With the right tools, you’ll be able to find a career that you’re most suited to, and start putting things into motion. Let’s look at the things you’ll need to change your career, and the best approaches that will enable you to see it through.
Reasons for Wanting a Change of Career
You might think that the reasons for wanting to change careers aren’t that important, and you may not have reflected fully on this, but it’s actually a necessary part of the process. By understanding the cause of your dissatisfaction with your current one, you can look for another career that addresses this problem.
Some common grounds for embarking on a new profession include:
The salary: Some occupations just don’t provide those higher income goals. Career satisfaction: You just don’t enjoy the fundamental nature of the work. The culture: Although this is usually specific to a place of work, some careers have a culture you can’t get away from. Your personal values: You may have started out with certain ethics and ideals, but these have changed as you’ve grown. A skills mismatch: Studying for a particular career can be very different from doing it, and now you’ve started working, you have discovered your skills lie elsewhere. A new challenge: You’ve been in your current career for a long time, and you’re looking for a new challenge. Personal circumstances: Some careers have specific time requirements that you can no longer meet, due to changes in your personal life.
Technically, all reasons are valid, but in order to undertake such an upheaval, you’ll want to make sure your motivations are enough. For example, if you find yourself becoming bored easily with the work, you might just need to be more proactive with asking your boss for more responsibility, rather than a complete career change.
1. Identify the Right Career for You
You’ve got your reasons for change, but now you need to find an occupation that fits in with your values, skill-set, and ambitions. This is often the most difficult part, and it can take time before you truly discover the job-type that speaks to you, so it’s okay to pace yourself, here.
You may already have some ideas, but it’s good to go back to the drawing board and check if there’s anything out there that you haven’t considered. A good place to start for an overall search, is a career test.
You should take a career test with a pinch of salt, and it’s worth doing a few different ones, to see if different results appear. The purpose here is to get an idea of where your skills are best suited, and to prompt self-reflection on what you think is a good match. Below are some tests that you can try for free:
What Career is Right For Me: Career Aptitude Test for a rank-based test based on skills, values, interests, and style. 123Test Career Aptitude Test for agree and disagree statements based on your preferences. Truity for various free career tests.
2. Figure Out What You Don’t Want
While you’re finding a career that you want to pursue, it’s good practice to figure out what you don’t want from a career. You’ll know from your current and past work experience what you don’t enjoy, so you can use this knowledge to narrow down your search.
If you dislike the usual nine-to-five work schedule, then you’ll want to disregard professions that tend to conform to it. Likewise, if you truly want a new challenge, then switching your career to something that uses all the same skills probably won’t be a good bet.
Make a list of the things that are deal-breakers for you, and refer back to it when you’re measuring up your career options. This will keep you focused and prevent you from wasting time in the long run.
3. Research Your Career Ideas
Once you’ve found some occupations you’d like to pursue, you will need to do a bit more research into them. Your research should cover the following:
Qualification and training requirements. The different roles you can do within the occupation. Salary. Progression routes within the profession. Typical working hours and requirements.
Prospects and Career One Stop are two websites that have a range of career profiles with the above information included in them. Just search for the profession you’d be interested in, and read up. You can also utilize YouTube to watch videos of other people’s experiences.
You will want to ascertain whether you can commit to any training requirements to enter that career, and if the role is feasible for you. If you’re happy with your selections, you can find the courses that you need and begin retraining or upskilling, following the advice from the career profiles.
4. Revamp Your Resume
Although you’ll be switching careers, the work experience you’ve had up until this point is still highly relevant, and you’ll need to show it when applying to prospective employers. The skills you have can be transferred into many lines of work, so make sure you encapsulate this when you redo your resume.
Transferable skills can include anything to do with leadership, communication, technology utilization, client work, problem-solving, analytical work, writing, project management, and much more. Think about how your skills could apply specifically to your new profession, and tailor it.
You can create a professional resume in Microsoft Word, using templates and polishing it, so it stands out to employers. A new career deserves a brand-new resume, and it’ll get you thinking critically about how you might perform in the role.
Career Change in Motion
There’s a lot to consider when making a career change, but if the time is right, and you’re ready for it, you can reap huge rewards. At the end of the day, work makes up a large portion of our lives, and it’s worth doing something that you enjoy.
With the information outlined in this article, you’ll be able to get started and see your decision through. If you’re ever unsure of anything, you can go back and revisit any of the steps to ensure that you get the most out of your new profession.
