Career change tips
Are you frustrated in your current position, bored, indifferent or unappreciated by your management team? Well, maybe it is time to consider a career change! Easy to say, hard to get right.
There is something very refreshing about highly motivated and ambitious people. They are rare.
Set out below is a list of considerations as a foundation for your journey, which will be complex and at times challenging as career change is not easy.
- Don’t do it alone. Seek out a mentor or appoint an experienced career coach
- Assess your transferable skills. For example, you might be a great business development manager or a mechanical engineer. These skills and expertise are needed across many sectors and underpin your ability to investigate offering this background and knowledge to other employers
- Identify industries and sectors that would want your skills. You will quickly find that there are multiple choices within the parameters that you define
- Review your qualifications and relevant training, and if they are not up to current employer expectations then update yourself before you embark on any attempted career change. There is nothing that annoys a recruiter more than unqualified candidates applying for positions (you might be able to do the job but are not qualified for it)
- Be aware of your SOFT SKILLS…people skills, as employers often put a higher emphasis on these than your core HARD SKILLS…technical skills
- Focus on building relationships with people already employed in your target industry. Networking is recognised as the fastest and most efficient way of transitioning into any new sector
- Ensure that your personal presentation is of the highest standard as in the job market you will be competing against many keen candidates. If your speech is sloppy, your dress sense is ordinary and your writing skills are poor then you are going to find it difficult. Again, get professional help to “brush up” on your presentation at all levels
- Social media and general technology skills are vital in today’s fast-moving workplace. Don’t take the attitude that you don’t like it or are not overly interested in all facets of technology. Recruiters will quickly discard anyone with this outlook and view you like yesterday’s employee and not a potentially active contributor to the modern-day workforce
Career change is an important part of anyone’s career plans that is very easy to get wrong.
MAJOR TIP: Always be over prepared!
ACMA creates successful career paths through detailed individual assessment, research and job market analysis, combined with expert personalised coaching.
Note: A Career Development Association of Australia research paper found that when professional career guidance occurred that the participant was 2.67 times more likely to secure a job.
All program services can be delivered via our interactive online cloud-based career management "Career Talk" system and/or "one-on-one" in our Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne, Cairns or Auckland offices.
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