Career change checklist

Today’s employment sector is more fluid than ever before. Having more than one career over a professional lifetime is fast becoming the norm rather than the exception.

Those leaving school this year will have three to five careers over their working life while boredom or a change in life circumstances can force a career change for many older people. It all adds up to a great many people trying to “break into” a new career at any given time.

Career change is rarely an instant process. I hear from people via the Ask Kate email service who want to know how to change careers without dropping salary; spending a dollar on additional training; or a minute on research. I have no answers for those people. Career change takes effort and can also take time and money.

It helps if your skills are “transferable”, it helps if you have great contacts in the sector you want to move to and it certainly helps if you have the money to do a course or to take a temporary step back in salary while you build new experience. Even if you don’t have these advantages, you can still change career if you are prepared to do the work.

Other people write to Ask Kate to outline their experience and their list of qualifications and then end their email by asking me what job they should do. If only life were that simple. Career change is also about personal preferences – the things you like doing and the things you don’t. Career change cannot be answered by me in a single email, it takes time and effort and the work must be done by the person hoping to make the change.

Getting the basics right

Spend some time allocating a budget to your career change campaign. A small budget would cover things like buying a book or photocopying fees at the library, a bigger budget would include using a career coach or financing a course.

While using a career coach might be just the thing you need, I still recommend you do as much homework as you can to help the coach help you. Solid ground work will also minimize the money and time you spend on your career change project.

Making a successful transition starts with working out what you really want to do and what you are really suited to.

To work out your personal preferences, start by making lists of:
. Things you are great at and love doing
. Things you are good at but hate doing
. Things you love doing but are not that great at
. Things you are not good at and hate doing

I often come across people who have idealised a particular job role only to find that in reality it involves a long list of tasks they hate doing.

Really drill down on the person you are. Are you an extrovert who loves meeting people or an introvert who prefers working behind the scenes? Do you like working with numbers or words, animals, children or adults? Ask friends and family for their input. What are your personal attributes? Are you patient? Are you a details person or a big picture person? You cannot judge if a role will suit you without considering if the personal attributes required to do the job match the ones on your list.

Next, list as many of your skills as possible. Skills are things like the standard of your written and verbal communication, organisational skills, any technical skills you have such as computer skills, trade skills, accounting or book keeping and creative skills. This will help you work out if your skills are transferable to a particular new role or industry sector.

Finally, make a list of everyone you know – personal and professional contacts, people you once worked with or went to college or university with – make the list as long as possible. Write what the person does for a living beside each name. This list will come in handy later when you are either trying to find someone to talk to about a particular job role or industry sector and or you’re trying to get a foot in the door of a new industry.

Now, use the Career planning: Research your options article to start learning about specific job roles. If you see something you like, cross reference the information with your lists. Are the tasks involved in that particular role included on your lists of tasks you love doing? Does your contact list include anyone who would prove useful in providing a job lead or an introduction? Are your existing skills transferable? Does your allocated budget cover the training you would need to under take?

Use the link above or go back to Career planning: Research your options -or go back to the main menu of the Career planning/career change and choose the next article of relevance to you.