Need a Career Change? 10 Steps for a Career Makeover
So you think you want to change careers. Or perhaps you need a career makeover. You’re not alone. Professionals of all stripes have found they need to retool their careers or re-engineer themselves.
There’s a myriad of reasons. It’s usually related to technology and a changing marketplace.
If you’re thinking about a career change, perhaps one of these questions pertains to your situation:
- Are you facing a lay-off?
- Are you bored?
- Are you in a dying industry or profession?
- Do You Have A Toxic Relationship With Your Boss?
- Do you need Strategies to Overcome Stress and Energize Your Career?
- Are you Job Hunting and Need Tips to Land Your Dream Job with Style, Substance?
- Would 15 Tips to Improve Your Odds for a Job be helpful?
Here are 10 proven strategies for makeover success:
- Check your motive. Things aren’t always as they seem. Do you dread going to work? Why? All jobs have ups and downs. A string of bad-hair days is not a good-enough reason. Before you make a critical career decision, completely evaluate your work environment. Whatever your reasons, a gut check is in order. Make sure you fully understand your reasons for a change.
- Personal inventory. Take a couple of hours to consider your personal attributes, such as what are your hobbies? What are your likes and dislikes? For ultimate success, it’s important that you love your work.
- Professional inventory. Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. Start with your fears. The term, fear, is an acronym for Frantic Effort to Avoid Responsibility. Has a fear of public speaking held you back? Are you intimidated by difficult people? Remember a strength can often be a weakness and vice versa. It’s a matter of degrees. For example, there’s a difference between bluntness and assertive. Assess your role in your major successes and disappointments. Analyze how you would have performed better.
- Research your options. Surf the Internet. Read. Make inquiries. Check out emerging trends. Investigate your options. Learn the necessary qualifications for each field piquing your interest. For each industry, perform a SWOT analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats – how they relate to you.
- Get a mentor. Contact successful people in the field about which you’re curious. Ask for a few minutes of their time to chat for their opinions. Be respectful of their time. If you develop a rapport with one you like, ask the person to consider mentoring you.
- Vision Statement. Based on your personal and professional talents, set goals for your chosen career. Determine what and where you want to be in five, 10 and 20 years. Anticipate what you’ll need to do and write the strategies that will help you achieve your goals.
- Be Pragmatic. Make certain your goals are feasible and that your plans will enable you to earn a living.
- Take charge. Implement the changes. Don’t engage in self doubt. Once you make a decision, don’t wring your hands. Take action. Be strident if you’re normally too timid to make a warranted change. Remember the well-known adage attributed to Virgil: “Fortune favors the bold.” If your plan seems too difficult, here’s one phrase I suggest to clients: “If it were so easy, then everybody would be doing it.”
- Be tenacious. Treat your makeover like an adventure. Make it fun, but don’t give up.
- Be Flexible. Some career changes take longer to implement. If money or family matters make it difficult to jump into it right away, go slow. Take baby steps, but work on it every day.
From the Coach’s Corner, consider these resource links:
I used to be indecisive about my career. Now I’m not sure.
__________
Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.
