7 Ways to Have a Successful Career Change

From a theoretical perspective, a successful career change could prove to be tricky for someone outside of their current field. As a result, it is essential to have appropriate guidance for having a successful career change. In this article, we have put together a list of seven ways on how you can have a successful career change.

Create a strong professional network

It has often been stated that it is not what you know but who you know that really matters. This important sentiment couldn't be true than when you are trying to break it into a field in which you have limited experience. If you know influential people in your industry, they can certainly help you with a successful career change. Being your advocates, they will be able to point out your work ethics and passion. They can also convince a hiring manager to provide you an opportunity.

Volunteer your time

When thinking about a successful career change, there is a possibility that you might not have relevant work experience to have a new career. However, you could add their individual skills to your CV by providing your time for a specific cause. For example, if you want to move into the financial industry but you have not yet worked with numbers, you should volunteer as an assistant in the financial industry of a local organization. This will help you get a strong reference to your CV. If you’re pursuing or want to pursue a managerial position and if a potential interviewer asks if you’ve ever managed budgets, you would be able to leverage this as a talking point.

Take online courses

There is a possibility that you may not have a skillset or degree in your desired field. However, that doesn't mean that you won’t be able to get schooled in what you would need or required to know. Within your cover letter and in conversations with a potential hiring manager, you could say that even though you don’t have any relevant experience in the relevant area, you have taken three classes in the last year that covers the specific topic. You should have a strong understanding that your current skill set can help you to transfer into specific technicalities.

Build up your social media presence

An extremely essential place that you can take your search to is social media. You can start by being able to look through your individual connections on LinkedIn profiles and can also find anyone that has been currently working in your career field or industry that you want to target. LinkedIn is certainly not the only online platform that you could use during your online search. You can connect with your family and friends on Facebook. Moreover, you can also see if they get the awareness of any positions that could be the best possible fit for you. You should also view if companies do admire your performance or want to work at have posted any jobs. These actions will help to illustrate what you know and are passionate about.

Stick to your talent

Having a successful career change could well take time. It could take months of research and planning in preparing yourself for a career change. Within his context, it is also essential not to compromise in your career/job search whenever things do get tough. It could be highly tempting for taking a job that is not what you exactly desired. You should fall for it. You could well find yourself at the rock bottom again and could well be looking for another successful career change.

Don’t overthink on career change

It is an unfortunate reality that many people tend to get in their own heads and worry that they don’t have enough skills to have a successful career change. This way of thinking could have a detrimental impact on the mindset of the individual in the long-run. It is essential to remind yourself daily regarding the various activities that you have been performing at work. Moreover, you should also think about why such qualities and skills are essential for a potential employer. You should focus on leading with these important qualities in every job interview that you have moving forward. It is essential to emphasize on jobs that can help you do that and the rest will fall into place.

Pinpoint your strengths

If you want to have a successful career change, you should focus on completing a self-appraisal and pinpoint your individual strengths as a professional. You should create a list of specific skillset. You should think in broad terms when creating this important list. You could use your hard skills, such as technical abilities or soft skills, like problem-solving skills. These could prove to be selling points whenever you start your job hunt. All these skills are essential to list as many of them are transferable and could be useful in any position.