career change |

Patience Pays off in Career Change

Patience is a virtue.  This might be especially true for career change.  And even more true the older you get.

A client contacted me almost 2 years ago at age 50+.  She’d been in the same office job for 25 years and needed to make a change due to burnout and depression from staying in a stagnant position for so long. Her self-confidence was shot!

I started by assessing her needs, priorities, and preferences.  She was not willing at her age to go back to school for further education, so it was a question of identifying and defining her strengths, skills, and interests to match attainable jobs.

A long and winding road

Although she had a passion for working with pets, her lack of credentials in that field would consign her to low skill, low pay jobs.  She seriously considered that option to preserve her health and sanity and even applied at a few places.  In the end, she wasn’t willing to take such a significant pay cut.

So, we identified jobs in both the public and private sector that would recognize and reward her for the administrative skills used in her office job.  I modified her resume accordingly.  I taught her how to complete online government applications.  After several false starts, she got the hang of it.  After 6 months or so, she started getting call-backs for interviews related to HR Assistant, Collections Officer, Client Support, Client Services, Payroll Officer, and similar jobs.

Interview anxiety

Learning to interview was another hurdle to cross.  She had not been to a job interview in 25 years! Just the thought of one filled her with worry and anxiety and, for various reasons, she cancelled the first few interviews.

Over the next year, she kept getting invitations because her skill set had real value in the job market. I pointed this out to her repeatedly while continuing to coach and guide her through the interview process, especially with respect to answering situational questions and telling compelling stories that gave a picture of her in action solving problems relevant to an employer’s job description.

Slowly but surely her confidence increased.  She made it through a few interviews without her nerves getting the best of her.  This past summer, she was invited to a hiring process as a Screening Officer with a government agency, which involved many challenging steps that I successfully guided her through. She also had to provide references from her employer, a prospect that triggered another round of concern, but we navigated through that obstacle.

Happy ending

Six months after the interview, she was offered the job.  When she gave notice, her employer went to great lengths to retain her.  But she stuck to her guns and started her new career in January this year: “I can’t tell you how happy I am to try something new. Your assistance has been invaluable! I couldn’t have done it without your help!!!!”

She started this career change journey with little hope but felt she had nothing to lose because her job was literally “killing” her body, mind, and spirit.  She was overwhelmed by the prospect of such a significant change.

But she did it! What courage to start, what patience to persevere, what resilience to overcome each obstacle!

JobJoy Smile – Patience Puns

My wife said she’s lost her patience with me.

I told her I’d help her find it.

People who buy turf for their yards don’t have the patience to grow their own

They want instant grassification.

After months of patience and persistence I finally have a nice body.

It fits perfectly in my trunk.

Why do you need patience at the gym?

Because there is a lot of weighting.

Going to a seminar on patience

Can’t wait!

I had my patience tested today

It came back negative

The Trouble with Career Transitions

In the past year, I’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of mature workers being terminated by major employers, usually senior managers in their mid-40s to 50s.

Most are unable to get re-employed quickly at a similar level with another company in a similar sector. Instead, they are forced to consider some kind of career change. It’s a lot of trouble to go through.

But there is no going back to the way things were for these mature workers. All workers will simply have to get better at making career transitions as the pace of technological change accelerates over the next decade.

Actions to take

What actions, if any, help individuals make a career change? First and foremost is answering the questions: where and what? What other work are you suited for? Which organizations will recognize, reward, and motivate you? And what should you do there in terms of specific jobs or duties or responsibilities?

In other words, what is your job target? It’s pretty hard to hit a target unless you can see it. And this is where most people get bogged down because their career identity is so wrapped up in their most recent job or the path that they’ve followed with a specific company for 15 or more years. If they can’t find similar work elsewhere, they simply don’t know what to do.

However, most people do not answer these basic questions of where and what before starting a career change. Instead, studies show that they jump into networking, acquiring new knowledge and skills, trying things out, researching options, and self-reflection.

The trouble is…

Some of these activities are good, even necessary, but they often lead to a lot of wasted time and energy. Networking is not very productive if you can’t tell others what you are looking for. Acquiring new knowledge and skills is not very useful if they don’t align with your strengths and motivations to leverage them into a rewarding career. Trying things out might be fun but are they part of a strategy or tactic that leads to new employment? Researching options might be interesting but there are over 90,000 job titles operating in North America today, so which 1, 10, or 20 match your strengths and ambitions? And self-reflection can be self-defeating until it is tied to a purpose and a plan.

Less trouble

I’ve been helping individuals make career changes for over 30 years. My speciality is answering the questions Where and What for my clients. In my experience, it’s a lot less trouble if you start at the beginning with a target—one that expands opportunities and motivates you to take action.

To be or not to be…who you are!

I had a client recently who is passionate about animal care…always has been, since childhood.

At least once a year, for the past 30 years, someone like her enters my practice. Sometimes young, or middle age, male or female—what they all have in common is this inner longing to take care of animals…for them a stronger desire than taking care of people.

And yet, none of them had been able to move beyond the care of their own pets. Most of them tried pet-sitting or dog-walking or some related low skill, low pay job but couldn’t make enough money to make ends meet.

Finding the right path

Like my client this week, they go into other careers, usually because they had no desire or inclination to be a vet or a vet’s assistant. As my client said, “I want to care for them, not kill them!” This is a typical rationale for such clients: when the most obvious option that society offers (e.g., be a vet) is not one that interests them, they give up on their heartfelt aspiration.

In her case, she worked as a cashier, custodian, martial arts instructor, and finally trained and worked as a Rehab Assistant, caring for individuals recovering from accidents…but she quit after two years because it didn’t meet her expectations.

She’s determined now to find a career working with animals, which is the only thing she really wants to do. I assured her that there were dozens of animal care jobs, including many she’d never of heard of, and many that don’t require a lot of education or training.

Choosing the right path

In general, jobs with animals fall into three categories: service (care & feeding), resource development and conservation.

I gave her a list of all the jobs related to animal care, everything from animal trainer to bison farmer to wildlife photographer. I gave her a list of education programs for Resource Development and Animal Conservation.
She loved the idea of wildlife rehabilitation but didn’t want to go back to school.

In the end, she decided to start with Kennel Attendant and work towards owning and operating her own kennel someday. She may even return to Rehab Assistant part-time, or on contract, to save money to buy some property for a kennel near Winnipeg.

She is finally accepting who she is in terms of her right work and taking responsibility for what she wants in life.

Living the right path

Very often our right work shows up early in life, but other values, priorities, advice, or circumstances get in the way of us following our instincts, intuition, or heartfelt desires.

We often get knocked off our right path early in life and end up surviving on another one…but not thriving.

It’s never too late to get back on it. Sure, it might not be ideal, but it will certainly be deeply satisfying and rewarding in ways that are often hard to explain to others who have different values or priorities.

Be who you are…you won’t regret it.

JobJoy Smile – Animal Puns

Q: What do you call a sleeping bull?
A: A bull-dozer.

Q: How do you fit more pigs on your farm?
A: Build a sty-scraper!

Q: What did the farmer call the cow that had no milk?
A: An udder failure.

Q: Why do gorillas have big nostrils?
A: Because they have big fingers!

Q: Why are teddy bears never hungry?
A: They are always stuffed!

Q: Why do fish live in salt water?
A: Because pepper makes them sneeze!

Q: What do you get from a pampered cow?
A: Spoiled milk.

Q: Where do polar bears vote?
A: The North Poll

3 Tips for making a career change without a pay cut

The biggest fear most people express is their belief that a career change means a big pay cut and, therefore, a poorer lifestyle. This belief is based on an assumption that a career change means starting over from scratch. Not so.

Fear of pay cut is a feeling not a fact.

The fact is that there are so many job opportunities in our current economy, up to 90,000 job titles and more being added each day with new and expanding industries. Plus, there is a shortage of workers in most sectors. Workers with skills and experience are in high demand, which means they are commanding higher salaries. It’s important to investigate a career change target for facts. Then develop a plan to optimize your chances of achieving a career change that results in no pay cut.

Focus on assets not liabilities.

Nobody is starting over. There is no substitute for work or life experience. In my 30 years as a career professional, I’ve found that most individuals underestimate their true market value, especially when it comes to the soft skills that they’ve acquired, such as problem-solving, creativity, adaptability, communication, and teamwork. Many of them have also acquired other transferable skills, such as knowledge or experience in administration, management, marketing, accounting, training, or finance. In most cases, any deficit they have in terms of subject matter expertise or technical skill can usually be overcome in relatively short order with on-the-job experience or a micro-credential because most career changers have learned how to learn, often quickly and easily.

Get support.

A career change requires a plan and support to execute that plan. Career changers need encouragement and emotional support, especially from family and friends. But they also benefit from professional help to guide them through the different stages of change:

how to reposition and repackage their value proposition;
how to navigate the job market;
how to communicate their value proposition in an interview with a hiring manager;
and, how to negotiate a better compensation package.

Top 3 factors to a successful career change in midlife

In the last few years, even during the pandemic, I’ve helped a significant number of individuals make real career changes into a new field or into self-employment. Based on this experience, here’s the top 3 reasons they did so:

1. Know where to look

There are lots of opportunities in today’s job market but only in specific sectors. By doing a deep analysis of their transferable skills, we identified which sectors will recognize, reward, and motivate them. We start with the sectors where there is high demand and high growth.

2. Know how to look

We position and package them for specific jobs in those sectors. We master the online application process and identify a few very specific people to approach offline for leads and referrals. Then we prep for interviews by developing compelling stories that demonstrate in very clear and concise terms how they can help these employers make money, save money, improve productivity, attain efficiencies, meet difficult deadlines—all the bottom-line stuff that adds value to an organization.

3. Stick to it.

Most of these people had some financial security because, by a combination of their age and covid circumstances, the value of their assets (especially their house) had gone up a lot, so they did not feel desperate. This allowed them to really focus on attaining the kind of work that energized them, work that gave them purpose or meaning, rather than settling on something just to pay bills. They felt liberated, empowered! This positive attitude enabled their job search.
In addition, they found it quicker and easier to acquire a new credential, or skill, or subject matter expertise with all the micro-credentials available online. Succeeding with a credential boosted their confidence in interviews and helped them make their case for employment in a new field. They could speak with authority and authenticity on how they would handle certain situations in a job.

Conclusion

Making a successful career change in mid-life is really about understanding and communicating your past accomplishments at work and in life, and how they fit the needs and priorities of a potential employer. By mid-life, you’ve succeeded in many things that support you to succeed in a career change!

Career professionals: whadda dey know?

The rate of people changing jobs has been growing month-to-month as the economy slowly recovers from its pandemic lows of 2021.

Information about work and skills is in high demand. But a labour market study published during November 2021 shows that only 1 out of 5 adults (of about 15 million adults aged 25-64 in Canada) make use of career services to help with their career decisions. The other 80% tend to rely on family and friends for career advice.

Not surprising, since most career decisions are private matters, and most adults turn to people they trust for advice during different stages of their lives:

– What to study while in high school.

– What to do with a diploma or degree after graduating from college or university.

– How to get out of the educated-but-under-employed rut.

– How to deal with job loss or long-term unemployment.

– How to advance in career once one is employed.

– How to change jobs or careers without a major loss of income.

– How to find a job as a newcomer to Canada.

– How to retire but keep working.

As a career professional for 30 years, I’ve encountered all these situations and continue to do so as many of my past clients refer their family and friends to me ( thank you! ) to advise them on these important transitions.

Help is available

Studies also show that people who use career professionals to assist with these decisions have better outcomes more often than people who rely only on family and friends for advice.

I get it…it can be confusing to navigate the career services ecosystem to find what you need at any stage in your life because there exists a complex set of services—some provided by schools, some by government departments or third-party agencies (funded by government), or non-profit agencies, or private sector companies, or independent practitioners (like me). The different career terms, supports and capacity used by these service providers adds to the confusion.

I am not the career professional suited for everyone. It is important for me to know if or how I can best help you. And to steer you in the right direction. I need to earn your trust.

That is why I do my best to read these studies, to engage in continuous learning, to update my credentials, so that I can provide you with reliable and accurate guidance about work and skills in this country and elsewhere. You deserve it!

Want a career change? See fastest growing jobs!

Here’s a list of the fastest growing jobs from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It shows their current average salary in USD plus their expected growth percentage by 2030.

If you want to know the core job duties of these jobs, visit http://online.onetcenter.org/Type the job title into the search box in the right-hand corner of the page, and select the Tasks associated with that job.

How do you know if you’re suited for doing those tasks? Whether you’ve got the talents or motivations to succeed in that career? Read my answer below the list.

Fastest growing jobs

Wind turbine service technicians ($56,230): 68.2%
Nurse practitioners ($111,680): 52.2%
Solar photovoltaic installers ($46,470): 52.1%
Statisticians ($92,270): 35.4%
Physical therapist assistants ($59,770): 35.4%
Information security analysts ($103,590): 33.3%
Home health and personal care aides ($27,080): 32.6%
Medical and health services managers ($104,280): 32.5%
Data scientists ($98,230): 31.4%
Physician assistants ($115,390): 31%
Epidemiologists ($74,560): 29.6%
Logisticians ($76,270): 29.5%
Speech-language pathologists ($80,480): 28.7%
Animal trainers ($31,520): 28.5%
Computer numerically controlled tool programmers ($57,740): 27.4%
Genetic counselors ($85,700): 26.2%
Crematory operators ($28,420): 24.8%
Operations research analysts ($86,200): 24.6%
Actuaries ($111,030): 24.5%
Health specialties teachers, postsecondary ($99,090): 24.3%
Forest fire inspectors and specialists ($42,150): 23.9%
Interpreters and translators ($52,330): 23.7%
Athletic trainers ($49,860): 23.4%
Respiratory therapists ($62,810): 23%
Substance abuse, and mental health counselors ($47,660): 22.9%
Food prep workers ($27,080): 22.8%
Nursing instructors and teachers, postsecondary ($75,470): 22.4%
Woodworkers ($33,630): 22.2%
Phlebotomists, i.e. techs who perform blood tests ($36,320): 22.2%
Software developers and QA analysts ($110,140): 22.2%

If you’re going to make a career change, you want to be sure that it will work for you, provide you with some job satisfaction to keep you motivated to succeed, right?

Keep your job description aligned with what makes you happy and productive in the workplace, so that you operate 60 per cent of the time in a mode that comes naturally and effortlessly to you.

There is no such thing as a perfect job where you are 100% happy and satisfied all the time. The world is just not organized that way! The key to career success is to limit the downside of your job to 40% of your job duties. That means that the remaining 60% of your job duties will be organized around your natural talents.

This 60/40 split will energize you. This is jobfit. This is a key element of career success!

How to achieve jobfit

Sign on to my JOBJOY FOR LIFE™ Course. You will identify and define your key success elements to ensure a jobfit. Get the job that will energize and motivate you. You can be recognized and rewarded for your natural strengths and motivations!

Career change tip: Don’t make assumptions

According to many surveys, about half the working population is preparing to make a career change. We read stories about exhausted nurses and teachers leaving their fields. Or service workers going back to school for IT diplomas. Or senior executives cashing out to sell real estate.

Many individuals change careers for good reasons. But just as many make decisions based on assumptions that could lead them down the wrong path. For example, a good many people have come to me with the intention of going into HR because they want to have direct contact with people and help them. That’s a noble motivation, right? Yes, but most HR duties are about managing processes not people.

Processes or people

HR is about using software and systems to effectively and efficiently deploy a specific resource in an organization—that resource is called talent, or human resources. When employees actually need help for a work-related problem, such as managing their stress or mental health, they are most often referred to a third party. If you want to work directly with people, then consider working in an employee assistance program run by a third party provider.

We need to substitute our assumptions with a reality check. Before committing to a career change, verify that your natural strengths and motivations align with its core duties and responsibilities.

Let’s use the HR scenario again. If by “helping others” you mean meeting with employees one-on-one to listen to their problem, then advising them on their options and helping them choose and appropriate course of action–then you may not enjoy sitting in front of a computer all day using PeopleSoft or some other software to review payroll complaints from workers spread across the country.

If what you really want to do is influence the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of individuals towards some positive change, then identify which “jobs” in HR actually perform that function. Also, check to see what other careers are organized around that core activity.

You can make a better decision about a career change and what you need to do to make it happen with the assistance of my JOBJOY FOR LIFE™ Course.

Job change or Career change–which is right for you?

The pandemic has caused many people to re-evaluate their life priorities and surveys indicate that many plan on changing their job this year, some for a better or different job and some for a whole new career.

In terms of deciding what to do, it may be helpful to understand the difference between a job change and a career change.

Career is derived from its Latin root meaning ‘wheeled vehicle,’ which lent itself to the modern notion of a single, linear, vocational direction (the metaphor equating to: ‘following a particular path’ or ‘climbing the corporate ladder’), as working permanently in, or committed to, a particular profession, such as a journalist, nurse, teacher, police officer, engineer, and so on.

Job change is not necessarily career change; some job change involves promotions, or demotions, with the same employer, or a lateral transfer using similar or related skills with a different employer in the same career field.

For example, social media has wiped out many daily newspapers and magazines, and some journalists who’ve lost their jobs have made a job change to a Communications/Media Relations Specialist with a large corporation, a government department or a nonprofit organization. Instead of reporting the news, they now work to “make” news by having their employer’s activities reported as news.

A career change, by contrast, is more difficult and involves moving from one career path to something completely different; for example, a journalist becoming a home renovator as an independent contractor.

Job change or career change—which is right for you? It will depend on your aspirations, preferences and circumstances. Your strengths and weaknesses will need to be factored into your decision. It may be important to do an objective evaluation of the pros and cons of each strategy for your situation.

Example of Career Change as a Journey with a Clear Destination in Mind

As we get older, making a career change is more challenging for many reasons:

– we’re locked into a job that gives us economic security that we don’t want to risk;

– our identity is invested in our job—especially in the way that our family (you’re the breadwinner) and friends (you’re like me) view us—so there is little support for a major change;

– we might’ve tried a change previously and it didn’t work so we’ve lost confidence and don’t really believe we can make a change;

– we don’t have the desire or the energy to face adversity, it’s just easier to coast along with the devil we know;

– we don’t know where to start so we don’t do anything except daydream (news reports consistently tell us about 70% of workers fantasize daily about changing their job).

Whatever the challenge, there is a simple antidote that I have seen work everytime over the past 25 years–take one action towards what you want.

Did that action move you closer to your goal?

If so, take another action. If not, identify what was learned from that experience…then take a different action. Baby steps! We crawl, we pull ourselves up, we take a step or two, we walk, we run. That’s life. Same thing goes for career change.

For example. A local client visited me 10 years feeling “stuck” in her government job. She was thinking about going to law school. After exploring the pros & cons of such a commitment for a young family, she decided against it.

Last year she returned. She now had 18 years employment as a public servant but still desired a career change. She had an idea in mind for developing her own business. We discussed some options and developed a plan with specific action steps.

Action Steps

She took the first action of seeking advice from her network to evaluate the demand for the service she wanted to offer. Her network was very encouraging. At the same time, we reviewed all the legal and logistical requirements for starting a business in Ontario and established a timeframe. She approached several contacts in her network to solicit them as initial clients…but they turned her down! This took some of the wind out of her sails.

In the meantime, she found it difficult to choose between solopreneurship and registering as a corporation and received conflicting advice from lawyers, accountants and other professionals.

I encouraged her to continue prospecting with her targeted client base; in short, when faced with adversity, swim with your kind of fish. She attended professional networking groups for business women, some of whom took her under their wing. She started to feel supported in very practical ways. She decided not to incorporate, then launched her business and immediately got referrals, new clients and projects.

Her side hustle keeps her busy outside of a 9-5 government job providing grant writing and social media management to clients. She says, “I couldn’t be happier!”

Next Step

We can now plan the next step to build her business to the point that she can go full-time by moving from solopreneur to employer.

Ten years ago this client had one idea that did not pan out…but her desire for a new venture was strong. In the past year, she took her idea through baby steps to walking and is now preparing to run!

Career change is a journey with a clear destination in mind. How fast you travel is not the issue. The point is to enjoy the journey in the one life we get.