Okay. Let’s admit it—you hate your job. Or, at least, you find that stress from work is affecting your personal life for the worse. And when your work life has been constantly interfering with the satisfaction and quality of your personal life, it’s probably time for a fresh start and a new career.
So how does one actually change careers?
7 Steps to Changing Your Career
- Assess If You Want to Change Careers
- Choose a New Career
- Find a Job Posting
- Write a Resume & Cover Letter
- Send out Applications
- Interview with Employers
- Volunteer If Necessary to Strengthen Your Resume
Assess.
First, consider whether you really hate your work, or whether you just had a bad day. Perhaps you enjoy the work that you do, but your boss is out to get you and make your life miserable—and this time you’re not imagining it.
If the company culture or your boss is the problem (and you enjoy your work), consider changing jobs rather than careers. Our free resume writing, cover letter, and job search tutorials will teach you how to change jobs.
If, however, you feel like the problem is that balancing accounts payable/accounts receivable is the equivalent to drinking chloroform, read on.
Choose.
The next step, now that you’ve decided that your current career is not where you would like to be in five years, is to decide where you want to be instead. Many people struggle with this step. Choosing what you actually want to do is often a very existential, challenging question. Generally, there are three key factors that bring happiness in the workplace: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Autonomy means you have some level of control of the work you do or how you do it. Mastery means you are constantly improving and learning, and that the work presents new challenges every day. Purpose means you believe you are offering something that matters . . . and that it’s making the world a better place. Meet these three criteria, and you will probably be very satisfied with your career.
Okay, so that’s the theoretical. What about the practical? Write out a list of all the things you would enjoy doing. A fantastic resource I recommend to all of my clients that are looking to change careers is MySkillsMyFuture, an intuitive website that allows you to enter in your current job title and see other options (and even what other jobs are paid comparatively!). But, to point out the obvious, as helpful as personality and career software can be, it is not the end all, say all solution. Ultimately, no one but you can tell you what you like to do. You must be the one to choose your passion and then follow it.
Find.
The next step is to understand the nitty-gritty requirements of the career path you are looking to break into. After all, before you start trying to catch dinosaurs, it’s probably a good idea to know what type of dinosaur net to bring, right?
To do this, look up at least 10 job postings. Go to SimplyHired.com and search for the job title of the career you wish to pursue, browse the job postings, and take notes on trends you see. What is it that all of these employers seem to be after? Does it seem like you are actually qualified for this career? This list you create is what you will use to create your new resume.
Write.
The next step is to write that darned resume. This is definitely one of the hardest steps—writing a resume is a lot of work and not easy. For brevity, I will not go into nuances of resume writing. Be sure to visit our free resume writing tutorial in our Advice Oasis to learn how to write a resume.
After your “umbrella resume” is finished, take out that list of job postings that you already found. Pick one that you fancy the most. Then, keeping your umbrella resume the way it is, create a new file, copy and paste your resume into it, and then tweak that resume so everything in the resume relates to the job posting. We do this because resumes are only as effective as they are targeted to the skill sets employers are looking for. Then, learn how to write a cover letter and compose a killer cover letter for the job posting.
Follow the instructions of the employer and submit your job posting. Then pull up another job posting and repeat the resume and cover letter process at least 2 times a day for 2 months straight. I know—it’s a lot of work. But the difference between those who succeed and those who don’t comes down often to simple numbers—there is a big difference between someone who submits 60 applications per month and someone who submits 5, because the 60 application per month person will be employed at her new dream job while the 5 application person won’t be. That’s the magic of probability.
Interview.
Great! 2 months have now passed. So you’ve sent 120 applications! If you’ve done everything right, you’ve probably had a few job interviews by now. Maybe you are even employed in your new career!
Or maybe you’re not. Maybe you have had 5 or so interviews but no job offers yet. If so, that’s great! It means you ARE qualified—employers do not interview with job candidates unless they are qualified. This just means that your interviewing skills probably need work. That’s actually very easy to fix. Be sure to visit our free interviewing tips section for help on interviewing if this is the case.
If you have gotten zero interviews, it probably means that you are either 1. not qualified yet for the career you are trying to break into or (and the more likely one) 2. Your resume and cover letter are not effectively selling your skills. If this is the case, then I would recommend getting a free resume critique from us so you can assess weaknesses in how you market yourself and break into your new career.
Reevaluate, Volunteer, Repeat, Keep At It, and You’ll See Results.
If the career you are trying to break into is really different than your current career, then it’s time to start volunteering and searching for internships to get your foot in the door and gain valuable work experience. Employers love free labor. And if you do a great job, you may just get a job offer!
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If anyone can relate to where you're at in your career, it's Nicole Crimaldi: Nicole spent 5 years in corporate America, switched career paths, worked at a start-up, survived a layoff and is now self-employed. Nicole believes that career satisfaction is a huge part of overall happiness. Therefore, she started Ms. Career Girl to help other women get off the treadmill and onto a more fulfilling path.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I have serious concerns with the article. When the hell do you network and actually meet people in industry?
Applications and resumes DON’T WORK for a career changers!!! I have an amazing resume… for a high school teaching position. But that’s going to get me freaking nowhere when I try to break into the business work.
I love how your process involves people getting a ton of rejections, wasting countless hours, and THEN realizing, “maybe you’re not qualified.” And wow, your process is simply a numbers-game? Send out a million resumes for a .001% success rate!
If this article was half-way helpful, step 2 wouldn’t be some bull crap “existential” process… It’s actually going out into industry and networking. Ask someone to lunch, get an informational interview, send an email! Choose possible companies to work for and then make contacts in them. Even finding someone on linkedin with the job you want is a hell of a lot more useful than looking at job-posting ads. Your aquaintences, community clubs, even church! People have more contacts than they know and this inward-focused advice about “reflection and resume writing” is just a procrastination technique when you could be out meeting people.
Career changers more than anyone need to use the “hidden job market.” If you are a career changer, no one is going to take a risk on you based on how well you write your resume. You need to convince someone to look past your work history and see your passion and potential. It takes action and initiative.
Seriously ladies, and we wonder why men out-earn us.
Elaine,
You raise 3 important points.
1. Networking
2. Not Wasting Time
3. Selecting a Career
As you stress rightfully so, networking, or the “hidden job market,” is a critical aspect to job searching. 80% of jobs are found through networking. Whether this form takes in person lunches, emails to old coworkers or friends, or contacting business people through LinkedIn, networking should be a core approach in any job searching toolkit. As I stress in our Advice Oasis, learning how to network is the “first and best way to job search.”
You also raise the very important point of not wasting time in your job search. Clearly every job searcher is going to be in a different situation. Common sense triumphs any “formula.” But in addition to networking, you SHOULD be applying to online job postings—2 a day. When you only send out a few applications, your odds will be low. But sending out many applications . . . suddenly that 2% becomes 35%.
In your case (as you already pointed out), as a teacher looking to go into business, I would start with your networking contacts. However, to network properly, you still need to have a resume and cover letter ready. When you network, people will ask for your resume. Statistics show that if your resume shows soft skills like good communication, initiative taking, and problem solving, employers will be much more likely to take a chance. Employers are even more likely to take a chance if you know them personally, or that a good friend recommended you (networking). While you are networking and applying online, I would also volunteer, go back to school, or take part-time classes that allow you to buff up your resume with more business experience. I would do all this while applying for jobs online.
The last point you raise is selecting a career. Whether you use informational interviews, do research on the internet, job shadow, or have networking conversations over lunch, ultimately you need to choose a very specific line of work. “Business” is not specific enough. “Small business consulting with a marketing specialization” is better. Networking is a great way to narrow down the choices.
Indeed, make sure you are ALWAYS networking during your job search.
Best wishes,
Eric Olavson