Shifting Gears With a Career Change

First Step for Job Seekers to Find a New Career Path

Oct 20, 2009

For many people who have found themselves at the wrong end of a reduction in force, a career change may be necessary. Changing careers is not easy, but it can be done.

The statistics for job-seekers are grim – the U.S. Department of Labor, reports an unemployment rate of 9.8% and that more than 5,400 people were unemployed for longer than 2-1/2 months during September 2009. Additionally, many states are reporting that there are approximately 6.3 qualified applicants for each available job opening. These statistics drive home the importance of being able to apply to positions in more than one career field to increase a job seeker’s chances of gaining employment.

Determine Skills Used in the Previous Career Path

The first step is for displaced workers to take a hard look at what they are capable of doing based on the functional components of the positions they held previously, and compare those abilities to other career paths that require those skills. So, how does one set about to do this? Using a resume as a guide to create a list of functional qualifications based on each job that has been held can kick-start the process.

This is a list for personal use, so the rules of resume-writing do not apply. Listing out each function that was performed in each position is the first step. No function is too menial – everything from being able to operate a copy machine to picking up the mail from the mailroom every day should be included.

Once all of the functional abilities are listed, they should be organized into categories of like items – for example, all the administrative functions should be in one category, all writing skills (report writing, memo or letter writing, and even e-mail writing) go into another category, until all of the functions are divided up into the appropriate sections.

Once all of the work functions have been added, those skills and abilities that may never have been applied in a work situation should be inserted. For instance, if one can sew well, paint or is very good with tools, these functions should be added to the list. There may be functions that are forgotten the first few times around, and this list will be a work in progress that can be updated over time.

Applying Previously Used Skills to a New Career Field

Once a comprehensive list of functional skills and abilities is built, the next step is researching those skills to find another potential field that requires many of the same skills. Some creative thinking will need to be applied in doing this – combining keywords from functions in each category to search, and trying different combinations to see what results are returned is recommended.

Keeping an open mind during the process will provide considerations of career fields that never seemed available before, but for which one may be well-suited. Refusing to limit the search to just one additional area can also be beneficial.

The last step in the process, once research has determined a few new ideas for changing careers, is to re-craft a resume to market oneself in that field. There is no limit to the number of career fields or resumes a person may have, and having more options opens up more possibilities in the job market.

The copyright of the article Shifting Gears With a Career Change in Changing Careers is owned by Diana Gier. Permission to republish Shifting Gears With a Career Change in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.