Making A Career Change With Confidence
So say you do the work to figure out the right career for you and you realize that you need to make a career change. When it’s no longer just about getting promoted or finding a similar job at a different company, but doing something entirely different. What happens next? Unfortunately, many people quit there because the prospect of making a change at 40 is scary. Or 30. Or 50. That’s the thing about career changes - they always feel scary. And we always look for reasons why it’s particularly scary for us. It might be our age - we feel we’re either too young or too old to make a career change. It could be self-doubt about whether we’re really qualified for the new career. It might be mindset issues, like worrying about what people around us will say. Or how our career and income trajectory will be impacted by the 180-degree turn we’re considering.
In reality, none of these things tend to be the real reason why people give up. The real reason is the change itself. The journey towards a successful career change starts by recognizing that our brains are programmed to fear change itself. That’s why we make up all these stories about age, timing, perception, etc.
To be clear, change always comes with risk. But as human beings, we are generally poor at understanding and estimating risk. We tend to overestimate new risks, like the ones inherent in a career change. We believe that the probability of the worst happening is higher than it really is. At the same time, we underestimate (or even entirely forget!) the risks of staying put. Like, missing out on new skills or experiencing income stagnation.
There is a simple 3-step process for overcoming our fear of change and making a successful career change.
Know what the career change is worth to you
De-mystify the change
Do the right things to enable the change
Know what the career change is worth to you
Too many people make career changes as a reaction to something that’s making them unhappy in their current job. We always encourage the people we work with to become proactive about their career choices instead. And that goes especially when you’re making a career change.
The first step towards becoming proactive is finding clarity on what this career change is worth to you. In other words, you need to know why you are doing it. Is it about being able to better pursue your mission or values? Or are you looking for more excitement and an opportunity to learn new things? Or maybe, you’re looking for a career path with more income potential? Or, are you really making a lifestyle choice that will enable you to spend more time with your friends and family?
There are many possible reasons why you might want to make a career change and not every reason is created equal. This doesn’t mean that some reasons are less valid than others. But it could have implications for how you go about making the change. For example, if your career change is driven by your mission and values, maybe you’d be willing to make a bigger sacrifice for the perfect job? Like stepping into a role that’s more junior than your current job and taking a pay cut. On the other hand, if you’re doing it because of income potential, you’d probably be looking for opportunities to earn more than in your current job.
Knowing what the change is worth to you is important. There are so many unknown factors involved in a career change and the more of them you are able to remove, the easier it will be. It will also decrease the risk of self-sabotage, which is very common in these situations. A lot of times, our fear of change manifests itself in this way. We find a new career and a job that fits the bill, but then we start making up faults. Like, the commute is 20 minutes longer. Or, the new company doesn’t subsidize your gym membership like your current employer. Or, the salary wasn’t precisely what you were hoping for.
Being explicit about why you’re making the change and why it matters to you makes it easier to avoid these kinds of thought patterns.
De-mystify the change
Another common reason why people quit before they make a career change is that everything about the new career feels like a mystery. We might not understand the lingo in the new industry so the job description looks like it’s been written in a foreign language. The way required skills and experience are described could be different from what we’re used to, to the point where it’s hard to know if we have them or not.
Luckily, it’s never been easier to de-mystify what that new job is all about.
You can use LinkedIn to find people who currently have the job you’re considering. And if you study their profiles carefully, you’ll start to learn some important things like what they’ve done prior to that job, which skills they have, etc. Even the way they describe their current and previous jobs will give you clues to what they were about and what it took to succeed at them. You can also ask them directly. On platforms like Quora, people are more than willing to answer all sorts of questions about their jobs and careers.
Once you do this, you’ll realize something important. Underneath all the industry terminology, there are what we call transferrable skills. You can dress up and describe the job of, say, a project manager in many different ways. But in the end, the underlying skills will be similar across industries and companies. The same goes for procurement, supply chain management, sales and many other jobs. But we tend to talk about skills and experience in industry-specific terms. When you de-mystify your future job and understand it in terms of transferrable skills, you’ll be able to get a better sense of what it’s really about and write a resume that’s more relevant.
Do the right things
Once you de-mystify your future job you’ll hopefully see that you already have some of the skills and experiences necessary to qualify for it. But you might also discover certain things you might need to add to your resume to make it stand out.
If you need to add specific transferrable skills to your resume, the best place to look is your current job! In any company, there are usually several projects going on at any given time. These projects are usually a great opportunity for employees to contribute outside of their immediate scope of work. And they’re also a great way to acquire new skills. So see if you can find a project where you could learn and achieve something that would make your resume more interesting for your future employer!
Sometimes, transferrable skills aren’t enough. Some companies, or some types of jobs, might require specific industry experience. This can feel like a Catch 22 situation if you’re in a different industry and trying to get your dream job. It doesn’t have to be. Volunteering and freelancing is a great option for people looking for exposure to a new industry without leaving their current job. If that’s you, you should look for startups, non-profits and other organizations with cash constraints that operate in the industry you’re considering. If you can offer them a service they need at either a low cost or no cost at all, that could be your chance to get the kind of experience your future employer is looking for.
Lastly, you should be able to demonstrate a real interest in the job or industry you’re trying to move to. Employers love to hire people who are passionate and not only there for the paycheck. Even if you’re doing something entirely different now, you should consider starting a blog or a Twitter account where you write about topics relevant to your future job. Being able to show your passion to your future employer is much more powerful than just saying you’re passionate. You’ll be amazed at how far that goes.
Tiles Collab is a career development community. We help high performers identify the right career paths, create career plans and achieve their goals by focusing on strategies and tactics that work in real life. Visit our homepage for more information about our approach and services.