Clues for Changing Careers: Answer Love It, Hate It, Tolerate It
By Shannon | July 13, 2008
To get clues to potential careers you might enjoy when changing careers, it is helpful to go through the process of identifying the type of work (skills and tasks) you enjoy, what you don’t enjoy, and what you tolerate.
As you think about skills and tasks, do not limit yourself to your current job. Include your past jobs, volunteer experience, and any other experience that is relevant. Keep this list handy and add to it as you think of new ideas.
Exercise: Love It, Hate It, Tolerate It
What skills/tasks at work do you love?
What skills/tasks at work do you hate?
What skills/tasks at work do you tolerate (not love or hate)?
Topics: Career Plan, Changing Careers, Choosing a Career | No Comments »
Defining Transferable Skills for your Job Change or When Changing Careers
By Shannon | June 15, 2008
There are four steps to identifying and translating your skills and experiences when you are writing resumes and cover letters for making a job change or changing careers:
Step One - Brainstorm
Brainstorm a comprehensive list of all of your skills. Use your resume or a cover letter to jumpstart your brainstorming.
Step Two - Basic Elements
Take each of the skills on your list and break it into basic elements. What are basic elements? It might be writing, problem solving, customer service, planning, research, organization, supervising, etc.
Step Three - Jargon
Comb through your descriptions to pinpoint and delete any language that is specific to your current career, but not applicable to a new one. This might include words and phrases like: client with a capital C; work product; pitch; deliverables; ERP; BPI; operating units; deploy.
Step Four - Translate
Write your skills and experiences using the language of your new job or new career.
Not sure about that language? Use job postings for clues. What are the words that are used to describe the responsibilities or skill requirements in job postings in your new job or new career?
Topics: Career Plan, Changing Careers, Cover Letters, Job Change, Resumes | No Comments »
Why Your Career Criteria is Critical
By Shannon | May 25, 2008
One of the reasons people get stuck when thinking about a career plan, changing careers, or choosing a career is they know what they do not want, but they have not identified what they do want. The process of creating your criteria is focused on what you do want.
Without a clear set of criteria, lots of careers can look attractive, but you have no way of evaluating if a career is right for you and no basis for making a choice between two or more possibilities. Your criteria will become your guiding force in exploring changing careers or choosing a career, deciding what path to follow now and in the future, knowing when it is time to leave a position, and plotting your career plan.
Topics: Career Plan, Changing Careers, Choosing a Career | No Comments »
Get Over the ‘One Career for Life’ Myth
By Shannon | May 17, 2008
It used to be that people chose their careers in high school or college, and expected the choice to shape the rest of their lives. They would get the education, training, or experience they needed, find an entry-level job, prove themselves, move up the ladder, make more money, get a better title, and finally, retire with a pension. They might change jobs once or even twice, but they would stay in the same basic field and company for the duration of their working lives.
Today, you can expect to have 10-12 jobs in your working life, and as many as 3-5 different careers. The younger you are right now, the more change you can expect during your working life.
In fact, you might even have more than one dream career during your working life.
Topics: Career Plan, Changing Careers, Choosing a Career | No Comments »
Functional Resumes for Job Changes and Changing Careers
By Shannon | April 26, 2008
Functional resumes are organized by function or category, rather than time (chronological). The advantage of a functional resume is that you can highlight the most relevant experience, even if it was volunteer work, a hobby, or three jobs ago.
Some very conservative organizations/industries (e.g., banking, Wall Street), do not like functional resumes, so be sure to check it out first, before you develop your resume.
The basic building blocks of a functional resume are:
1-Summary/Profile
2-Skill Groups
3-Work History (Usually just a list with relevant details, but without descriptions)
-Title, Employer, Location, Dates
4-Education
5-Other Pertinent Information
-Training, Awards, Volunteer Experiences, etc.
Sometimes a functional resume can be just the ticket to that job interview you’re seeking.
Topics: Changing Careers, Job Change, Resumes | No Comments »
Stealth Search: Look for a New Job Under Your Employer’s Nose
By Shannon | April 19, 2008
Question:
S writes: How do I look for a job without my employer finding out?
Answer:
Use a Stealth Search
You want to make a job change. You have identified some ideas. But, you do not want your current employer to know that you plan to make a change, until you hand in that resignation letter. A stealth search is the answer for you.
A stealth search is conducted differently from a normal job search. In a normal job search, you would apply openly for jobs, ask your contacts to keep an ear open for relevant opportunities, and although you might not tell your employer you were looking, you would tell other people. In a stealth search, you are not going to tell people you are looking for a job. You are simply going to tell them you are interested in learning more about a specific career.
The tactics of a stealth search are: networking, research, and a focus on exploration.
A stealth search may take a bit longer, but it is a very effective way to make a job change without your employer finding out.
Topics: Job Change | No Comments »
Track Your Job Search Contacts
By Shannon | April 12, 2008
Whether you use a spreadsheet or a low-tech paper system, you need some kind of system for tracking applications, conversations, interviews, contact information, and so on, and for reminding you to follow up on your contacts.
These are the types of information you will want to track:
-Organization Name
-Contact Name
-E-mail Address
-Telephone Number
-Mailing Address
-Source
-Date Of Contact
-Description Of Contact
-Date To Take Action Or Follow Up
-Description Of Action Or Follow Up
Don’t try to just remember your job search contacts without writing them down or you might miss a great opportunity.
Topics: Changing Careers, Job Change | No Comments »
How to Write Easy Dream Career Cover Letters, Even If You Are Not a Writer
By Shannon | April 5, 2008
What do you do about cover letters if you are not a writer? A cover letter for your dream career can take hours and be a tortuous process.
There are easy formats for cover letters that do not require strong writing skills and put your relevant qualifications right up front, where an employer cannot miss them.
One simple format that does not require a lot of writing is a bulleted cover letter.
Example - Bulleted Cover Letters
Dear Ms. Employer,
I would like to put my experience and knowledge to work as a Public Relations Manager for Organization.
My relevant qualifications include:
-Knowledge of communication theory and practices.
-Working with a broad array of organizations and issues.
-Experience in public affairs campaign development and execution, project management, event planning, and strategic relationship development.
-Working with local, national, and trade media, including pitching stories, writing news releases, developing media packets, organizing news conferences, handling inquiries, and conducting tours.
-Developing and managing relationships with clients, media, organizations, and advisory groups.
-Planning and executing a range of events, from receptions to multi-day conferences.
-Writing a variety of materials for print and digital media.
-Developing and managing complex projects, working effectively as a member of cross-functional teams and individually.
I would be an asset to your organization because:
-I have a track record of developing successful programs and cooperative working relationships.
-I am an innovative problem solver.
-I have excellent written and oral communication skills.
-I am committed to using my talent and skills to make a difference.
I am very enthusiastic about the opportunity to serve your organization as a Public Relations Manager. My resume, outlining my accomplishments, is enclosed. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss how my passion, experience, and skills could be an asset to Organization. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Jane Applicant
When you write bulleted-format cover letters, be sure to highlight the qualification you feel are most important for your dream career. If you are responding to a job posting, pull out the most important information from the posting and include that in your letter.
Bulleted-format cover letters also have the advantage of being easily skimmable by a potential employer.
Even if you are not a writer, you can easily write great cover letters. Just follow the bullet format.
Topics: Cover Letters, Job Change | No Comments »
How to Explore Your Dream Career
By Shannon | March 29, 2008
Whether you are changing careers or choosing a career, exploring your dream career can take some work. Luckily, there are plenty of resources, both online and offline, to find out about careers.
Online Resources
Someone compared the internet to the Library of Congress, only with all of the books on the floor in no particular order. While it is getting easier to find information on the web, it still requires patience and persistence to find exactly what you are looking for.
Career Sites
A good place to start is with one of the career-oriented web sites like The Riley Guide, Vault or WetFeet. These sites specialize in providing real-world information about careers, and at some, you can purchase detailed information, including profiles written by people who actually work in the field.
Professional Associations
If you can find a professional association for the career or even for a related field, the web site will often include educational requirements, relevant trade journals or magazines, salary information, and sometimes, insights into the challenges and rewards of the career.
Colleges and Universities
The web site for the career center at your alma mater (or another university) can be a great source of information about careers, job opportunities, and salary expectations.
Online Bookstores
Depending on the career, it may be included in a career-oriented book or in a compilation of related careers. Online book stores, such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com are a good resource for finding publications to help in your research.
Offline Resources
Reference Librarians
The reference librarian at your local library can be a great resource for finding information about a specific field or career. Reference librarians specialize in research, and they have plenty of reference materials at their disposal. Even if a particular book is not available in your local library, you can usually get it on loan from a cooperating library through your librarian, or even online in some libraries.
The Career Center at Your Alma Mater
Your alma mater’s career center probably has a significant library that includes many reference books about different careers.
Local Chapter of a Professional Association
Many professional associations have local chapters that plan local or regional events. These may be networking events or educational events or both. Often the events are open to non-members who are considering joining the organization and want to learn more about it.
In a community that has a newspaper, these events are often listed on a specific day that the newspaper has designated. For example, some papers have a “Monday Business” section. Also, in cities that have local business journals, the event listings may appear in that journal.
Classes
Enrolling in a workshop or class in the field is another good way of learning more about that career. If you are taking the class or seminar at a community college or through a private educational organization, the instructor will likely be a professional in the field, and can answer many of your questions about the realities of that career.
Networking
The most effective way to research a career is to talk with people who work in the field. While you can learn a great deal about a career by reading about it, only the people who actually work (or have worked) in the career can give you the insights you will need to understand the positive and negative aspects of that career.
As you know, there can be big differences between the “official story” about a career and the everyday reality. A professional association might provide a comprehensive overview of a particular career, the qualifications needed to enter the field, and the opportunities it offers, but many will not talk much about the negative aspects of the career.
To find out the everyday reality of a career, you need to have the opportunity to ask questions of people who are working (or who have worked) in the field.
Topics: Changing Careers, Choosing a Career | No Comments »
Dream Career or Fantasy?
By Shannon | March 24, 2008
Can you really create your dream career? Yes, you can, IF your dream career is indeed a dream and not a fantasy. What is the difference?
You can make a dream career come true through planning and execution. With a fantasy, you are completely at the mercy of chance. And you are usually dealing with outrageous odds. For example, winning the lottery is a pleasurable fantasy, but it is not the kind of dream you can work toward and attain.
Many people never get beyond the fantasy to actually creating a dream career.
Test Yourself: Dream or Fantasy?
Are these dreams or fantasies? The answers are in the next post down (no peeking).
1. Starting your own business.
2. Selling a patent or an idea and receiving instant millions.
3. Being the next major league ballplayer plucked from a weekend pickup game.
4. Becoming a published writer.
5. Catching the attention of a record producer while she is having dinner in the restaurant where you are singing.
Are you pursuing a dream career or are you lost in a fantasy?
Topics: Career Plan, Changing Careers | No Comments »
Dream Career or Fantasy Answers
By Shannon | March 24, 2008
Answers:
1. Dream
2. Fantasy
3. Fantasy
4. Dream
5. Fantasy
Topics: Career Plan, Changing Careers | No Comments »
Jump Off the Career Ladder
By Shannon | March 15, 2008
It used to be that you could make decisions for your career plan simply by identifying the next rung on the success ladder. Today, for most people, the ladder no longer exists.
In the old days, a career plan was basically a matter of figuring out how to move up, either by obtaining a more senior position in your current organization, or by searching for a position in a different organization that was a step up from your current one. Generally, people were rewarded for taking on more responsibility, in the form of managing more people and more budgets.
Today, successful career plans are not about climbing the rungs and upward direction. Success is about building a career portfolio, comprised of expertise, skills, and experiences.
Building the right career portfolio is dependent on your own unique goals. You have to know where you are headed if you are going to develop an effective career plan to get there. It is also dependent on your own unique career criteria.
When you know your goals and your criteria, you can make decisions about the next step without the ladder. You will have the information and insights to make the right career plan for you.
Topics: Career Plan | No Comments »
Where is Your Dream Career?
By Shannon | March 1, 2008
What you do is only part of the equation for your dream career. In addition to what you do, there is the question of where you do your work: the organization you will work for (even if it is your own business), and the role you will play within that organization.
The organization, or where you do your work, is represented in three areas: Culture, Organization, and Role. These three areas make up your secondary criteria.
Culture
The Culture area includes elements such as the type of people in the organization, the leadership and management styles, the ethics, the speed of operation, and the type of customer or client served, as well as other characteristics of organizational culture.
Organization
The Organization area defines what kind of organization it is: size, type, geography, physical environment, and so on.
Role
The Role area defines what your role is within that organization, including what potential impact you could have, whether you are primarily working independently or interdependently, and the opportunity for growth in that role within the organization, as well as elements like challenge and responsibility.
Once you have defined both what you do (your primary criteria) and where you do it (your secondary criteria), you have a solid blueprint for your new dream career.
Topics: Changing Careers, Choosing a Career | No Comments »
The New Dream Career Model
By Shannon | February 23, 2008
The new dream career model emphasizes two major focuses: what you do (what most people call a career) and where you do it (the organization). In this model, I call the “what” your primary criteria and the “where” your secondary criteria. Both sets of criteria are important, but your primary criteria is the most critical when creating your new dream career.
The center of the model represents your primary career criteria and contains three circles: strengths, compensation, and meaning.
Strengths
Strengths are what you are trained to do or what you do well, as well as characteristics of your personality that contribute to your success in the workplace.
Compensation
Compensation is what you receive in return for the investment of your energy, time, and talent in a career or organization.
Meaning
Meaning is the emotional connection you feel to your work. It is a feeling of making a difference in the world, a sense of the importance of what you do, or the joy you feel in connection with your work.
Creating your new dream career involves first defining each of the circles for yourself, and developing a picture of the right intersection of the three circles — your primary career criteria.
Topics: Changing Careers, Choosing a Career | No Comments »
Don’t Torpedo Your Dream Job Change with the Wrong Email Address
By Shannon | February 16, 2008
Your e-mail address is part of your first impression when you are making a dream job change. Imagine if an employer sees a resume with an email address like funnyface@ or jeepersjohn@! Unless you’re a professional comedian or actor, the email address that seemed fun when you set up your account could cost you the job.
Electronic communication is an important tool in today’s job search process, so an e-mail address to send and receive information is critical. Your e-mail address needs to be included with your other contact information on your resume. It is very important that you don’t use funny, cute, or suggestive addresses on your resumes or for your job change communication.
Besides cute or funny email address, the other critical mistake job hunters make is to use their work email address on their resume or for search communications. Big mistake. You don’t want a new employer to think that if they hire you, you will be using their resources for your next job change.
The best strategy is to set up a free e-mail address from a service like Yahoo or Hotmail, specifically for your job search. With a new address, you are less likely to receive spam e-mail, and you certainly don’t want to miss an e-mail from a potential employer because you have mistaken it for spam. Also, with a new address you can set it up with a name that is appropriate (such as yourname@) or something that is descriptive of your dream career (such as careercoach@).
Topics: Cover Letters, Job Change, Resumes | No Comments »
Lower the Risk, Get Your Dream Job
By Shannon | February 11, 2008
Whenever an employer is making a hiring decision, they are taking a big risk. When you are making a job change, get your dream job by lowering the risk for a potential employer.
How do you do that? Primarily, by demonstrating credibility.
Obviously, it is easier to demonstrate credibility in your current field, especially if you have a few years of experience. But, even when changing careers, you can lower the risk for a potential employer.
Credibility can come from a number of factors:
Being “Known”
Being known to someone does not mean you will automatically get the job, but it does help to get the interview. “Known” can be a loose connection such as a networking acquaintance, or it can be someone who is very familiar with your skills and experience.
Credentials
Credentials are generally bestowed by an organization, such as an accreditation, designation, degree, or certification.
Expertise
Expertise is your demonstrated experience in a particular field or with a particular skill.
Membership in a Professional Organization
Membership in an organization shows that you are serious about your profession, and conveys some credibility, even when it is just a dues-paying membership.
Reference in the Field
Particularly when you are changing careers, having someone in the field on your reference list lends credibility to your application.
Ability to Communicate in the Language of the Field
Using the jargon, or keywords, shows that you are knowledgeable and familiar with the field.
Topics: Changing Careers, Job Change | No Comments »
What’s on Your Dream Career Bucket List?
By Shannon | February 6, 2008
Do you have a bucket list for your dream career? A bucket list, as in the movie starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, is a list of things to experience before ‘kicking the bucket.’
A career bucket list would include the career experiences you want to have before you retire. For some people, those experiences might include working for a particular company, taking a leadership role such as CEO, winning an award, or owning their own company.
What can a bucket list do for your career? It will help you clarify your career goals and criteria. While most people can easily list what they don’t want more of in their career, they find it more difficult to define what the do want.
Whether you expect to be changing careers, making a job change, or just developing your career plan, defining your career goals and criteria is the first major step. And while defining what you want doesn’t seem that difficult, for many people it is. Especially for those who have years of experience in their careers.
Many people chose their careers because of family pressures, for practical reasons, or because of advice from a career counselor, and have long buried their real career desires.
A career bucket list is one tool for clarifying career goals and criteria, the first step to your dream career.
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Topics: Career Plan, Changing Careers, Job Change | No Comments »
Play to Your Strengths
By Shannon | February 2, 2008
Strengths are what we were traditionally taught to use as a basis for a career plan. It includes the areas where you excel — your strengths — as well as skills, talents, personality traits, experiences, and education. Strengths can also include skills you would like to develop further; it does not have to be only those that you consider to be well-developed.
When you define your strengths, start with your current job, but do not limit yourself to one experience. Think about the skills and experiences from all of the different aspects of your working life, as well as from related experiences — like volunteer work, hobbies, and even, parenting.
Some people are concerned that focusing on skills and experiences for their career plan will limit them to a career similar to the current one. It won’t. Most of the skills and experiences you identify will be translatable to a new career. It is all in the way you think and talk about them.
People often ask me if assessments can be helpful in their career plan. Assessments can provide pieces of information, especially helping you to identify some of your strengths, but they cannot identify all of the elements that need to be part of your career decisions.