Fascinated in a new career? Individuals seek to victorious career change for several different reasons. Your career goals or values may have changed, you might have discovered new interests that you would like to incorporate into your job, you may wish to make more money, or have more flexible hours, just to name a few.
Before you make a decision like this, it is significant to take the time to evaluate your present situation, to explore career options and to choose a career that will be more satisfying for you.
Review these tips for assessing your interests, exploring options, evaluating alternative victorious career change paths and making the move to a new career.
Top ten Steps to a Victorious Career Change
- Evaluate your current job satisfaction.Keep a journal of your daily reactions to your job situation and seek for recurring themes. Which aspects of your current job do you like and dislike? Are your dissatisfactions regarded to the content of your work, your company culture or the people with whom you work?
- Assess your interests, values and skills.Review past victorious roles, volunteer work, projects and jobs to recognize preferred activities and skills. Evaluate whether your core values and skills are dealt through your current career. There are free online tools you can use to assist assess career alternatives.
- Consider alternative careers.Brainstorm concepts for career alternatives by researching career options, and discussing your core values and qualities with friends, family, and networking contacts.
If you are having difficulty coming up with ideas, consider meeting with a career counselor for professional advice.
- Check out job options.Conduct a preliminary comparative evaluation of various fields to identify a few targets for in-depth research. You can seek a wealth of information online simply by Googling the jobs that interest you.
- Get personal.Find out as much as much as you can about those fields and reach out to personal contacts in those sectors for informational interviews. A great source of contacts for informational interviewers is your college alumni career network. LinkedIn is another great resource for finding contacts in specific career fields of interest.
- Set up a job shadow (or two). Shadow professionals in fields of primary interest to observe work first hand. Spend anywhere from a few hours to a few days job shadowing individuals who have jobs that interest you. Your college career office is a great place to find alumni volunteers who are willing to host job shadowers. Here is more information on job shadowingand how it works.
- Try it out.Recognize volunteer and freelance activities related to your target field to test your interest e.g. if you are thinking of issuing as a career, try editing the PTA newsletter. If you are interested in working with animals, volunteer at your local shelter.
- Take a class. Investigate educational opportunities that would bridge your background to your new field. Consider taking an evening course at a local college or an online course. Spend some time at one day or weekend seminars.
Contact professional groups in your target field for suggestions.
- Upgrade your skills.Look for ways to establish new skills in your current job which would pave the way for a change e.g. offer to write a grant proposal if grant writing is valued in your new field. If your company offers in-house training, sign up for as many classes as you can. There are ways you can position yourself for a career change without having to go back to school.
- Consider a new job in the same industry. Consider alternative roles within your current industry which would utilize the industry knowledge you already have e.g. If you are a store manager for a huge retail chain and have grown tired of the evening and weekend hours, consider a shift to corporate recruiting within the retail industry. Or if you are a programmer who doesn’t want to program, consider technical sales or project management.
Write a Victorious Career Change Resume and Cover Letter
When you are ready to initiate applying for jobs in your new industry, be certain to writing a cover letter that reflects your aspirations, as well a resume that is refocus based on your new aims.