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Tips on Changing Your Career
It's Sunday night and thoughts of the busy workweek ahead
create a churning in your abdomen. That sinking
feeling of dread at the pit of your stomach immobilizes
your efforts to gear up for Monday. Is a career
change is in order?
Before jumping ship in
search of bluer waters, consider whether your job
dissatisfaction truly is a career mismatch or if there
are things you can do to improve your current job
situation. Oftentimes changing how you interact with
co-workers can enhance your quality of life at work.
For example, if you are not being adequately challenged
by your daily tasks, negotiate more enriching
assignments with your supervisor. Sometimes people who
switch jobs often because they feel stifled by work
relationships find themselves in the same situation
regardless of their environment because of difficulties
setting boundaries or verbalizing their needs to others.
Spend some time exploring
your preferred job-related skills. If your job
skill set does not include those you like to use the
most, dissatisfaction can result. For example,
although your finely-honed skills in administrative
detail currently enable you to bring home a paycheck
every two weeks, you find after in-depth self-analysis
that expressing yourself creatively is what really gets
your blood pumping. If you are not using those skills
regularly, you may feel a vocational void. Some good
on-line resources for this include the Self-Directed
Search (http://www.keirsey.com),
and the Career Key (http://www.careerkey.org). Also, Richard Bolle’s book,
What Color Is Your Parachute, is a wonderful
resource that is updated every year.
After considering your
approach to work relationships and taking stock of your
preferred skill areas, you find that there truly is a
mismatch and you need to explore other career options,
here are some tips that can help you:
- Keep in mind that a
job or occupation change is a developmental process.
Take time to thoroughly identify your preferred
job-related skills, personality style, and values.
Then, research the labor market to pinpoint career areas
and job titles that complement your preferred skill
sets. After identifying several career options, narrow
down your choices and focus your efforts on one area,
gaining additional training if necessary. The actual
job search campaign is the final step in your career
change. Create a time-line to structure your progress
through these steps.
- Develop a plan for a
short-term income stream while you are exploring other
careers. It could take a year or more to get settled in
a new field. Staying at your current job or doing temp
work can be viable short-term options until you are
better positioned to transition into something else.
- Invest in career
counseling. A career counselor can provide an objective
viewpoint as you explore your career values, skills, and
interests, investigate career options, and analyze and
make decisions about potential career choices. A career
counselor can also help you figure out creative ways of
selling your current skills to employers in your new
career field of interest. For example, if you are
working as an accountant but are interested in becoming
a museum curator, perhaps looking for office management
or bookkeeping jobs in an art museum can help get your
foot in the door.
- Talk to people who
are working in fields you are interested in pursuing.
Written resources can tell you only so much. Get at
least 3-5 opinions from people who are actually working
in the field to find out first hand what the job is all
about.
- Use volunteer
experiences to "try out" fields of work you're
considering. Not only will you gain insight and
knowledge about your field of interest, you will build
your network and identify potential paid opportunities
by demonstrating your skills and commitment to the
organization.
So, your
Sunday-night stomach stress may very well be signaling
you to chart a new career course. In this case, it may
be a good idea to listen to your gut instincts. But
make sure you take time to plan it out thoroughly before
navigating new occupational oceans.
The key to effectively
changing your career is enlisting the help of a career
professional to help lead your way. Let the Center's
master's level career professionals help you effectively
develop and navigate a new career path by utilizing
contemporary and relevant curriculum as well as proven
counseling methodologies. Sign up for Individual
Career Consulting, New Directions, or
Creating Career Options today!
Click here for class information and fees.
Click here for for class
dates and times.
Click here to apply.
Smart Salary Negotiating
What do you think you are
worth? Answering this question in terms of knowing what
you are worth to a potential employer is vital. Did you
know that many people in today’s work place are
underpaid 10-20% of their actual worth? That means if
you are making $40,000 a year and you could be missing
out on an extra four to eight thousand dollars a year.
Smart salary negotiating during the interviewing stage
of your job search can help you avoid this trend.
Here are a couple of tips
that can get you started on the path to becoming a wise
negotiator. First, DO YOUR HOMEWORK. It is very
important to have some research to back up the numbers
you are asking for. Start your search for accurate
salary levels by looking into quality resources. Try
print material such as the Occupational Outlook Handbook
and the O*NET. Both of these sources are distributed by
the US department of labor and provide timely, reliable
salary information on a variety of jobs. You can find
these at any public library or online at
http://online.onetcenter.org and
http://www.bls.gov/oco/home.htm. Other good online
resources include
http://www.salary.com and
http://www.rileyguide.com.
Second, do not mention
salary until the interviewer brings it up. It's
important to emphasize what YOU can bring to the company
until an official offer is on the table. If you can,
try not to be the first one to throw out a number.
Doing so may put you at a disadvantage. If you
overshoot, you may price yourself out of the game. If
you undershoot, you may sell yourself short. However,
in some cases, there may be no way around providing a
number if the employer asks you for one. In that case,
your safest bet is to offer a range, qualifying the
amount with the research you’ve done. For example,
"based on my research of what many companies pay
individuals for this position in this industry with my
level of experience (from
http://www.salary.com or the O*Net:
http://www.online.onetcenter.org), I'd
expect low- to- mid thirties."
Consult a career
development professional from the Center to give you an
edge in this process. The Center’s Building a Career
Toolbox class can help you be a smarter salary
negotiator and get the pay and benefit package you
deserve! In addition to effective salary negotiation
techniques, our licensed master’s level instructors
provide training on interviewing skills, job search
strategies, and resume writing to help make your entire
self-marketing effort maximally competitive. Sign up
today!
Click here for class information and fees.
Click here for for class
dates and times.
Click here to apply.
Networking
Learning how to network
effectively is an important skill that will help you in
your professional life. The old expression, “It’s not
what you know, it’s who you know,” does have some truth
to it. However, networking can present an intimidating
challenge for many people. The stereotypical slick
sales rep who passes out business cards at upscale
cocktail parties is misnomer that unfortunately prevents
some from considering networking as a viable strategy
for job searching. Although a close relation to Les
Wexner might be helpful in getting an interview at the
Limited, it is not necessary.
What most people do not
realize is that they engage in some form of networking
on a daily basis. Think about the last time you wanted
a reliable mechanic. Did you ask your neighbor for a
referral to a good body shop? The last time you needed
to find a good dentist, did you ask a friend who she
goes to? You were networking. It is simply the process
of gathering information and referrals by talking to
people about what you need.
Besides finding a great
mechanic or dentist, networking can also lead to you to
your ideal job. Case in point: A recent client of the
Center shared her story of successful networking. A
volunteer presenter came to speak to the class the
client was attending. The client held a particular
interest in the presenter’s topic and wanted to
eventually gain in a career in the field. A few days
after the presentation, the client called the presenter
to get more in depth information on the career field.
The client and the presenter met a few times, the client
took some classes to get certified in the particular
career field and she was hired by the presenter’s
company a few months later.
Let the career development
professionals at New Directions Career Center help you
fine-tune your networking skills. Check out the
Building a Career Toolbox class. In addition to
networking skills training, master’s level career
consultants utilize relevant and current curriculum on
resume-writing, job-search strategizing, interviewing
skills and salary negotiations to help you learn to be
maximally effective in your self-marketing efforts.
Sign up today!
Click here for class information and fees.
Click here for for class
dates and times.
Click here to apply.
Setting Career Goals
We all have lots of dreams
and fantasies. So why is it that some of us are able to
turn all of our dreams into reality while others of us
seem to be just “settling” for one job or another? Do
you know inside that you have a great deal of potential
and could achieve more, but never seem to rise about a
certain level or pay scale no matter how hard you work?
Then it’s time to get
serious about setting goals in an effective manner. Here
are some tips:
- Write it down! Just
like making a grocery list or daily “to-do list,”
recording your goals on paper externalizes them and
helps you be more accountable to them. The act of
writing down what you want helps you think through the
steps you’ll need to take to accomplish them and gives
you a guideline around which you can plan your daily,
weekly, monthly and yearly activities. A longitudinal
study of Harvard graduates found that after 20 years,
the 3% of graduates who wrote down their goals had
accumulated more financially than the other 97% combined
who did not write down their goals!
- Determine your life’s priorities. We all have a
variety of roles to play in life: worker, parent,
spouse, etc. Make lists of what matters most to
you in specific areas of your life: family and friends,
spiritually, career, intellectual/educational, health &
wellness, emotional. Determine what you will and
will not compromise. Use those as guidelines in
deciding where to focus your energies and how to
structure your daily and weekly “to do” lists.
- Break down your
long-term goals into smaller, more manageable chunks
that you have more control over. Create step-by-step
lists of activities and tasks you’ll need to accomplish
in a lockstep manner to help you plan out a realistic
timeframe to get to your ultimate goal.
- As you are writing
down the steps you need to take to reach your goals,
analyze them to be sure they are SMART:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-bound
Enlisting the assistance of
New Directions Career Center’ career development classes or
meeting with a career consultant one-on-one is an
essential step in moving you forward toward your ideal
career. Our licensed, master’s level professionals can
help you clarify your goals and assemble a realistic
plan for achieving them by using proven counseling
methods and relevant, current curriculum. Sign up today
for Individual Career Consultation or Creating
Career Options.
Click here for class information and fees.
Click here for for class
dates and times.
Click here to apply. |
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