6 Tips for a Smooth Career Change

How happy are you with your current job? Do you have plans to change your career and hesitate to initiate the process? If yes, you are at the right place to get great tips for a smooth career change.

Careful planning and strategic approach are necessary for making your career change a smooth process.

Switching the career to your field of interest will completely change your life. It is worth taking the risk for your betterment. Nothing is a big deal when you are well prepared for the challenges you have to face during the transition. By the way, why do people change careers?

Reasons for Career Change

Employees change their careers for a wide range of reasons. Wikipedia presents the survey data provided by Right Management that lists various reasons and the corresponding percentage of a career change. 

The highest percentage of career change happens due to downsizing or the restructuring of an organization. The least rate of career change occurs when an organization changes its location.

What are the Fears of Career Change?

Let us understand why you are not initiating the process for a career change to land in your dream job. Most of us are reluctant to accept changes. The reason may be fear of:

• leaving the comfort zone,
• losing time and energy,
• losing money (in terms of less salary),
• starting again afresh,
• being undervalued,
• losing reputation and so on.

You can change the fear that stops you from moving forward to be a motivator. Overcoming fear is a slow and steady process. Nothing is done overnight, but continuous practice would result in success.

Let us analyze how you can gradually overcome fear and make a smooth career change.

How to Overcome Fear?

You can write down all your fears and start finding the cause. Once you have found the reason, you can easily find the solution to overcome fear. No one other than you can take responsibility for your life. So take control over your life and start changing now. ‘Now’ is always the right time to change.

Another reason for fear is not being well prepared. In the era of the internet, you need not wait to join on-line courses and earn certificates. You can quickly develop technical, interpersonal, and communication skills in the comfort of your home. 

Written communication skills play a vital role in your career. Be it a simple status update, a response for an issue, or process documentation, you need to analyze the intent of writing to deliver the message precisely. Sharpen your writing skills by reading the article '6 Tips for Effective Writing'.

Fears of Career Change

Another fear is about attending a job interview while changing your career. You can find guidelines for cracking the job interview in the article 'The Ultimate Job Interview Tips'.

6 Tips for a Smooth Career Change

As you have understood why people tend to change and how to overcome fear, let us see the tips for a smooth career change include:

1. Leaving the comfort zone with proud
2. Investing time and energy
3. Gaining experience and managing finance
4. Starting afresh
5. Upgrading skills
6. Building reputation.

Leaving the comfort zone with proud

Most of us are afraid of changes and live happily within our comfort zone. When the right time comes, you should not hesitate to step out of your comfort zone and explore new opportunities. Moving forward is progress that gives promotion.

You can tell yourself how your life will change when you get into the new job. You can learn new concepts, make new friends, explore new things, achieve a lot, and feel happy and satisfied. 

Once you have made a career change to your favorite domain, you won't feel the burden of a ton of work. Instead, you will start loving your job, do more, achieve more.

Investing time and energy

I would say that you are not wasting time and energy by preparing for the new career; it is the right investment instead. The value of the content provided by the online courses is way high when compared to the cost.

The preparation for the new venture may cost you time and energy, but you can reap the fruits later. 

Learning new skills to make a career change to your dream job will not bore you. You will find quick ways to manage the time and cost requirements.

6 Tips for Career Change

Gaining experience and managing finance

While switching industries, the recruiter may take advantage of your lack of experience and offer less salary package. Though you have done courses, a lack of real work experience may affect your remuneration. You may tackle the issue in the following ways:

• building a portfolio showing your expertise,
• working for non-profit organizations and showing the experience, and
• participating in hackathons.

This type of project and portfolio would help you negotiate a higher salary. Also, save a sufficient amount of money before changing the career so that you need not struggle during the growing phase of your new venture.

Starting afresh

Starting anything afresh would require a lot of patience and effort. You may take some time to get a hand on the tricks and techniques. I would suggest you talk to people who have already gained expertise in your field of interest and participate in online forums to raise your questions and get an answer. 

Even after joining the new venture, you need to continue to be active on online forums and continue building a strong portfolio.

You can also start answering once you are confident about your knowledge of a particular topic.

As explained, career change is a gradual process, and hence you need to continuously develop your skills.

Upgrading skills

A professional who has gained experience in a field may not be ready to switch domain due to skillset mismatching issues that may result in undervaluation of the person’s knowledge. Even if you continue in the same domain, the skillset mismatching issue may arise due to continuously improving technology. So regular up-gradation of skills would help you sustain your position.

As said earlier, the right choice is doing certification courses and periodically renewing your license, if any, are the best solution to cope with the highly competitive job market.

Building reputation

You can focus on quickly building your reputation in your new venture instead of being afraid of losing reputation. If you are sincere and dedicated, you can easily reach your goal and start growing further. The thirst for growth and achievement helps you to move forward faster. 

As mentioned in an article on salary negotiation techniques, you are a brand who can add value to your employer. 

Developing unique skills and being up-to-date are the best options to retain your reputation.

By following all the suggested techniques, you can slowly come out of your fear, make a smooth career change, and achieve your goal.

Finally, you have got your dream job and decided to quit your current position. How can you leave impressive footprints in the exit process? The tips for an outstanding relieving process are explained in the following article - How is a resignation letter written with its significant element?