New Career Ideas - 7 Ways to Rethink Your Career Options

Are you desperate to change careers and looking around for new career ideas? Here is a great tip to help you free up your thinking. The secret is to take a sideways step and look at your career change from a new angle. So stop desperately trying to think of the job titles of some new career ideas that might inspire you and switch to considering new ways of working.

New ways of working

Especially with the current economic climate, employers and employees are looking for more flexible ways of working. The challenge for you is to break out of that mindset that says you have to be in a full-time job that broadly operates Monday - Friday from 9:00am - 5:00pm (or longer in may cases).

Why does this have to be so? Who says that this is the way work has to be constructed? Are you just assuming that this is the only way?

So what are the alternatives?

1. Employed - but part time. This does not necessarily mean dropping your hours. You could be in 2 or more part time jobs that add up to the equivalent of full time work. And they do not need to be all the same kind of job - this could be your chance to try out something new.

2. Freelance / consultancy. You could explore the possibility of offering your services on a fee basis to a range of different employers. The work will be on a contract basis, but as you build up your reputation, you will find that contracts are often renewed and recommendations for your services are passed on.

3. Self employed. Yes, you could set up your own business. Don't be put off by the thought that you have to have a plan to build a massive business empire. Many successful businesses start on a very small scale and just build gradually. Why not explore creating a small business alongside some of your employed work?

4. Sabbatical. If you are well established with your company, you may want to discuss the possibility of taking a sabbatical - a period of weeks or months away from your job on full/half/no pay. This frees you up to explore some new ideas or take a course of further study but gives you the security of being able to return to your job refreshed and renewed. Think they wouldn't consider it? You'll never know if you don't ask!

5. Voluntary work. This is a great way of testing the water with new career ideas. As it is voluntary, you can commit as much or as little time as you feel able. It could be simply a matter of shadowing someone in a field that interests you for a single day. Or it could be an evening a week for a longer period. You could even take a few days annual leave to go and test drive a new career idea somewhere else.

6. Study. I know this is not often seen as work - but maybe we should acknowledge its place in the grand scheme of our working lives. Further study can be a stepping stone to a new career, whether it is a short evening class or a three year degree course. How could taking a class open up new career options for you?

7. A combination of these. This is the really exciting bit. You can combine many of the above ideas in lots of interesting and creative ways. You could be self employed, part time employed and freelance, while doing an evening class and a bit of voluntary work. And do you know what? You will probably find that this makes for a much more interesting working life than being stuck in one job day in day out.

So I challenge you to free up your thinking and consider how structuring your working life differently could give you the breakthrough you need with your career change. Your first step is just to start investigating the possibilities, so no excuses!

And while these tips are beginning to free up your thinking about new career options, I invite you to take a look around the How To Change Careers website where you will find a host of career change ideas to get you moving, and you can also download my free Career Change Blueprint http://www.how-to-change-careers.com/career-change-blueprint.html which offers you a simple 5 step process to career change success.

From Cherry Douglas - Your Career Change Guide

Career Management - Revealing Its Options And Opportunities

One confusing and rather elusive business is career management, or more precisely called "career planning." Anyone needs career management; however, only not many people employ or do it. Why? Because many just don't know how important career management is. A lot of people think that they need not seek other people's help for they can find suitable jobs for themselves. To find out if career planning would benefit you, you have to know the definition of career management. Actually, career management has more than one definition. The meaning is actually dependent on your purpose: are you planning for a new job or are you looking for ways to develop your present job? To find out what will be good for you, you should search for the meaning of career management. Then you will know if you need career planning or not, and if you do need it, what kind do you exactly need.

Are you contented with your present job? The likelihood is that you are not. Your happiness or contentment should be the first thing you consider. Many workers do not love their existing career for different reasons. Some may have the opinion that they are underpaid; a few may have problems with their colleagues; and others may not like the work in general. Regardless of whatever reason you may have for disliking your work, you can acquire assistance from experts in career management that give this kind of service or from career management centers. They can either find a better career that will fit you well, or they can help you move up the corporate ladder in your present company. That entirely relies on what you want. Once you know the meaning of career management, you will see that everything that occurs to you is rooted in the kind of employee you are, the kind of money you want to be making, and the things that interests you. Based on those things, a good career manager will assist you in searching for a career that contains all of those criteria. Once the career managers have worked everything out, you will feel a lot satisfied not only with your career but also with everything about yourself.

Seeing things through the usual definition of career management, anyone could gain advantage from this service. It is highly improbable that you are absolutely satisfied with your present job in all its aspects. Therefore, you should visit the career management centers near you. Read books and websites regarding career planning so you can also study on your own how to do your own career planning. This is a thrifty way to help you learn about the various ways to search a better job.

Abhishek is a Career Counselor and he has got some great Career Planning Secrets up his sleeves! Download his FREE 71 Pages Ebook, "Career Planning Made Easy!" from his website http://www.Career-Guru.com/769/index.htm. Only limited Free Copies available.

Career Options After 50 - Increase Your Career Opportunities!

Career Options after 50 - increase your career opportunities by building your career options.

Career options after 50 are an increasing concern of those employed and for many who are unemployed. With layoffs, plant closings and outsourcing all around us many have become increasing concerned about the security of their jobs.

Now is a critical time with all the changes going on around us to analyze your ability to keep your own job and/or build up your career options. This activity will do a great deal to improve and strengthen you overall career options after 50.

As you study your career situation many are looking to create a measure of job security. How you go about creating career security will go a long way in developing you needed career options. And with more career options your career opportunities and employability will increase.

First, build your career security by taking a positive approach to your situation. No one likes to associate with someone who is consistently negative. Your career opportunities will brighten as you build a career plan exploring for uncovered job opportunities.

Expecting the best will more likely give you positive outcomes and better results.

Second, take a hard and objective look at your situation. What are your likes and dislikes? Why? What adjustments can you make in your financial situation to reduce your stress? What are your strengths? Why?

Now comes the hard part. What are your weaknesses? Be honest get help if you can't seem to be able to dig deep enough.

As you now study new careers and career options now is an excellent time to look carefully at methods to fill in gaps in your qualifications and experience. Or if staying in your present career what can you do to build your qualification in that career?

Building your additional qualifications can be achieved in a variety of strategies. Aside from formal education many times you can speed up the educational process by self-study, distance learning, seminars and workshops and working with a mentor. All are valid methods of adding to your career related qualifications.

Third, stay productive if unemployed. Join a career related organization and become active on appropriate committees. Write articles for the newsletter. Work with a non-profit or your church, hopefully in a skill set that will add to your required career experience.

Use and build on your network to uncover hidden job opportunities. Take short-term jobs, temporary assignments or contract position to build on your experience. Help others in their job search or career changes. Learn from all this added experience.

Lastly, work hard not to be defined by your career or your job or whether you are employed or not. You are a parent, a son or daughter, a friend, a mentor, a resource, a helper, the best gardener, a fisherman, a person with good ideas, etc. If you are stuck at defining yourself with you career and the career goes what is left?

So as you develop added career options after 50 you increase your career opportunities, and isn't this what a productive life is all about?

For information and background in building a career plan to better prepare you for moving up in your current career or for a planned career change go to http://careersafter50.com. Learn the stories of others who build robust career plans and built career options after 50 and found the right job.

Careers after the 50-build your career options!

Careers after the 50-learn how important it is to build your career options

Career changes are a phenomenon of the next day. Gone are the days when you began to work for an employee and remained with that employer's entire working life. Many times the long-term employee remained the same career or a career closely allied.

If you are over 50 years, now is the time to consider the construction of career options. You are likely to change careers so why not act and build your job choices on your own time. Career development takes many forms, but to find and work in the best career for you takes some analysis and some career planning.

Career change after 50 begins with the awareness that many over 50 are making changes. The question is how you can take action to build career options to help you find the best career consistent with your interests, your strengths and your experience and training.

What are your strengths? Others who you know well what you said about your strengths? Do you have interest or hobby-interest that could result in a new career?

What are your weaknesses? This is a most difficult to identify. What you don't want to do? Why?

Career options and career development

Don't worry if a career path not jump out immediately proposed to you. Do some research. Talk with others who work in the field suggested. Do some self-study. Search the internet for adequate education online. Find career information appropriate associations, local and national.

Don't forget a financial assessment; consider possible future income, if you have to relocate and other financial factors that reduce surprises when you change careers.

The development of career options will normally added education. This does not necessarily require formal education added. Seminars and workshops are offered in a wide variety of places. Working with someone in your network so they can train to acquire the proper education is another career option.

How do you get work experience required to qualify for a new career? Break the new career down to required functions. You will be surprised that in your work experience that you have performed many of these functions.

Creative ways to add required experience

If there are gaps in experience, for example, and the new job requires you have a working knowledge of a body of federal law and regulations, there are a number of ways that you can fill this gap. Self-study, reading the latest decisions, contact others who are experts and asking them questions, commenting on relevant blogs and maybe starting your blog on the subject are all ways to prove that you are qualified in this experience required.

If currently unemployed, you can still build your career options. The experience is still experience, even if not paid. So work for non-profit or volunteer work can help close and explain the gaps in employment. Also, added formal education, self-study can add weight to appropriate your resume showing the goal to stay current and expand your skills.

Maintain positive your trip. There will be fits and starts, but keep an eye on the overall objective as you compile options.

Advantages in the development of a range of career options

Develop a range of career options will make you more valuable in your current career and we will direct to your choice of career again. Bottom line; not be defined by your career or employment status, but rather keep building on career options so when the time is right you'll be ready to change careers.

For more ideas to help you get started building your career options, http://careersafter50.comgo. Learn how others, after 50 years, redesigned their career and has made the career changeright.

Find Career Options Through Taking a Teen Career Quiz

Finding where you fit through a Career Quiz

It is hard to know oneself well when one is a Teen, because you are still learning things about yourself and trying to decide where it is you fit in the world of working. You are growing all the time. A job chosen while one is a teen, may not suit him well in his thirties and forties. We all change, at different speeds. We change our interests, change our minds in the middle of the stream, and sometimes change our minds about those things we value and hold dear to ourselves.

There are many types of career tests online, and offline. They are made to help you choose the right career, but each test does it from a slightly different angle. For example, a Career Interest Test assesses your interests, while a Career Aptitude Test will test your skills and abilities. On the other hand, a Career Personality Test will try to match your personality to careers that are best for those with your unique personality style.

The Key is to Know Yourself

Tests can help guide your career path, but the paradox is that you have to know yourself well enough to know which career path is best for you. You also have to know yourself well enough to answer the test questions honestly and accurately. Although, there are no right or wrong answers, you get out of the test what you put into it. So, if you are confused about what you want or who you are, this can complicate being able to make the right decision about which career to choose.

A test can help you learn about what things you are interested in and passionate about, but it cannot tell you what you should do for a living. It also cannot tell you who you are. You must decide that for yourself. But, when you are young, you are experimenting, learning, and deciding what values in life are true for you. You may not know enough about yourself and what you like, to make a decision about which careers you'd like to be in.

You are making choices right now, which make you unique and different from all other people. It will be hard to choose that special career that will last a lifetime. It is normal for everyone to change careers more than once in his lifetime, no matter what age they are. And, this may be for a variety of reasons. You can get bored with your job, or simply outgrow it and desire a change, because you want more meaning or more of a challenging job. You may have chosen a job you thought was cool while a teen, but in midlife the passion for it has disappeared.

Purpose and Mission

This is particularly true for those in middle age. People looking for a second career or final career, often forfeit money for meaning, purpose and mission. They may have never found their Dream Careers, because they were too busy trying to raise a family. Now with the kids gone, it is their turn to rediscover themselves within a new career. That is why many older citizens also volunteer for a particular cause.

Along with the extra income generated, it's the meaning and purpose those in midlife seek. Some Teens know what they want to do with their lives, and some don't. This is common. You just aren't ready for some things until you are ready. This holds true for teens searching for their first jobs, as well as those seeking their second careers. The old expression comes to mind - When the student is ready, the master will appear. You can't make a fine wine ready before it's time, either.

You are who you are, and although you are in control of your life for the most part, life can take you to
where it wants you to go, so you learn your life lessons. We learn that not everything is under our direct control. Unfortunately, life can take us sometimes where we don't want to go. There may be a death in the family, divorce, circumstances may change beyond our control, there may be health problems, acts of nature disasters, wars, and other misfortunes. At this point in your life, decide to take a Career Test to learn more about yourself and where you fit in the work world.

These types of tests will give you career choices in the form of a printable readout. Take your time, and even try out some of the recommended jobs through volunteering, or part time jobs after school. You can even learn what you like and don't like, through haphazardly taking jobs you didn't plan for. Talk to those already within those jobs you are interested in, for first hand knowledge and advice. A Career Test will also tell you what education is a match for your particular career choice. Make sure you talk to a Certified Career Guidance Counselor at your High School, College, or University, as he can interpret the results of each test and offer excellent career planning and career direction advice.

Steve Humphreys

http://www.career-test-for-teens.com

Key to ideal career discovery is self-knowledge. Find, develop, and plan your career choice with our self-help resources. Teens, career changers, or job searchers will find helpful advice and articles about career tests, resumes, interviews, and more. Let us help you find your dream career on your journey.

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