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 Changing directions is rarely an easy task; rather it is a process, a transition, which should be viewed as a time of growth and opportunity.
Self-Exploration
Start with a detailed inventory of your background, education, and personality. Understanding where you have been may help you understand where you should logically go next. Discover and acknowledge your aptitudes, core abilities, areas of interest,and values through self-help books, an employment specialist, and web tools.
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Pathways to Success
The career transition process consists of self-exploration, research, and good old-fashioned legwork. Your career change need not entail emotional suffering and financial hardship. Rather, you will benefit from careers a detailed and organized job search plan. Begin with the end in mind and develop a strategy for getting there.
Baby Steps
- Talk with people who are doing what you want to do; tell them you are interested in new opportunities
- Tweak your current job, volunteer to take on chronically unfilled responsibilities, perhaps a task others don't want to do
- Take a workshop or introductory course in an area of interest
- Repackage your transferable skills in a resume that highlights how you fit into a new field
Identify other environments where you can use your background
- Build a list of employers to approach and begin contacting current and past employees at these firms about possible openings
- Start a parallel career; keep your current job while working weekends or nights in a second profession
- Take care not to deplete your energy; be sure family members understand your goals and objectives
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