A career change could be one of the biggest decisions you’ll ever make in your whole life. You don’t want to make mistakes on your graduation, your wedding, your retirement; and you definitely do not want to make any mistakes on your career. Career change is a matter of highly concentrated precision and dedication. Naturally, there are some obstacles along the way and you don’t always make the right decisions. Today, we’re going to discuss some mistakes that all career-changers should be avoid making.
1. Don’t seek for a new career just because your current job beats you down
If you feel frustrated and overwhelmed by your current career, do not think you can simply get away by making a change of industry. If you’re struggling at work and you’ve waited too long to take actions in changing your situation, you’ve most likely grown to hate your job and you just want to run away from it. A new start at your lowest point is not the perfect solution to your problems. If you don’t have the skills or even the courage to acquire new skills to perform well on your current job, how do you plan to master a new job? Most importantly, if you change your career from such an unsettling stage and jump into a new industry, you’d likely to carry the negative emotions and fears of failure with you to your new job.
Solution: Make your situation better by repairing broken relationships, fixing your past mistakes, building a wider network, and developing stronger skills. Then, when you become a stronger and happier person, you’ll have the ability and skills to achieve success in a higher level, whether you choose to enter a new company or a new industry. Make sure your head is on straight, and that you only make reasonable and rational decisions to potentially help yourself move forward successfully.
2. Don’t make a career change without a long-term financial plan
Career change could be a long process; you’ll need a stable financial infrastructure to support your life before landing on a new job. You can be in a very difficult situation if you don’t know or haven’t researched how long the career transition will take and you don’t have enough funding to support yourself or your family during the change. Also, a stable and comprehensive financial plan can save you a lot of trouble in the future, since you are not certain if your new job pays as high as your previous one. When you head to another direction and start a new career, you may be starting from the entry levels again and you cannot expect an entry-level medical office assistant get paid the same salary as an experienced accountant.
Solution: Do your research and explore your financial affordability with a professional consultant. Also, talk to people who are already in your desired industry and develop a clear understanding of the earning structure in the field. Having an earnings estimate for positions in the new industry beforehand will give you a head start; it will help you construct a long-term financial plan that can support your life comfortably. Analyze whether the salary of your soon-to-be new job is enough to support your life, and what kind of external financial support you may need. If you don’t have a stable monetary infrastructure to support you through the time of transition, wait until you found external financial aid or established more savings to sustain your life.
3. Do not make a change without doing research ahead of time
Making a career change decision without doing proper research could be your worst nightmare. You might get easily carried away by titles such as “the hottest job in 2016”, or “the most money-making job in Canada”; they might all seem like glamorous industries that many people dreamed to be in, but the specific line of work may be a disaster for you. Also, just because your friends are doing well in a certain industry doesn’t necessarily mean that you are a good fit as well. If you see someone’s success in a particular field, certainly consider it as one of your career options, but make sure you studied this industry inside out before taking any actions.
Solution: Make sure you know what the industry is all about; find out what kind of qualifications you’ll need to get into this industry, what kind of education or certification is needed for the job, as well as the kind of tools, programs, software that are needed to master the job. Also, beware of your own strength and weakness, discover the qualities that makes you stand out, find out where your passion is, what you do better than others and what you’d like to avoid doing in the future. In a word, you need to know the industry and yourself well enough to find the most suitable career path for yourself.
At AOLCC, we take career development and skill training very seriously and we are devoted to help people find the right career paths since 1987. We provide friendly and comfortable learning environment and we help students chase their dreams at their own pace. Browse our program listings by province and find the career education that is right for you!