7 Steps to a Successful Career Change in 2020

When you begin to hate Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, it may be time to reinvent your career in 2020?

We’ve all had a bad week where the dread kicks in on a Sunday evening. But what if it’s every week and it’s not only Mondays but Tuesdays, Wednesdays and every day?

Life’s too short. If this is how you or someone you know feels, it’s time to get honest with oneself and truly evaluate your career. Remember career satisfaction not only affects your work life but your whole life, your health and relationships outside of work too.

How easy or difficult it’s going to be to make a change depends largely on what you’re currently doing, how much you earn, who’s dependent on you, your age, your education, how much savings you currently have, your current debt and of course your own self-doubt?

Even if you feel you are stuck in a rut because of your current responsibilities and burdens, you should still toy with the idea of making a change. It won’t cost you anything to consider the idea. It may just mean that your plans will take longer to put in place and at least you may improve how you feel in general by looking to the future and giving yourself something to look forward to.

Let 2020 be the year that you make some positive changes, but where do you start? Here are some tips to help you along the way.

1. Identify the problem

Ask yourself - Is it the company you want to move away from or the entire industry? Making a career change is a serious process that will require vast amounts of energy and effort. If the majority of your problems are people orientated - i.e. issues with management or your work colleagues, it will be worth considering moving to a new job before launching your journey to a brand new career.

2. Find your competitive advantage

Make a list of the things that you love to do and a list of things that you’re great at, not just good at – I mean really great at. Things that give you a competitive edge. Reviewing both lists may provide you with a good starting point when considering a career or life change.

3. How to find out what you love

‘Find a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life again.'

Sick of hearing that quote? You and everyone else. But there is some truth in it.

If you say to yourself ‘I don’t know what I want to do with my life’, you’re certainly not alone.

The solution is to find what it is that you love. Then build your career around it.

How do I find out what I really love?

But I don’t know what I love? Yes you do! You just need to do some digging. Here’s where to start.

Questions to ask…. you

• What do you do when you have spare time?

• What do you want to be better at?

• Who inspires you? Why do they inspire you?

• What would you spend your time doing if you didn’t have to work?

Audit your life

By breaking down your current behaviour, actions and patterns it will uncover where your curiosity and passion lie.

You are leaving clues behind every day about what you love – so go find them!

• Review your YouTube history and search history on Google

• Review your internet browser bookmarks

• Review your bank statements and see where your money is going every month

• Speak to your friends, parents, family members or partner and ask them what you are always talking about?

Go back to your childhood

It’s time to take a stroll down memory lane.

What did you love doing as a child before life got in the way? Make a list of all the activities and hobbies you can remember doing when you were younger. Think of happy times in your childhood too.

• When we’re you full of joy as a child?
• Was there any activity that you were talented at?

4. Research your options

Be mindful of the fact that we can become blinkered by our current surroundings and remember that there are lots of different types of organisations and careers out there. You may only have a view of the industry that you are currently in. The culture in other industries could be completely different from your current employers, so be sure to do plenty of research to identify what’s attractive to you.

Check out other businesses within your current industry and also not for profit organisations. Research has found that people who work for charities, social enterprises or other not-for-profit organisations increased their personal happiness levels sharply. People feel happier when they believe that their work is serving a greater purpose.

Look around at the people who you think have perfect jobs. If you could swap places with someone, who would that be and why? What do they do? How happy are they really? Could you do what they’re doing? What do you have to do to get there? Maybe invite them out for a coffee, it’s best to be honest from the get go – tell them why you’d like to meet in advance. Most people will be happy to oblige.

5. Beating self-doubt

There’s no doubt that making big changes can be daunting and challenging and contemplating such changes will immediately kick off self-doubt in the best of us. It’s a natural reaction but self-doubt can be paralysing, if you let it take over.

The best way to overcome self-doubt is to clearly visualise what you want in your life and how you’d like your future to look. Look to your past accomplishments and remind yourself of your past successes. Replacing negative thoughts with positive ones helps to refocus your mind.

Self-doubt is the bodies way of protecting you. It’s a reminder that you are venturing on something brave and important. It has a place in everyone’s life, but how we react to it, is the difference between success or failure.

When you experience self-doubt, the best thing to do is to acknowledge it. It may help to write down a list of why you’re feeling like this. What are the obstacles that have the potential to hold you back? You can then put a plan in place for addressing them in a healthy and productive way. This will help you to remain more positive as you move forward.

6. Rebuild your professional Network

When considering a career change, have a look at your current network. Do you know anyone who is currently working in the field, if you do link back up with them? A good place to reconnect with people is on LinkedIn. Getting to speak to people who work in your chosen area is an excellent way to gain valuable knowledge about the inner workings of the industry or specific companies. Surrounding yourself with the right people can have a profound impact on your career prospects.

7. Focus on your transferable skills

Showcasing your transferable skills to potential hiring managers is one of the most effective methods for successfully making a career change.

Transferable skills, as the name suggests, are skills that can be transferred from one field to another. They’re often referred to as portable skills because you take them along with you from job to job.

Because of their versatility, transferable skills are of interest to any employer regardless of the industry.

Examples of Transferable Skills

• Communication
• Organization
• Problem-solving
• Management
• Leadership
• Time management
• Prioritisation
• Delegation
• Listening

How to highlight your transferable skills: CV, Cover Letter & Interview

A great opportunity to display your transferable skills on your CV is within the Competencies/Achievement section.

Each transferable skill should be written in the present tense and will detail how you demonstrate the particular skill.

Here are some examples:

Customer service: Exceptional at dealing with customers and problem solving. Winner of two customer service awards in the past 12 months. Reduced customer complaints overall by 30% within my first year of employment.

Leader and high performer: Successfully captained my local football team to a first ever league title. I was voted player of the year for the past two seasons. Consistently got results and motivated team members to perform to the best of their ability.

Proactive: Learned Java Script in my spare time through an online training course on weekends. Extremely focused on continuing to upskill and increasing my market value.

Forward thinker and innovative: Proven track record of finding new product solutions. Proactively sought new systems to improve the aftersales process at *COMPANY NAME* which resulted in a 55% increase in repeat business.

Excellent communicator: Managed dispute resolutions successfully for small and medium enterprises by proactively understanding and empathising with all parties to find solutions.

High achiever: Completed my undergraduate studies with an average assessment result of 80%. Achieved perfect attendance during my final two years of university.

Problem solver: Lead a team of 5 people at *COMPANY NAME* to successfully complete a process improvement overhaul which focused entirely on becoming a paperless business. The project objective was reached a month before deadline.

For the best results make a list of the skills related to the position you are applying for and incorporate them into your core competencies and achievements section within your CV.

Cover Letter

We have a detailed guide on how to include your transferable skills within your cover letter. Check it out here.

Interview preparation

Behavioral-based questions during the interview will allow you to effectively demonstrate your transferable skills to hiring managers. One great method to use will be the STAR method. The STAR method is a structured manner of responding to a behavioral-based interview question by discussing the specific situation, task, action, and result of the situation you are describing. Here's how it works:

Situation: Describe the situation that you were in or the task that you needed to accomplish.

Task: What goal were you working toward?

Action: Describe the actions you took to address the situation with an appropriate amount of detail and keep the focus on YOU. What specific steps did you take and what was your particular contribution? Be careful that you don’t describe what the team or group did when talking about a project, but what you actually did. Use the word “I,” not “we” when describing actions.

Result: Describe the outcome of your actions and don’t be shy about taking credit for your behavior. What happened? How did the event end? What did you accomplish? What did you learn? Make sure your answer contains multiple positive results.

Finally, If you need any help putting your CV together you can check out our step by step guide here which includes a sample CV and cover letter with details instructions. The sample CV template is also available for download which you can use to help put your own CV together.

We wish you the very best of luck with your master plan for 2020.