Career Transition - What It Really Means

There are a number of fine reasons to go in for a career transition. At times, family obligations undergo a change, on other occasions skills become obsolete or an employee finds his present work really boring. For a career transition, you need to take decisions that will have a bearing on your way of life as well as on your family and friends.

A career transition, which involves moving from a standard desk job, where the employee does not carry out any physical labor, to an outdoor job will require a health check-up. The employee should take into account his abilities prior to opting for a career transition. This could indicate working out in the gym, or focusing on getting into shape before appearing in front of a potential employer.

In case there are primary health grounds for not undertaking to lift heavy objects, handling demanding physical activity or for spending extended hours standing up, the employee might search somewhere else for a job and a career transition.

Alternatively, a career transition from hard outdoor labor to a cozy office job could be a wonderful way to gradually deal with health-related issues as an employee grows old or his condition deteriorates. If an employee has to contend with sore muscles and fatiguing conditions of work outdoors, then the decision to go for a career transition should be taken into account. At this point, courses that have to do with administration skills and computer skills could be worthwhile.

Opt for a career transition based on your requirements, but prior to sending in your resume and cover letter, make certain that all the essential skills and qualities for this new employment opportunity have been attended to. When deciding which career would be best in case of a career transition, the employee has to assess his likings and aversions, his skill levels and his interests. In case of a disability, a career transition is necessary; when choosing an alternative career, this employee has to carefully weigh the pros and cons in order to find the perfect job for himself.

Before making a career transition, take into account the age, aptitude, interest and the possibility of advancement and job fulfillment. The ordeal involved when an employee considers a career transition can have an impact on his family and friends. Not able to stay in touch colleagues can lead to stress. Putting in unusual hours of work, longer commute times, relocating, or traveling for extended periods can severely disrupt family life. Spouses, partners and children should be sounded out before an employee settles on a career transition.

An employee decides on a career transition in order to lead a better life. He can achieve this by locating a new work place that trains him in the latest skills, draws on the old skills and abilities, and which is conducive to his health and way of life. Before going in for any major career transition, he should consider the negative aspects and make certain his family benefits in the long term.

Now there are numerous ways by which an employee can enhance his lifestyle by way of a career transition. All that is required is for him to search out a fresh career and look for employment in his new preferred area.

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Career Search - Using A Career Coach Can Really Add Up In Your Career Transition

Are you afraid of the career change conversation with your family, friends, coworkers etc? Does it seem like as soon as you decide to make a positive change, the whole world turns against you and tells you why you can't do it, that it's not possible or something else that's not very encouraging?

One of the biggest challenges that people in career transition face is trying to convince their families, friends, coworkers and the people who know them best, that change is a good thing. At a time when everything is in flux, it's tough for us to reassure people we are headed on the path to success despite any obstacles which may surface along the way. We may even be uncertain ourselves! And because we frequently experience the most resistance to our ideas from the people who mean the most to us, it can FEEL like our core support system is caving in. But don't worry, it's not!

Finding a mentor, coach or someone who has "been there" can be a huge asset for your career search.

Because we are often met with resistance, hit with frightening and discouraging "rumors" about the career marketing or industry of our choosing, we can feel like the wind was just knocked out of us. Finding a career can be scary and isolating. This is not a healthy way to feel when trying to break out of established ruts and make a motion for improvement in our careers.

For this reason, if you're serious about finding a new job that has you springing out of bed each morning, you'll want to invest in a career coach, or career counselor. Many people who decide to make a bold move in their career, start up their own business or return to school to learn a new skill or trade, do so with the help of a career coach or counselor. A career coach can give much needed practical advice and guidance, while offering an objective viewpoint on your personal situation.

A career coach can help you:

Create and implement a transition plan
Set realistic reachable goals
Network effectively and efficiently
Identify the career path you want
Push gremlins aside and step out of the box and your comfort zone
Overcome obstacles
Find a career that's right for you (not what other's think is right for you)
How do you find support?

Professional support from a career coach or career counselor is usually the best place to start. They have the experience and success rates of helping people who have been in your shoes. There are a wide range of career coaches/counselors out there so make sure when you are looking for one to do your homework. Here are some sample questions:

How long have you been a coach?
What is your success rate?
Do you have references I can speak with? (If they are hesitant about this one that is not a good sign)
Do you offer a complimentary consultation where I can get to know you and your style to see if we'd be a fit?
How long does this process usually take?
It isn't always possible to afford a career coach, especially when you are in transition. Other options include finding a career coach who might offer group coaching, which is cheaper. Can you coach with a buddy and split the price? If those options still don't fit your budget, the next step is to try to find someone you know of you can point you in the right direction.

Is there someone in your life who you admire because they didn't follow the status quo, made their own way or just seem to be living out an amazingly full and satisfying life and career? Maybe you have a friend, relative, or acquaintance who started their own business or managed to interweave creativity and flexibility into their professional life in a way that stands out from the crowd. Now is a perfect time to ask for advice and guidance from that person, listen to their story, learn from their mistakes, and apply this knowledge to the changes that you're going through in your own career. Most people are more than happy to share what they have learned. The experience is sure to be enlightening and you will be making a friend and professional contact in the process.

Hallie Crawford, is a Certified Career Coach and CEO of Create Your Career Path with HallieCrawford.com. Her team of coaches help people of all ages nurture their career, identify their ideal career path, and navigate their career transition. She is regularly featured as a career expert for Fox Business Network, CNN, Yahoo Hot Jobs, Entrepreneur Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Download a free report "Top Three Tools to Identify Your Ideal Career" here: http://tinyurl.com/2326at6

Career Change Ideas - 7 Ways to Find Out What You Really Want to Do

You know, it is the lack of career change ideas that seems to keep many would-be career changers stuck.

One of the things that clients often say to me is:

I know I want to change careers, to do something different, but I just don't know what I want to do instead.

The problem is they are stuck in a habitual pattern of boxed-in thinking that prevents them from seeing the wealth of possibilities that are out there.

Would you like some tips to help you get out of that place and to help you to generate a range of new career ideas to explore? Then read on.

Tip 1 - Forget job titles
Job titles really inhibit your thinking. If I asked you to list all the jobs you could think of, you might come up with a couple of hundred before you ran dry. In reality there are thousands of jobs out there that you would never identify under your own steam, so forget the job title and focus instead on the key themes that are important for you in a job. What do you want your dream job to involve?

Tip 2 - List what you don't want to do
This is often quite easy to do if you are in a job you hate and it can be a very useful exercise. It helps you to focus on the aspects of a job that really drive you nuts and then also identify those that are annoying in your current job but actually you'd be prepared to put up with to some degree in a different situation. When you identify something as a no-no, ask if it would always be no under all circumstances. This will help you to avoid rejecting jobs in a knee-jerk way because they share similarities with your current role.

Tip 3 - List what you think you should want to do
What do you think your career should look like? What pressure are you putting on yourself to confirm to certain benchmarks (eg I must be earning a certain salary, I should be in a professional role, it must be something that other people will respect and admire me for). Just check with yourself whose rules you are following here. Who exactly says that your career must look like this? Is this really what you want or what other people say you should aspire to?

Tip 4 - List what you would do if anything were possible
Yes, you are allowed to take the brakes off here and create a big dream. Forget the constraints you put on yourself, wherever they come from. If your fairy godmother arrived to take you to the ball, what job or career would you ask her to line up for you as part of the deal?

Tip 5 - List what you would do if you gave yourself permission to say that you want it
So often, we limit the possibilities in our lives because we just don't allow ourselves to want something. Maybe you want to earn lots of money - but that seems too greedy. Maybe you want to have an easy, quiet job - but that seems too lazy. Maybe you want to set up your own business - but you can't because you have to think about so many other people in your life first. What do you need to give yourself permission to want to do?

Tip 6 - Reinvent yourself
If you could rewind the tape on your life and re-run it, what would you do? If you could dump all the stuff, the rules, the history that you have gathered on your journey through life to this point and travel light without the baggage, where would your journey take you? What would the new you look like and what work would this new person be doing? What does this tell you about what would really inspire you?

Tip 7 - Think big and think small
Your new career does not have to be something world changing and grand. If you want to change the world, great! Go ahead and build your new career around this big vision. But if you feel drawn to operating on a more local scale, that's fine too. Small changes can be just as transforming for your career and your life as big ones, so don't be fooled into thinking that bigger is necessarily better. Career change success is about finding what feels right for you.

So take some time to think about your career change with these 7 tips in mind - and by time I mean days, weeks, maybe even months if necessary. Changing career is a big step, so allow yourself the time and space to really think it through.

And while these tips are beginning to free up your thinking about new career possibilities, 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 - a step-by-step guide to career change success.

From Cherry Douglas - Your Career Change Guide

How People Really Explore New Careers: What Does A Real Career Search Look Like?

The traditional model of career choice suggests a linear pattern. Get to know yourself. Learn your kills and talents. Explore careers that seem to best utilize your talents and skills. Today, both research and experience suggest that real career change doesn't happen this way.

What's real? Serendipity and zig-zag patterns

Contemporary researchers find that nearly every career path involves an element of serendipity. John Krumboltz of Stanford University published several articles on this topic in respected journals.

Herminia Ibarra's research at Harvard Business School demonstrated that career change tends to follow a zig-zag pattern rather than a straight line, with two steps forward and one step back. She found limited value in extended introspection and self-analysis. See her book Working Identity.

What about testing?

Career coaches and counselors are divided on the subject of tests. Some insist that all their clients undergo a battery of tests. Others dismiss tests entirely. One career counselor says, "I can learn more about a person from astrology than from any personality tests." One coach asks clients to define themselves as "earth, wind, fire or water."

Before you pay for testing, I encourage you to ask what you hope to gain from the time and money you invest. Be aware of the limits on what tests can do for you. After all, if you could just take a battery of tests to forecast your future, we wouldn't hear from so many job-frustrated people!

So why don't tests have all the answers?

A job is much more than a series of skills. Every career or profession includes an ambience - style, working conditions, flexibility of time. Often it's not the work itself that drives people out of the field. It's the "other stuff."

Take teaching, for example. You love kids and want to work with them and you don't mind earning less than your corporate counterparts. Your workday ends at three and you get summers off. You get a decent pension and great benefits.

However, that's not the whole story.

Your day begins as early as 6:30 AM.

You give up a lot of personal freedom. There's no phone on your desk to make a call home -- and certainly no privacy to talk. A quick trip to the bathroom? Someone has to cover the class. The students go home at three - but you have papers to grade, meetings to attend, and perhaps a rehearsal to direct. Your school district rewards test results, not creative learning.

Another example. Now let's say you like to earn money and solve math problems. Are you ready for a CFO job? Each company has its own culture, of course, but in general the business world values image and style. You have to be comfortable moving through a hierarchy and giving the appearance of respecting authority.

Bottom line: Your aptitudes and values may drive you to teaching, but you will soon be searching for a new career if you are a night person who also values workplace autonomy.

If you have been working a long time, tests often show you are perfect for the job you hold now. After all these years, you've probably internalized values and attitudes of your profession -- and you obviously have enough aptitude to remain employed! Clients frequently come to me after paying hundreds, even thousands of dollars for midlife, mid-career testing. "A waste," they say ruefully.

On the other hand, your college-age children may benefit from testing, especially if they are thoroughly confused about their first career moves. College testing centers often employ high quality professionals because they train counseling students there.

Tests may not help you balance tradeoffs. Your aptitude and values may point you to a nature-loving outdoor career, but you realize there are few jobs available and those won't pay enough to live on. You have to be creative if you're going to make this combination work. The question, "How can I enjoy my love of nature and still earn a good living?" might best be discussed in a series of one-to-one conversations with someone who understands the career jungle.

On the other hand, strong motivation can compensate for low aptitude. In her book Crossing Avalon, Jean Shinoda Bolen writes of her determination to become a doctor, following a strong religious experience just before she entered college.

Bolen easily aced her liberal arts courses but struggled with sciences. At one point she received a midterm "D" grade in a zoology course. Yet she was accepted to a fine medical school and became a respected psychiatrist, Jungian therapist and best-selling author.

In a corporate setting, what appears to be test effectiveness may be self-fulfilling prophecy. MegaBig Corp administers aptitude tests to all applicants for sales positions. Only those who achieve a score of 80 out of 100 are hired. Those who earn 95 or higher are identified as high-potential superstars and sent off to special training. Managers, of course, see scores of their new hires, and they report a strong correlation between sales success and scores.

If you really wanted to test the tests, you'd administer tests to all applicants, hire a sample regardless of scores, and refuse to disclose test scores to supervising managers and trainers. Few companies would be willing to do this.

However, in one study, researchers told high school teachers, "Here is a list of IQ scores for your class." In reality, the "scores" were locker numbers! Those with higher locker numbers mysteriously out-performed those with lower numbers.

The teachers tried to be fair, but anyone who has taped a classroom knows teachers can give subtle cues of approval, disapproval and support. Managers can do the same.

You probably can't refuse to take a corporate test, but you may be in a position to ask some tough questions.

Before you spend money on tests, ask these three questions.

(1) Do you need to take tests to obtain this information? If you've been a successful accountant for ten years, you probably have a knack for numbers and details. However, testing may enhance your confidence if you feel shaky.

Elaine, a top executive in a Fortune 100 company, had been promoted to vice president in a male-dominated specialty. However, Elaine was getting nervous. There were only three or four departments like hers in the entire country and, if her job ended, so would her career.

Elaine visited a career counselor who began with a battery of tests.

"The tests show I'm very organized and I'm a good manager," she reported happily.

Elaine dealt with thousands of pieces of paper each week and had been a highly-paid manager for over ten years. Her friends were not at all surprised by Elaine's test scores. However, Elaine had received little praise or validation from her own management. She wanted those test scores to bolster her confidence as she began her midlife career exploration.

(2) Who will be administering these tests? University counselors work with bewildered undergraduates seeking their first jobs. Outplacement counselors work with experienced corporate executives, many of whom want a job just like the one they left. Find a service where you resemble the other clients.

Tests must be interpreted to be useful. If your counselor starts to gush about your intelligence or creativity, you may indeed be the next Einstein or Michelangelo -- or you may be in the wrong testing center. If your counselor hopes to sell you on follow-up sessions, she'll be highly motivated to come up with a story that leaves you feeling confident and appreciated.

Often test results are written so ambiguously that they could apply to almost anyone -- a frequent critique of both astrology and Myers-Briggs. Overly specific recommendations can be equally useless. What will you do if the tests suggest you should become a police officer or a funeral director?

Have some fun. Pick any of the sixteen Myers-Briggs profiles. Ask a few friends to take a test. Pretend to score the test and then hand your friends the profile you chose at random. Nearly every time, your friends will say, "That's me!"

However, be careful. Studies also show that people have trouble shaking their beliefs in bogus feedback, even when they're told it's bogus.

(3) Who designed these tests?

Some assessments are carefully designed while others have no more value than a light-hearted quiz from a popular magazine.

If you are asked to complete an assessment or test, don't be shy about asking questions. If you want to push some buttons, ask about reliability and validity. Ask whether the test was "normed" on a population that shares your demographic characteristics.

"Self-validation" is a bogus concept. As we have seen, there are many reasons you might say, "That's me! How accurate!"

One skeptic has put together or a solid critique of a popular test, the Myers-Briggs scale.

Bottom Line: Alas, there is no magic genie who can direct you to a new career. Tests may feel more scientific -- but recent career research suggests that career-changers to listen for messages from serendipity and their own intuition. In particular, when learning to navigate a new career world, you need to develop creative strategies that allow you to plan realistically while remaining open to surprises that, ultimately, change your life

I offer one-to-one consultations on career strategy.

Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., is an author, speaker and career/business consultant, helping midlife professionals strategize the First Inning of their Second Career. Learn Why Most Career Change Fails (and how to write your own success story).

Your 21-Day Extreme Career Makeover can start immediately! [http://www.cathygoodwin.com/21days.html]

"Why most career change fails (and how to write your own success story"

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