People change careers for a few various reasons, perhaps, they’re looking for better compensation or work/life balance, or in light of the fact that they no longer feel the passion of doing their current field. Changing careers can be tough, and it takes intensive planning.
However, presently, due to COVID-19, changing careers may turn into a need, according to some experts. The pandemic’s impact on the world economy is probably going to cause huge short-term and long-term career disturbance. It’s too soon to hypothesize about how much the pandemic will change a particular industry, for instance, tourism, airlines, and health care. Be that as it may, it’s now apparent that COVID-19 has caused enormous short-term changes.
Changing careers requires a great deal of self-reflection and an assessment of your skills, interests, choices, and the evolving condition of the job market. In spite of the fact that it can feel overwhelming, changing careers can still pay off. Most people report being more joyful, facing less stressed, and getting better pay in the wake of changing careers, as per Joblist’s Midlife Career Crisis survey.
Why do people change careers?
There is a wide range of reasons why individuals need to change careers. Of course, it’s always been a personal choice and decision with numerous factors included. Here are the five top reasons why people decided to change their careers according to survey reports from Joblist’s Midlife Career Crisis.
Better Pay: 47%
Too much Stressful: 39%
Better Work-Life Balance: 37%
Wanted a New Challenge: 25%
No longer Passionate About Field: 23%
The Benefits of a Career Change
According to the Job lists survey report, it shows that people were more joyful after they made the change to their career:
More joyful: 77%
More satisfied: 75%
More fulfilled: 69%
Less stressed: 65%
Furthermore, the individuals who change careers were getting more salary as well. People who changed careers for better compensation earned an extra $10,800 yearly in contrast with their past positions.
Here are a few tips to help you on how to change your career successfully:
Check out Your Likes and Dislikes
Numerous individuals change careers since they dislike their present place of employment, their boss, or the company itself. On the off chance that this is the situation for you, at that point consider if changing one of those three things would be more sensible compared to a full-scale career change.
Nonetheless, your dissatisfaction may go further, and it could be an aversion to your career field. It is recommended to begin your career change venture by keeping an everyday journal about your current job. Search for recurrent themes like parts of your employment that you like and dislike. Then, you have to decide whether your dislikes are identified and very much related to your company’s culture, the individuals who you work with, or the content of your work.
Distinguishing dislikes is very much essential – yet so is noticing the things you like. You have to examine like outside of work, as well, for example, what you do in your extra time, what things excite you, and what things you’re passionate about to do. Setting aside effort for this kind of career and self-evaluation will set you on the right path to finding another career you’re passionate about and will entirely enjoy working.
Make sure to assess your values, interests, and aptitudes
You have to review your past successful role, projects, volunteer works, and tasks to distinguish favored activities and abilities. Decide if your guiding principle and aptitudes are tended to throughout your current careers, there are available free online tools you can use to help evaluate professional options.
You may find that a lot of your most prominent strengths and aptitudes are transferable to another career field. When you recognize a few careers you’d prefer to go and explore, it might become clear that you, as of now, have professional experience that could make you a promising candidate in another field.
Think about alternative careers
Conceptualize ideas for career alternatives or choices by way of researching career options, and talking about your guiding principle or cores and abilities with companions, family, and networking contacts. In case you’re experiencing difficulties coming up with ideas, consider meeting with a career counselor for professional advice.
Research about different Careers
Start looking for various careers after you’ve found out your interests, aptitudes, and qualities. You can talk it over with loved ones and utilize reliable online resources, for example, the Occupational Outlook Handbook from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS’s Handbook is considered a brilliant resource since it’ll give you a review of what a career resembles, and it’ll likewise give you a rundown of the expected job development in that field.
In this period of Covid, you ought to likewise consider how the pandemic may have a short-and long-term impact on any professions you might be keen on. It may very well be hard to guess the pandemic’s long-term impact on specific industries, however, at present, it’s important to think about any implications they might incur. In the event that you need to dive further into your career research, you could likewise meet with a career counselor.
Get personal
Discover as much as possible about those fields and connect with individual contacts in those areas for informational interviews. Remember that your college alumni career network is such a good source of contacts when it comes to looking for informational interviews.
In addition, LinkedIn is also a good source for discovering contacts in a particular career field of interest.
Set up an occupation shadow (or two)
Shadow professionals in fields of essential interest to notice work directly. Spend time from a couple of hours to a couple of days work shadowing individuals who have occupations that interest you.
A good place to find alumni volunteers is definitely your college career office, as they’re willing to host job shadowers.
Give it a try
You have to identify volunteer and freelance activities that are all related to your objective field to test your interest, for example, in the event that you are considering publishing a career, take a stab at editing the PTA newsletter. You can also volunteer at your local shelter if ever you’re interested in working with animals.
Take a class
Try as well to investigate educational open doors that would connect your experience to your new field. Why not consider taking an evening course at a nearby school or an online course, or spend some of your available time attending weekend seminars. You can also contact professional groups in your objective field for recommendations.
Upgrade your skills
Search for approaches to develop new skills in your present place of employment that would prepare for a change, for example, offering to write a grant proposal if ever that grant writing is esteemed in your new field. In the event that your company offers in-house training, don’t hesitate to sign up for as many classes as you can. There are ways you can situate yourself for a career change without returning to class or back to school.
Be Flexible
Changing careers will literally need you to be entirely adaptable and flexible when you at long last begin searching for a new job. You may need to be adaptable and flexible in almost everything, including moving to another area, perhaps, starting at an entry-level position, or taking a compensation cut. But, always be hopeful and optimistic about your possibilities, however, anticipate mishaps and don’t let them get you down.
Being flexible likewise implies you ought to think about various roles in your current industry or even at your current company. For instance, in case you’re head supervisor for a retail chain, you could land a position in the organization’s corporate workplaces. Or then again in case you’re a writer at your present organization, perhaps you could do the change to your company’s marketing department.
