Making a Career Change: Step 7 Putting It All Together

Previously: Step 6: Looking to Others

Let's review. Thus far you've looked back into your past and examined previous jobs, your interests and influences, and generally the important factors that have shaped your professional life. Next you looked at your current job and examined what it is you like and dislike. Then you looked inside yourself and examined your skills, values and what you have to offer. Finally, you spoke to others who know you to see how you are perceived in the work place and to learn what areas you need to improve. Inbetween you have hopefully interspersed some physical activity and are feeling energized by the stress relief benefits.

Now what?

You may remember this is the part of my career change where the build up of all the work I did lead to the career counselor telling me that I should look for marketing jobs. You know that sound when a contestant loses on The Price Is Right? That's what I felt like when she said that.

Step 7: Putting It All Together
Grab your notebook.

1. Spend time some flipping though your notebook and relfecting on what you read. Are there any  common themes?
2. Use the information in your notebook to write your own job description. If there was a job that no other person in the world could do but you, what would the advertisement for that job opening say?
3. Make a list of careers and industries that you've been thinking you might like to explore.
4. Start reading job descriptions in these industries. Look at the skills they are asking for and the level of education required. Notice the years of expereince needed. If the number of years exceeds the number you currently have, find a job description in that industry that asks for the number of years you have. The job you want may be a down the road and you may need to take a different one in the new industry first.
5. Start researching those industries. Look at the companies. Go online and read blogs and articles about those industries. Learn about their trends and innovations. Learn about hiring trends taking place within these industires. Find conferences you can attend and journals you can read.
6. Considered any gaps you find in the skills and education needed for these industries and think about filling those gaps. Will you need to go back to school? Can you assume new responsibilities in your current job to help fill those gaps? Can you volunteer in your area to gain experience that will help fill the gaps?

I learned the hard way that there is no magic formula or computer program that can spit out exactly what it is you should be doing. Even if there was, how would it know what you want to do? This is where career cousellors step out and you step in and take over. You need to answser the tough questions.

Your notebook is now a resource filled with many pieces that together constitue the whole of who you are, what you have to offer and how you can get where you want to go. So don't rush this step. Take time to review it, consider what you see in that notebook and what you see yourself doing next. Remember, the best thing that can come out of this step in the process is an understanding of what you want to do. What you REALLY want to do. Once you determine that, you can start your research using the questions above and other resources like the internet, conferences and journals to begin to see how you match  what you want to do next and if you don't what you can do to become a match.

Up Next: Step 8: Looking to Your Nework

To Be or Not To Be...Motivated During a Career Change

(Wow! Was that a cliche title or what??!?) Make no mistake about it, the career change I went through when I left the theatre was an incredibly hard and humbling process: admitting that I needed to make the change was excruciating, figuring out if and how my skills were transferrable, being intimidated by the wide expanse of the unknown, hiring the career counselor and then ultimately putting myself out there. Today's Careerealism.com post How To Know When a Career Shift is in Your Future by Lisa Lambert Snodgrass does a terrific job of succinctly distilling the nuts and bolts of determining if such a change is right for you.

There's a lot in there to digest. Each one of those bullets might take you hours to address so don't think this is a made for TV reality show makeover kind of process because it's not. It's going to take a lot of time, courage and perseverance.  Part of you is going to have to embrace the unknown because you never know if, when or how your next break is going to materialize.

Speaking from experience, the most important point Ms. Snodgrass makes comes in the second to last paragraph: you shouldn't go at it alone. Luckily I didn't have to. The most instrumental person involved in my career change was not me, the career counselor nor the knight in shining armor Associate Director of Human Resources who ended up finding me my next job. It was my wife. She kept me from getting down and picked me up when I was. This is particularly true of her in general but even more so during this process.  She held me accountable and made me focus. She made sure I stayed on task and redirected me when I wasn't. She used to leave little slips of paper around our house with inspirational notes, quotes and sayings. I'd open my underwear drawer be greeted by a quote from Shakespeare, open a cabinet and find words from Martin Luther King Jr., reach under my pillow and find a note reminding me that she believes in me.  These little notes kept me going. All of the other things about this process were under my control from the decision making to the question answering to the hand shaking to the email writing and interviewing, but the will and drive to persevere and stay motivated when times got tough was not. (cue Joe Cocker..."Love Lifts Up Where We Belong"...) Thanks to her though, I always had the support to keep my head up and my focus on the ultimate goal. (..."Where eagles cry, on a mountain high"...)

The best advice I can give to you is to of course seek out the necessary "How To" career change resources and get started. But even more important than that is to make sure you are not even contemplate going through this process alone. Use your friends, use your network, use your family or heck you can even use me (!) to pick you up and keep you there because even though you may not know it you are going to need it.