7 Steps for Successful Career Transition

Steps for Successful Career Change

The quality of life you pursue, dream of, and live highly depends on your career. Without mincing words, the quality of life many of us want to live takes time, mainly because the great career that can lead to that life takes quite a while to build. Building this great career gives us two main things: mental satisfaction and financial independence. Career is one of the most important factors deciding the quality of your life. A promising career takes time to build and offers financial independence and mental satisfaction. Do you consider giving new directions to your professional future? A career transition is an option for those who want to face new challenges or move to a culture with greater adherence to their values.

A change can be motivated by dissatisfaction with the current job – which often translates into low productivity, lack of engagement, and disconnection from the organizational culture. Still, it can also be an attitude related to personal fulfillment. Regardless of the motivation, staying in an unwanted environment or position can become untenable, and its consequences can be reflected even in the individual’s personal life. Do you want to know more about the career transition and how to optimize this process? Continue reading; we can help you in this endeavor!

What is the career transition?

The career transition concerns the movement to change the positioning of the career, which causes the individual to perform other work activities or in different places.

Regardless of the motivation, this change generates greater professional and, consequently, personal fulfillment for the individual.

Some career transition models do not necessarily mean changing the field completely. The individual can act in the same segment but in a new function, have the same hierarchical position in different segments, or climb new steps in the hierarchy but in a geographically different region.

However exciting this change may seem, you would not just jump into another career option without looking further into it. In this article, we have curated a simple stepwise approach to help you transition smoothly from one career to another

1. Step One: Self Assessment

If you already have a good position in the job market, but the career transition is a need for personal fulfillment, evaluate the factors that cause your dissatisfaction: is it due to your current profession, or is it related to the area in which you work?

Do you feel unmotivated by the position you occupy or the company you work for? Do you need more flexibility or a better salary? These issues need to be analyzed before making a decision. Difficult moments will exist in any professional trajectory, so it is essential to identify why you think about changing. Once you understand them, talk to people you trust to find out if these demands are relevant to your current moment – if you have no support, everyone in your family must be aware of this desire. However, if your situation is more critical and you are unemployed, assess what factors can help you with this project:

• How to differentiate yourself from other professionals in the market?
• How to achieve a transition in the short term to minimize financial damage?
• What can be done to compensate for the time required for proper professionalization in a new occupation?

These questions are extremely pertinent since your financial situation, mainly related to the quality of life during the transition process, will dictate the level of ease or difficulty during the process. Self-knowledge also helps a lot, as it guides your actions, elucidates individual interests, affinities, skills, and potential. Find out what motivates you, as this will be your driving force, then assess the feasibility of the change.

2. Step Two – Assess Your Strengths

It is quite understandable if you feel the first and second steps are the same. However, the truth is that they are quite different.  After identifying the reason for your desired career switch, the next step is identifying your strengths and weaknesses. This step is necessary to aid you in understanding the path to take and the opportunities to go after. It gives you clarity of mind and vision.

3. Step Three – Make A Career Choice

After completing the required self-assessment, you decide what you want to do. Research the branch or area where you intend to act, and talk to headhunters or other HR specialists to become more familiar with the new scenario where you want to act. It is important to take note of the advantages and disadvantages of the different careers you are considering, as this will aid in making a detailed and satisfying decision.

4. Step Four – Learn About Your New Career

It is important to point out that it is not an easy ride to switch careers. Picking a new one to replace the old one might even be more difficult as you will have a lot of options staring down at you. You will need to get familiar to a certain extent with the nitty-gritty of all the careers you are considering. As earlier mentioned, the key to getting familiar with these careers is thorough research. You can start by surfing the Internet to get more information or connecting with people in the field. Social networks can be used to engage people who are already in that field you want to crossover to. You can also leverage your existing contacts to help you get connected with people in the field.

5. Step Five – Add More Skills

Armed with information about the possibilities and guided by HR specialists, you must invest in technical and academic training to support your work capacity.

Specialization requirements change according to the individual, organizational, or job requirements: a degree added to the experience in previous jobs may not be enough for the next career move in some segments, while in others, a technical course is enough to enter new positions.

In both cases, the short or long-term courses, whether in person, remotely, specializations, or an MBA, will surely bring new perspectives and greater chances of success in your career.

This is because new training adds knowledge and strengthens the network of contacts, which is essential in the job market. Remember: it is common for new interview opportunities to arise in a new network of contacts, also called “networking,” which we will discuss next.

6. Step Six – Revamp Your Resume

After undergoing all the necessary training, the next step is to rework your resume, including your skills and experiences, to stand out. Indeed, you may be switching carers. However, it doesn’t render your previous career experiences useless. Rather it makes your interviewers more curious about your profile. You should include your strengths to make you look like someone with a clear-cut vision.

7. Step Seven – Get Ready for The Interviews

Immediately after revamping your curriculum vitae (resume), it is time to put yourself out in the job market once again. It is important to attend interviews even if you don’t like the company to know things expected for your new career. Giving interviews will only uplift your confidence and let you get your dream job.

The Bottom Line

There are obstacles, yes, in the career transition. But what in life has no obstacles? Even in athletics-free races, what stands in the way are not the barriers but the athlete’s physical conditioning. It is important to clarify that career change should be seen as part of a well-managed professional journey. Of course, external factors influence the decision, such as a crisis or a layoff. But if you are in a steady job that does not bring you more satisfaction, why wait for this bubble of discontent to burst? It takes courage to change when everything is fine on the outside, but something seems disconnected on the inside.