Finding a New Career in the New Year

New Year's resolutions often fall by the wayside come January second, but if you've decided information technology's time for a new career in 2014, nosotros'd encourage you to stick with information technology a few days (or months or years) longer. If y'all've been feeling stagnated, frustrated, bored, or simply like you've risen as far as you want to (or can) go, a new career might be merely what you need to regain your passion, inventiveness and joy — all very skillful things for your personal life too.

That said, a successful career shift isn't washed overnight, and you'll want to make sure you've really taken the time and effort to detect what it is you want and need before you make the leap. Doing so does mean more than work upfront, but information technology'south leap to pay off every bit yous observe yourself more fulfilled and creatively challenged. Here are a few smashing ways to get started.

1. Get Through Pros and Cons

Earlier you make any big changes, it'southward of import to pinpoint what it is that you don't similar well-nigh your current role and what you lot might want to change. This is crucial, considering, presumably, you picked your current career path for a reason, so it'southward important to know whether or non your dissatisfaction lies in a deep dislike of what you do on a daily basis or if information technology has to do with something more circumstantial, like a bad dominate, no life-work balance or the instability of the industry. The last thing yous want is to make this huge life change, only to realize yous're back to feeling just like you do now.

Start with a basic pros and cons list for your current function. If you've got a dream career path in heed, make one for that as well, and even one for your transitional menstruum, so yous can actually see what's on the horizon and make up one's mind whether or not a change is worth it.

2. Take a Career Aptitude Test

If you're like near people, you probably have some sense of what yous're good at and like doing, but your affinities and abilities are either also broad or you simply don't know to what kind of careers they might be relevant. You may besides have hobbies or more "side capabilities" (i.eastward. organizational skills, decision making, etc.) that could really take center stage in the right context. If you lot see yourself in this clarification, yous may want to start with a career aptitude test.

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Click image to open interactive version (via Rasmussen College).

This will requite you lot a baseline for your research, so yous can run into but where your skills might map and what yous can expect salary-wise should yous head that way — especially of import equally y'all become down to the more practical matter of determining how much of an investment you tin can make in this change in order for it quite literally to pay off.

iii. Connect on Social Media and Outset Networking

LinkedIn is a bully place to start your career search for many reasons. First, use the platform simply to see what sometime classmates and colleagues are doing, as they might exist up to something you find inspiring. And so, start connecting or rekindling relationships with both on LinkedIn and across with a unproblematic accomplish out email. If they seem willing, take contacts out to java for an informational interview then y'all can learn all well-nigh their field, their job and what they do on a daily ground.

As you start to narrow your targets, scour MeetUp, LinkedIn and Facebook groups and professional person groups to learn about and attend networking events. Keep your approach casual as you lot simply acquire well-nigh what's out there, find more people to accept out to coffee, and always follow-up with a squeamish thank-you.

4. Outset Taking Courses

Sometimes, irresolute your career means heading back to school for a 4-year caste, while other times, yous'll just need a certificate form. Even if non required, community higher classes can await great on your resume if you haven't worked in your new called field before, and they'll requite you lot a slap-up introduction to the piece of work so yous tin can determine whether or not it's something you'd like to practice.

five. Piece of work With Your Part Models

Yous'd be surprised how many people in your network will be open to job shadowing. Whether yous become for a 24-hour interval or a week, this can be a neat way to run into what a job looks like in real time. Alternatively, if at that place is a particular leading figure in your field, you lot might reach out to them to permit them know you love what they do and offering your skills as an assistant at a depression rate. While this can hands slip into an exploitative state of affairs, if you're careful this tin be a great way to get your foot in the door with someone powerful in your new industry and to larn firsthand from the person whose career yous desire to emulate. It'southward also all the same a relatively rare tactic, and if your reach-out email is well crafted, you'd exist surprised how many people will take you upwardly on the offering.

vi. Explore and Network With Volunteering

When we think of volunteering our time with a nonprofit, nosotros naturally focus on the charitable nature of the piece of work. But nonprofits, which are always in need of skilled people, are besides a great style to network with other talented people and to give your skills and capabilities a test run in a lower pressure situation. For example, this is something I've personally seen a lot of new copywriters do to build upwards their resumes and demonstrate what they can exercise in a real setting amongst some of the most motivated and connected people in their communities.

Volunteering also brings you lot into contact with a broad range of people, some of whom might show you an entirely different way of working that you lot may never have encountered had y'all merely carried on in your electric current role. This can exist a swell fashion to broaden your horizons about what's possible for your career.

7. Be Strategic About Framing Your Story

Both equally yous network and definitely as you kickoff to apply to jobs, information technology'due south important that you lot remember carefully near how you frame your past career experiences. While you lot may experience that yous're withal in exploratory fashion, the best arroyo is to tell your story almost like information technology's an adventure that'south bringing yous to this culminating point. That doesn't mean lying about your past; it ways tying everything together with tight threads, rather than maxim something similar, "First I tried this just didn't like it, so now I'm trying this."

Non sure what this means? Let'south say you're currently a lab tech who used to exist a waitress and now wants to be a web designer. In cover letters and pitches, yous might discuss how you lot love the detail-oriented nature of your lab piece of work, but you miss the human-to-human interactions yous had as a waitress and the time you had and so to work on your fine art, which, naturally, has lead you to an creative function that has serving clients at its core (spider web pattern). See what I hateful? Take a look at the grapheme traits that will serve you well in your desired function, see if yous can find examples of yous using similar traits in the by, and frame them accordingly.

viii. Be Prepared to Brand a Few Adjustments

And then you've begun to transition into your new ideal career, but information technology doesn't feel as fantastic as you thought it would. Hang in in that location. At that place are learning curves for everything, and fifty-fifty if you love the work, it's withal incredibly draining and stressful to swap one ingrained pattern for another, even if you hated the original. Hopefully at this point y'all've fix a goal in mind, which should assist spur you past all of those less than ideal, lower-level hurdles to get you going where you lot desire to go. Remember, fifty-fifty if y'all began at the greatest heights in your former career, starting anew means actually starting from the bottom. Simply don't worry; if you lot've taken the time to really effigy out what you desire and y'all're willing to work difficult, y'all'll most likely get at that place much faster than if y'all were right out of college and only half-heartedly pursuing your goal.

A Few Chore Hunting Resources

• Your local professional or alumni association. Both are nifty means to connect with people with whom you have a natural affinity and who might take connections and educational resources to aid go y'all on your fashion. They also often have chore boards.
• Wage websites. Websites like Glassdoor requite you lot a peachy glimpse into what people earn where and how they feel about their jobs. Career One Stop provides a similar and even more extensive service. Sites similar Career Elation focus more on the overall happiness expressed inside a career, with the clear goal of getting you situated in a task that makes yous smile.
• Interview aid sites. Sites similar Large Interview provide an all-encompassing corporeality of coaching for the big day.

Final Thoughts

Changing your career can feel intimidating, but with a little work, it's well inside your grasp. How would you alter your career if you had the risk? Permit us know in the comments below.

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Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/work/finding-new-career-the-new-year.html

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