ALT-2 Five Mistakes to Avoid when Changing Careers
Changing your career is a significant step. Indeed, it could be one of the biggest career decisions that you ever make. A career change can impact on your financial stability, your relationship with friends, colleagues and family and your overall well-being, and is not a decision to be taken lightly.
One of the best approaches to making a big, life-changing decision like this is to learn from the experiences of others. Many career professionals have made such a move, with wildly differing degrees of success. From those that have seen less success than others, here are some of the key mistakes to avoid when changing career.
Not having a plan
A career change needs to be a well-planned, and well-executed strategy. You should ensure that you have carefully considered all the implications from making such a change, and without a plan, it is unlikely that you will be able to achieve your objectives. A plan will help you establish whether you need further training or eduction. It will enable you to ensure that your finances can cope with the transition. It will ensure that you have considered and addressed any legal or regulatory constraints that there may be within your new field. Without a plan, many of these variables could derail the entire process. Samantha Chang highlights this issue on Singled Minded Women, saying, “without a plan, you're destined to fail in your current career as well as any future job.”
No attempt to realistically establish your strengths – and weaknesses
A career change requires a strong degree of self-awareness. Any such move should play to to your strengths, and should be cautious of any weaknesses or development needs that you have. Without establishing what these are, your career move could be directing you in completely the wrong direction. Seek the feedback of others. Use 360-degree feedback and personality tests. Test yourself technically. Any of these things can help you identify where your strengths and weaknesses lie, and that can prepare you much more robustly for a career change. Sander Marcus, writing for Careers Blogs, recommends afocus on your strengths, suggesting that “it is your strengths, not your weaknesses, that determine your career success.”
Under or overestimating financial issues
Everybody works for the money, but the key to a successful career is to find something that you like/love doing that enables you to live a comfortable life. It may be your finances that are motivating you to change careers. Ensure that when considering finances, you are able to look at the bigger picture. Are the financial benefits of a career change outweighed by the risks of change and instability? As highlighted on Gopinoy.com, “as important as money can be,you don't want to sell your happiness.” Conversely, if you don't plan your finances appropriately, a career change could be damaging to your stability. Plan for the immediate and longer-term, ensuring that where you might have to accept a dent in your income, that your commitments and savings can bear the load.
Making assumptions that your new job will automatically be better
Many career changers find that such a move leaves them reeling and they soon realize that things weren't perhaps so bad where they were before. You cannot assume that a change will make you happier, for change's sake. Your new career must be selected carefully to address the issues in your current role that are demotivating you, as well as providing lots of room for growth and learning. In a state of stress or unhappiness, many career changers make a knee-jerk reaction and change careers assuming that the change will solve their issue. It won't – as many learn, to their cost. There's a warning to this effect on the Human Resources Degree website, which says, “if you find thatyou face the same problemno matter how many jobs you change, it's time to take an inward look.”
Lacking a personalized job search strategy
Many career changers assume that just 'looking for a job' in the way that they have always done will find them a new career. It won't. Looking for a new career requires a rather different approach to job searching. Your resume needs to be approached in a different way. The way in which you approach recruiters will have to change. How you position yourself in an interview will be different. Where you look for work and how you network will also need to be reviewed. Changing a career is more than just finding a new job. This is highlighted on the business website, Fight The Conversion, which states, “you need a strategythat fits who you are as a unique individual and the fact that you are changing careers.”
Changing your career is a life-changing and rather daunting prospect. The good news is that millions of people have done this before you, and are willing to share their successes and failures. Learn from their mistakes, and you should avoid some of the pitfalls that face you.
