” he says. He started looking for jobs in other fields, but in vain. With his education and previous experience, his search would usually lead him to similar sales profiles.
A tech-enthusiast, Sandeep did his graduation in engineering from Vignan University in 2015, but then decided to switch fields and pursued a post graduate diploma in management before joining the finance firm in 2018.
While searching for a job, he came across a professional training programme on edtech platform Great Learning. “I decided to make the most of my break by upskilling to enter the tech industry,” he says. He enrolled for a 6-month data science programme in January of 2020, which became an extended online course due to the pandemic. It was a completely new subject for him, but he was determined to learn. By the end of the year, Sandeep graduated with a new skill on his resume and a newfound confidence to enter the industry. He also got a chance to connect with others like him who had taken a break or were looking to switch careers. “We helped each other prepare for interviews. It was a great collaborative environment,” he says.
But the job search was not easy. “It’s difficult for employers to look past the two-year gap. Besides, they usually look for experienced candidates,” he says. After several rejections, Sandeep landed a job as a data analyst at healthcare solutions firm Indegene in April 2021. He hopes to start working from the Bengaluru office soon. “It’s been a long break. I’m thrilled to restart my career.”
