Career Change Advice: Tips for Workers at a Crossroads

Standing at the crossroads encountered when thinking about a career change can be quite intimidating. The answers you give to the questions that arise will influence the rest of your life; Should you continue your current career or seek a new one? What should that new career be? Will you be able to make the transition comfortably, both in financial and psychological terms?

Yet if you find the courage to overcome this intimidation, and you chart a sensible, steady course of transition, you can make a career change effectively and achieve your long-term objectives, be that increased income or increased satisfaction. Here, then, are some of the top tips we can offer for thinking about the crossroads you may find yourself at.

Is a New Career Right for me?

This question is perhaps the one others are least able to help you with. Whilst we can advise you about how likely you are to succeed, and how to increase those chances, the amount of help anyone can offer you as to whether it is psychologically or emotionally a good idea is limited. Nonetheless, there are some pointers which may help guide you:

• Understand where your current dissatisfaction stems from. Is it truly unhappiness with your career, or does it have another source, whether within or without your job?
• Might you be better served by instead changing your existing career’s focus, department, or employer?
• What are you looking for in a new career? Expressing your creativity? Doing good works, for example with the disadvantaged, or with animals? A more flexible schedule? Whatever it might be, the answers will greatly influence your possible new careers.
• Research both pay scales and typical opportunities for raises and/or promotions and advancement, to see whether and when you could expect to meet your current income or reach an amount you feel is sufficient.

Ultimately this matter is up to you and those close to you, and advice and support from friends and family will be by far the most important source of input.

How Easy Will the Change be?

Assuming you have assessed that you would like to make a career change, the next step is to evaluate how feasible it is and how easy or difficult making this transition might be for you. We absolutely do not want to dissuade people from making a career change, but a dispassionate eye that lets you examine and anticipate obstacles will be of benefit to you in the process. Think about these factors:

• What current skills do you have which will translate well into a new field? Employers very much like the synergy that can come from meshing different disciplines together, but even more mundane skills can be very important.
• Are you prepared to spend time climbing a new ladder? You may well not have to start at the bottom again, but you usually can’t expect to leap in at a similar level as in your existing career either.
• Again, you must pay attention to the financial side of things. Will your new career offer a level of remuneration that you find sufficient? You may be willing to accept lower pay in exchange for other upsides, such as better hours or personal satisfaction, but whatever the case be aware of how much you will make and how pay increases work in your new career.

Switching careers can be intimidating, but it should also be exciting and offer you hope for a more enjoyable future and stronger personal accomplishment.

ISC Professional offer career, personal, and executive coaching to help you find solutions to your personal problems. For more information, head over to interview-skills.co.uk and kick start your new career today.