If you’re looking at your career history and you’re feeling unsatisfied, it might be time for a career pivot. Changing careers might be a little outside of your comfort zone, but continuing to do work you no longer enjoy is frustrating.
We are here to help you learn how to make a career change while keeping your calm. Continue reading this article as we walk you through best practices for changing careers.
Prepare to Be Patient
Once you know you want to make a change, you might think it should be as easy as that. You’re usually going to find there is a lot to do before you’re able to achieve your change.
Be patient, and don’t stop when times get hard.
Know Why You Want the Change
Knowing why you want the change will allow you to keep pushing ahead when things aren’t going your way. It will also help you to communicate with people that might be able to help you achieve your goals.
Know What Change You Want
Knowing the goal is key once you get started. It’s not enough to just not want to do what you’re doing now. You want to have specifics about what it is that you want. Creating a clear vision about your future is a must if you want to achieve your goals.
Map out What It’s Going to Take
Once you know what you want and why you want it, you have to figure out what it is going to take. Do you have to go back to school? Do you need licenses or certifications?
You may need things like that to even try to get a job in the career field that you want. You may have to start out in an entry-level position, which would mean that you’re likely to make less money for a while.
Take Small Steps in the Direction of Your Dreams
No matter how small a step might seem—just take it. You never know where things are going to take you, so taking the first step might get you farther than what you think.
Give Things a Try
When you don’t know if something is going to pan out, it might seem like a waste of your time. You might want a guarantee that something good is going to happen if you do something, but that isn’t how things work in life.
Try new things that could help you in your quest, and if it doesn’t pan out, at least you’ve had an interesting experience.
Understand It’s Okay to Have a Different Path Than Others
There are many people that take a traditional career path, but that doesn’t mean everyone is going to take the same path. You shouldn’t be ashamed of where you’ve come from or the jobs you’ve done.
You might have had independent contractor jobs and had to use a paystub creator to prove your income. Maybe you worked out of the country, and you’ve only come back to the United States recently.
There are many different things that might be part of your story, so instead of thinking about them as negative, think about them as something that makes you interesting and unique.
Know What to Say When People Ask What You Do
You never know when you’re going to meet someone that will ask you what you do. You don’t want to lie and say that you do what you’re trying to do, and you don’t want them to connect you to your current job. So what do you do?
You can tell them that you’re currently working in xyz field but that you’re making a transition to abc field. When you do this, you’ll be truthful about what you’re doing, but you’ll also put it out there as to what you want to do.
Get out and Network
Even if you know a lot of people, you can’t rely on your current network to help you find your new job. It’s likely that your current network has many connections in your current field and few or no connections to what you want to do.
Go out and meet people that work in the new field you want to work in. Find out where they hang out and see if you can find out what types of jobs are open right now.
You can gain a lot of intelligence about what you want to do and how to get there by talking to people that are already doing what you want to do.
Know Your Walk-Away Point
When you’re negotiating for a new position, you need to know what you’re walk-away point is in the negotiation. What is your lowest level of pay that you’ll accept? How many hours per week are you willing to work?
Know the answers to these questions, so you don’t have to think about what you’re willing to do and not willing to do in the middle of negotiation for employment. If you’re in the moment and feeling pressured, you might go for something that is beneath what you’d really be happy with.
Pulling off a Career Pivot
Now you know more about making a career pivot, and you can start working toward a career that makes you feel fulfilled. Career changes no longer need to mysterious or frustrating now that you have the information above.
Do you want to learn more about advancing in your career and more? Keep reading our blog to get the information you need.