People change careers for many reasons. Sometimes they leave their career, or their career leaves them. Regardless, it’s a matter of marketing yourself where you’ve not been before. Even if you feel that you can easily transition from one role to another (I could do that) or industry to another (I can manage anything), employers can be a tough sell when it comes to giving the go-ahead to hire a career-changer. They tend to prefer candidates who, on someone else’s dime, have proven that they can do the work the job requires. When you’re in new waters, you have to think about getting past an employer’s inner voice, the one that says you’re a different breed.

Career Change 101

 Keep your dream alive as you move into career change, but keep these basics in mind.

• Career change is not just job change. A career change is a significant shift in jobs requiring new key skills or knowledge, or a completely different work situation – or both. For example, when a sales guy in the financial services industry leaves one company for a manager role in the same industry, he makes a job change; when he leaves the financial services industry to manage a restaurant, he makes a career change to a different job and different industry.

• Retraining may be a necessity. When you try to make a change to a different kind of job (for instance, engineer to sales representative) in the same industry, you may well be able to talk your way into an employer’s blessings without investing in additional formal education or training. Your challenge is more complex when you try to change both your job and your industry at the same time, but you may be able to pull it off without an immediate investment of time and money in school. However, you won’t be able to bypass educational renewal needed to satisfy credibility and licensing requirements in such careers as public accounting, nursing, law, academia, etc.

• Employers don’t like risk. Managers worry about whether the transferrable skills (which I’ll cover in my next post) you acquired in your former career will translate to your new career. When your skills don’t cross over and you can’t do the work, the business faces a negative impact and – if you’re fired – the risk of legal suit for wrongful discharge. Another worry is whether you’ll suffer changer’s remorse, soon becoming unhappy and turning into a “bad hire.” These risks push employers to look directly for proven performers with applicable skills to the job and industry they are in.

• Your competition is typically young, new and hungry. When you start from scratch, you compete with new graduates who are starting out. Don’t be surprised if you are offered entry-level wage if this is a new role. Employers are not likely to compensate you for 10+ years’ in another field (unless you can show that your experience can save or earn money for the new employer). That said, what your prior work has brought is relevant, and you should sell it. For example, you bring commitment, reliability, collaboration, a strong work ethic, and real-world lessons.

My 8 Career-Change Tips

If you’ve thought long and hard about a career change, whether voluntary or involuntary, consider these tips.

1. Connect with others in your chosen field. If your change is voluntary, at least six months in advance of your jump, join a professional association in the career field or industry where you want to go. When your change is involuntary, rush to build a framework personal network of people who can guide you into your intended field and ramp it up assertively. Reach out and make friends. Find out who’s who and what’s happening with professionals who can connect you with employment. Ask what you should read and what seminars or trainings you should attend. Ask if you can visit and shadow a professional’s workplace.
2. Learn and then talk the talk. Look for short-term credential or certificate programs and workshops offered during industry conferences, as well as those locally. Consider online study. As you learn about your targeted role and industry, learn and use the language of prospective new colleagues. What are the acronyms and buzz words they use? Practice and internalize rather than memorize. Be natural; your goal is to be thought of as an insider.
3. Learn about the industry. Even if study is not your thing, you will want to do hard-core research at this time of your career-change transition. The grass is not always greener on the other side; and sometimes the want-to fades as a career changer performs due diligence and realizes the realities and pitfalls. Skimpy research will not serve you well. It could lead to a very-miserable spot.
4. Ready yourself for interview snags. You’re often going to be in a behavioral-based interview situation. If you’re asked a question about what you have done that’s relevant to the new career, answer quickly. Then reframe yours response, seguing from behavior-based interviewing (the past) to situational interviewing (the future): “That’s a great question. And here’s what I would do if we decide I’m the right candidate for your Branch Manager. I would ___”.
5. Embrace connection. Your bridge from the old to the new must resonate as coherent and sensible. Your qualifications must come from somewhere – skills you already possess, volunteer work, part-time work, training, hobbies, and so on. Try to show a believable link between your qualifications and the career you’re targeting. The more convincing your bridge, the easier you make it for an employer to say, “We want you.”
6. Emphasize the positive. Never talk about changing jobs because your industry is dying or your job has been phased out. Instead, talk about how you’ve been thinking about making a change for some time, and have decided to redesign your life for a better fit with your interests, priorities and goals. As in any job search, you’re moving toward a desired future; you’re not running from a toxic manager or bad situation.
   
7. Tell genuine and authentic stories. You may well be asked the same kinds of questions that new graduates and entry-level folks are asked, such as some variation of, “Why should we hire you over someone more experienced?” When you answer, remember to tell your stories – that is, back up your claims of superior qualities with true examples of successes. Otherwise, your claims will likely be perceived as empty and vague. Stories give “beef” to your claims, and help make you believable and memorable.
8. Inventory your key skills and knowledge. Assess what you like and are good at doing. Sift and sort through your transferable skills to determine which will cross over to a different industry or career field. Thrust them to the front of your mind, where you can find and translate them as needed. The use of crossover skills will be covered in my next post.

American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said that “We judge ourselves by what we feel of capable of doing; others judge us by what we have done.” When you’re changing careers – whether role, industry or both, the ball is in your court to know and show that you can do what they need. Look for my next post on leveraging crossover skills to help you do this.

Do you have other advice on career change? I’d love to hear from you!