How Professionals Can Make A Safe Career Change?

How Professionals Can Make A Safe Career Change?

Professionals can make a career change in their lives for many reasons. It may be due to dissatisfaction in the current job profile, disappointed experiential growth, or simply not getting what they hoped to get out of their career lives by a certain age limit. Whatever may be the reason, more and more people are getting their jobs and careers changed, including professionals, novices, starters even. The realizations have dawned upon many people, that life is too short to be risking out and living someone else’s dream. They are taking the leap towards an uncertain but rewarding life risk, and this article, will help those people in their journey and perhaps try to give broader “counseling” on how professionals can make a safe career change? 

People or rather students go to college with a specific goal in mind, mostly. Some wish to become professional accountants, professors, scientists even, whereas some go to college and figure they way out by the kind of subject choices they have, and the types of subjects they are interested in, etc.  But now that those same people have passed out, spent a few years in their “dream-jobs”, have come to realize that the dream job might have lost its charm, or that their particular values and career goals might have changed. Anything can be the reason for changing careers, and it is not a taboo anymore to walk down that uncertain path. 

Some people may also have changed life commitments, such as becoming a father, or a mother, that might want them to change their career so that they can spend more time with their family. They may look for jobs that are not stringent and have flexible time hours, more salary incentives, etc. 

However, before delving into the deeper tips and strategies that the readers of this article might need to answer the question, “How Professionals Can Make A Safe Career Change?”, it is very important to analyze and evaluate the current situation you may be in. Evaluating your current job, your current situation and your current expectations may help you gauge the step you are in life, and it may also encourage you to think in a level-minded and realistic manner on what you wish to achieve with the career change. It's only when you know where exactly you stand and are at the moment can you decide on where you want to go.  

Once you have thoughtfully had a “sit-down” with yourself, we can move on to the other tried and tested strategies that current career changers might wish to follow. 

Tips on How Professionals Can Make a Safe Career Change?

Review and change the order of these tips and strategies as you like, and according to your current situation. But keep in mind the reason why you wish to make a career change or what you wish to achieve out of it. 

Tip Number 1: Evaluate your current job satisfaction rate:

Professionals should try out different methods and tricks to ensure that the reason they are changing careers is a valid reason. Sometimes a little misunderstanding or even a backlog of emotions can trigger a person to believe falsely that he or she wants a career change when all they may need is a break. 

To ensure that you know and arrive the option of a career change truthfully and it is the thing you want the most, it is especially advisable for professionals or any other person who wishes to make a career change, to start keeping a journal, or any other method where they can track their daily emotions, and to record the job satisfaction that he or she thinks they get from the current job. 

Writing down aspects of your current job that you dislike, or even like, the description of the type of work that you do, all may help you make sense of the reason behind the thinking of a career change and when it is the right time to “move on”. 

Tip Number 2: Assess yourself:

Assessing yourself is the next best tip in answering the question of how professionals can make a safe career change? Reviewing your past history and your past jobs, listing down the skills and interests that you have alongside the values that inspire your work routine or work life is a great way to self-introspect and help you realize in what kind of field you wish to make a career change. Determining your skills and interests will help a long way in determining the nature of work, type of job, preferred job role you wish to have. 

Tip Number 3: Considering Alternative Careers:

Brainstorming is a very effective technique when it comes to assessing anything that requires deep thought and analyzing skills for true and effective answers. For effective ideas into different career options and career fields. Talking with your friends and peers might help if you are having trouble in gauging different career options. 

Tip Number 4: Focus your Job Search

Focusing your job search will enable you to not get stuck in the same rut you got out of. When searching for jobs, you should be clear in what you want and why you want it, and what qualifications you have for the job or career you wish to partake. What this tip is telling you is to have a sense of clarity from the very start. Clarity and focused determination will land you the dream job that makes everything better and easier, in short, something your future self will thank you for. The next step under this tip is the reality check. 

Checking the goal or dream job you wish to make a career in, is it attainable? Do you qualify for it? What is the growth expectation of the job sector? How will it make your life better? What values does it support for you? These are just some of the questions that you need to ask yourself. 

Tip Number 5: Design your Resume or CV to shape:

The next step after you have successfully gauged and brainstormed and realized the kind of sector and job you wish to make a career change in. The next step involves “looking the part”. Design and reshape your resume, with skills that cater to the demands of your new job or career at the top, and other potential achievements and awards that will show how qualified you are for the job. But you see, it’s not only qualifications, it's all about the skills you have gathered over the years. After a certain amount of years in the working field, the academic qualifications, including ranks takes a backseat, what is left and brought into the spotlight are the skills you possess, which can be, job-related or general overall in-demand skills, such as time management, communication skills, leadership qualities, problem-solving skills, etc. 

Bonus Tip: Network, Network and Network all:

In today’s media and the socially starved world, what people need to score a good job is much like people need to “score a good date”. Networking, with potential employees, to suited personal assistants, all you may sometimes need to be seen and known by people who are in the sector you wish to make a career change to. Knowing where you want to go and making sure people know you, is very important in today’s tech-savvy world.    

Why Professionals make career changes?

There may be many different reasons for why they wish to change careers, it may be due to a variety of reasons, such as personal decisions, midlife crisis, changed family commitments, etc. 

According to a Midlife Career Crisis Survey, the following reasons are the top reasons why professionals make a safe career change.

1. Better Pay expectancy, 
2. Current Job getting too stressful
3. A better Work-Life Balance
4. New Challenges
5. Stagnation in the job
6. Lost passion about the field

Why Should Professionals Make a Career Change?

According to the Joblist Survey Reports, most people were happier than they were in their current jobs after making a career change. The list of emotions people were asked after they made the career change ranges from the emotions listed below:

1. Happier
2. More Satisfied
3. More Fulfilled
4. Less Stressful
5. More Rewarding and Fulfilling
6. Wider Exposure, etc. 

People who make a career change due to any of the reasons that are listed above, or for more personal reasons, have witnessed amazing and rewarding results such as being happier and more content, which in turn leads to positivity and which again, in turn, leads to excellent thought processes, and in turn, makes working fun. And well, if working is fun and enjoyable, the quality of work is incomparable and it results in higher rewards and a higher sense of accomplishment.

Hence, to conclude, we hope you got a somewhat clear “action plan” to start looking for the answer on, How Professionals Can Make A Safe Career Change?. Whatever be your reason and whatever be your destined dream job sector, if you feel like you are not in it, or working for it, feel free to change your career and take the risk that can ultimately lead you to a life you always wanted. That life, that dream job, that pay even, is simply waiting for you to take the leap.