Discovering Your Career Options
You need to make a change in your employment. You may have been on the job for a while but circumstances are forcing you to make a move. Perhaps you are facing a health challenge, maybe it is a financial need that causes you to jump-start your search: either hold two jobs or find one that pays more. You may just be sick and tired of doing work that holds no real interest for you. But where to go? How to consider alternate employment, particularly if it represents a significant shift in what you had been doing? How do you transfer your skills in a new direction?
Because I work in the realm of consulting professionals experiencing an involuntary job loss, I often address that situation but I don’t mean to ignore people who are being proactive in consideration of a career transition or job move. I applaud anyone who has the confidence to make a change since change is never easy. Although, one could argue that it is no less and perhaps even more difficult to decide to stay in a place where you are not experiencing a degree of job satisfaction.
First of all, in terms of transferring your skill set, understand that you have a limited view of your capabilities because, frankly, you’re too close to the forest to see the trees. Step back. Ask yourself what you bring to the table, uniquely you–how you do what you do. There’s your first clue to how you market and sell yourself. If you provided a service, how well did you do? What resulted from your efforts to serve or provide service? The object, the product, hardly matters. You have performed and made a contribution. You can offer your successes to any employer.
Today we have the benefit of numerous resources on the internet. One of these, the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, helps us with the myriad of work type options requiring skill sets similar to ours. Conduct your own investigation, be resourceful and do not neglect to share your discoveries and intentions –you’d be surprised how connected we all are and how many people you know who either know someone or something that could be very helpful to you in your search.
Your interests combined with what you know is very powerful in marketing yourself. Be confident, stay positive and open-minded –someone is looking for exactly what you have to offer and you will uncover those prospects in direct proportion to how active/proactive you are in your campaign.
About the author, Saleh
This bio can be edited in your profile inside Dashboard > Site Management > Users.
Simply hover over your username, click "Edit" and change this biographical information to something that you prefer.