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Career Change: Four simple steps to support your career transition
The prospect of making a change in your career focus can be daunting for anyone, particularly if you have been working in the industry/position for a considerable amount of time.
You may be interested to learn that in the course of our working lives we can expect to make several significant career changes, whether voluntary (our own choice) or involuntary (company restructures). The workplace has changed significantly from the days where you got your qualification, secured a job and worked for 20-30 years and even saw out your retirement with the same company. In fact, young people now entering the workforce are being advised to expect that they will make around 7-8 major career changes throughout their working lives, which is quite significant.
Whatever your reason for wanting to make a change in your career there are a number of things that you will need to consider, with two of the most important aspects being which direction to follow and how to develop a résumé that you market your existing skills and experience in a manner that is relevant and applicable to the role for which you are applying.
Today we will be covering four simple steps to assist you in determining a suitable career focus and in the next edition of Career Communiqué x-Press we will be covering how to create a powerful career change résumé that gets noticed.
1. Dream/Envision: Establishing a clear vision and positive frame of mind
Just as embarking on a holiday without any preparation or planning would have you driving aimlessly in circles never quite reaching your destination, so too does not having a vision, a target, or intention with your job and career. How can you possibly begin to work towards your goals and your dreams if you don’t have a clear vision of where you want to be?
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What positions have you been interested in that you could investigate as possible opportunities? What industries or companies would you like to work for?
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What is it about your current role that you no longer find interesting?
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What projects have you enjoyed and could work on in the future?
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Which job functions do you like and would like to continue doing in the future?
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What projects or functions have you been successful in and would like to continue working on in the future?
Action Step: Develop a blueprint of potential job opportunities, functions and projects that you enjoy and would like to be doing within your new role.
2. Clarify: Enhance your self-awareness and begin to narrow down your options
Lack of self-awareness and understanding is one of the major factors that prompt people to either move from one job to another, continue under-performing in the tasks and functions they are involved in, or remain stuck in a job that is uninspiring and unfulfilling.
I cannot stress enough the importance of enhancing your self-awareness to support you in discovering your passion and life’s purpose and how this can relate to your work.
For many people, enhancing self-awareness in itself can be life altering, as they begin to understand what drives them, why they react in certain ways, what makes them unique and the impact this can have with the work choices they make. They become clearer about their work interests and work activities, and what inspires and enriches their day versus tasks that seem to drain them of their energy.
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What are your career interests?
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What are your career values?
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What type of work environment do you have a preference for?
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What are your strengths?
Action Step: Create a blueprint of your interests, values, preferred work environment, personality/style, and strengths.
3. Believe: Breaking through those barriers
Even after having developed a blueprint of your Life and Career goals alongside a well thought out and structured plan, barriers and blocks can still prevent you from achieving your career goals.
Some people may experience fears and doubts for a fleeting moment but move on to accomplish their ambitions.
However, other people continually experiencing unhelpful thoughts or reservations about their plans may find they are unable to move forward and thus continue to experience unrealised goals and dreams. Which person do you most resemble?
- What is holding you back?
- What are your fearful of?
- What do you need to know that would support you in taking that next step toward achievement of your goals?
- What resources could you benefit from that would enable you to move forward confidently?
Action Step: Identify any doubts and begin compiling a list of resources or steps you need to take in order to work through these barriers..
4. Achieve: Setting your action steps
Studies indicate that less than 10% of people who establish goals ever achieve them.
In fact, statistics have shown that approximately 3% of people take the time to write out their goals and that these are the people who will eventually make them happen. Ten per cent of people think about their goals, never writing them down and just expecting them to happen. Sixty per cent of people spend more time planning their holidays than they do thinking about their goals for the year ahead and allow things to happen.
So which category do you fit into? Do you set out with the best intentions, but a few weeks or months later you find yourself getting off track? Or perhaps you are steadily moving towards goal achievement until such time that you come up against an obstacle?
Action Step: Establish a structure that will keep you focused on your goals. Read our Goal Setting article here for some clear steps on strategic goal setting.
By following these four steps you will be well on your way to moving forward with your career change with confidence.
Alternatively, for those of you who would like additional support, our Career Directions program will certainly guide and support you in answering all of your questions so that you can establish a clear vision; enhance your self-awareness; break through any underlying barriers; and achieve your goals by creating some clear and powerful action steps
Want to learn more about our Career Directions coaching programs? Contact me at: annemarie@annemariecross.com.
To your success!
Annemarie |
A personal note from Annemarie...
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