The Best Way To Execute Any Career Change

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If you’ve come to a point where you feel you need a career change, then don’t panic; you’re not alone! Even now, it’s likely that countless people around the world are coming to a point where they feel dissatisfied in their current position, and need to break off with their jobs, carving out a totally new path for themselves. Whether you’ve been coasting from job to job or started a career that you’ve become disillusioned with, it’s important to do everything you can to make your career change a success. Here are some of the best tips we can offer for hitting the nail on the head.

A Gradual Approach is Often the Best Approach

Many people want to have an immediate, radical change in their career, and the appeal in this is certainly understandable. However, in a lot of cases, it’s much more realistic and practical to work towards a new career over a longer period of time. This might mean asking your employer to take on different responsibilities, studying some new subject in the evenings, applying for internships, or developing soft skills which will make you more attractive to prospective employers. More often than not, you’ll need to work towards your career in a chain of different jobs, rather than a single, big leap. This is especially important if you want to hold onto the salary you’re on right now, rather than having to go back to entry-level wages and have to bounce back.

Never Let your Resume Become Too Cluttered

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One of the biggest mistakes people make when pursuing a change in career is letting their resume become too long and cluttered. When you’re building your skills and experience, the natural tendency is to fill your resume up with every little detail, trying to maximize your chances for getting an interview. However, doing this can in fact hurt, rather than help, the next step you take in your career. Most employers won’t have the time, or won’t be willing to invest the time, to read page after page to find out more about a single candidate. Try to keep your resume concise, and as well-suited to the role you’re going for as possible. Your resume should ideally be one page, and only two if it’s absolutely necessary. Furthermore, you should try to whittle the whole document down to the things that are going to get you noticed by the right employers. If, for example, you want to start working at a clinic, and you took a BA healthcare online a year or two ago, then go ahead and include this. However, if you’ve got a string of work-run oriented qualifications from your previous employment, that won’t really help you with getting into the medical niche, it’s probably best to cut some of these out. Anything you leave out can be brought up during the interview if needs be.

Think About What’s Important to You

To be honest, this should have come at the top of our list. It may not be the most practical piece of advice we can offer someone looking for a career change, but it might just be the most important! Spend a little while thinking about the things that are really important to you in a career. What kind of working environments make you happy? What keeps you motivated when you’re feeling the afternoon crash coming on? What are you good at, and are there any conflicts between this and what you love doing? These are all questions which you need to ask yourself, which will be helpful in figuring out the best next step.

Network, Network, Network

One of the best ways to understand the culture and nuances that are tied to the sector you want to get into is rubbing shoulders with people who are already intimately involved in it. Spread your net wide, and use LinkedIn to start reaching out to people from the most junior to the most senior at a company you’d like to work at. By talking to these people, you’ll get a great understanding of the business culture, the recruitment process, the way it treats employees, and various other details. Furthermore, you’ll probably pick up some handy advice on developing your career prospects in the industry at large, and make you that much more likely to be the candidate that gets the interview. Remember, the majority of job openings aren’t advertised. Companies would much rather pick out someone who’s already promising rather than invest all the time and effort it takes for a recruitment drive.