If you’re among the 40 million-plus people in the U.S. who have been laid off or furloughed by your employer, you may be thinking that if ever there was a good time to change careers, this might be it.
And you could be right.
Could be, because deciding to change careers is such a big, life-altering move that it’s definitely not something you should undertake impulsively. This is especially so if the main reason you’re making the switch is because of the trauma of your job loss.
However, if you’ve been deeply unhappy with your career choice for months or years, this time could be the push you’ve needed to take a new plunge.
Career-change strategies during a pandemic
If you’ve looked deeply into your reasons for wanting a change and have decided to go for it, here’s a step-by-step plan to help you successfully transform your life.
- If you haven’t yet decided what career you want to pursue, do some soul-searching.
What do you dislike about your current career? We don’t mean about your current (past) job, but the career itself. For example, perhaps you don’t like your co-workers. You will have unlikeable co-workers wherever you work so you need to take a deep dive into why you don’t like them: perhaps the career tends to attract people with whom you just don’t click. This is unlikely, but it’s good to do a gut-check.
What aspects of the career drive you bonkers? Perhaps it’s one that requires long hours and you want to have more time for your personal life? Perhaps it doesn’t pay much and you’re tired of a “ramen noodle” lifestyle.
- Will you need to learn new skills to pursue the new career you choose?
For example, perhaps you love practicing law, but you don’t like corporate law and you’d rather work in a human rights organization. (Note: this type of career change will be easier than most because the skills you use in both are the same.)
But if you’re moving from say, human resources to healthcare, you’re going to need to learn new skills (unless you wish to look for HR work in a healthcare setting).
- How will your current skills help the new profession?
Remember, employers hire people to solve problems. To make the change you’re going to need to convince a hiring manager that the skills you’ve used in your previous career will transfer easily – and provide value – to your new career.
As an easy example: let’s say you’re a journalist looking to move into marketing. Your writing skills should be relatively easy to transfer to marketing. Still, journalistic writing is different than marketing writing and you may want to put together some marketing writing samples to showcase your skills.
Another example: you’ve worked as a restaurant manager for several years and you’re hoping to move to non-profit advocacy. Come up with examples of how your management skills could help a non-profit. Could you use those skills in volunteer management, for example?
- Start networking with people in the new industry.
And now that the pandemic has made in-person networking almost impossible, the place to start networking is on LinkedIn.
A great way to start your networking/job search is to identify companies in the new career at which you’d like to work. Check a business’ company page (and website) and see if you can identify people who might be in a position to hire someone with your skills.
If these people are second connections, you can ask for a connection (mention the person who connects you). Once a connection is accepted, you can then message the person about your interest in changing careers and if they’d be willing to speak with you about opportunities. (Note: we’re not advising at this point that you send a resume unasked or ask if you can send it. Wait until asked yourself.)
When people do agree to chat with you – and at least a few will – ask for information about the career, what they love and hate about it, etc. And then ask them if there is anyone else they could recommend you speak with.
(They may ask for your resume; if so, send it. However – and once again – don’t ask if you can send it).
Continuing doing this and over time you will have people asking for your resume, telling you about job openings, even telling you they would like to interview you for an opening.
- Understand that you may need to take a step down the career ladder as well as a pay cut.
Unless your skills transfer perfectly to the new career, you may have to take a position one or two levels “below” your role in your previous career, as well as a pay cut (due to the “lesser” position).
Aim to look at this as the price you pay for a happier work life (and possibly personal life). As you prove yourself in the new career, the promotions and pay raises will come along.
If your job/career has been upended due to the economic downturn caused by COVID-19, Helpmates has many temporary, temp-to-hire and even direct-hire opportunities available right now. Take a look at our current openings and, if one or more appear to be a good fit, follow directions for applying.
