It’s not easy to know what you want your future to look like, and if you’ve chosen the wrong career path in life, you might be feeling stuck. Not to worry, though, because nothing is ever permanent, and there are ways you can break into a new field without having to uproot your whole life. Many don’t realize that despite following their current career path, they’ve been developing skills that are useful and applicable to their desired career.
Work on transferable skills
No matter where you’ve worked, you’ve had to develop skills in your career to make the job easier and to cover all of your responsibilities. Oftentimes, some of these skills will be transferable to other jobs – which can be very useful when trying to change up your career. For example, working as a manager in a store might not be exactly the same as every other manager position – but being in charge, having to communicate with your team, and overall being responsible for others is a skill that most people don’t have – it’s transferable.
You’ll find that you may have a lot of these types of skills, and those are important to take note of when you’re trying to change your profession.
Use your spare time
If you really want to change your career, stop thinking about it and get to work. Playing with the idea isn’t going to tell you everything you need to know, and you should be using your spare time to try it out for yourself. Take courses in the evenings, learn about it, read about it, and immerse yourself in it to see whether or not it’s something you could see yourself doing on a daily basis. You shouldn’t give up what you currently have unless you know what you want, and you’re certain about it.
Giving up your job to pursue something else is a huge gamble, and you should only really do it if you have an opening. That means holding onto your job until you’ve had an interview and been accepted, or if you’ve got a significant amount of backup money to keep you going until you can find something better.
Research the industry
You should know what kind of qualifications or applicants recruiters in the industry are looking for, and recruiters like cmr.com.au are open for anyone to read up on. Understanding your recruiters is going to help you to become the ideal applicant, and you can increase your chances of getting into that industry when you’re ready to apply.
Build a portfolio
If you’re lacking the qualifications to break into your desired career because you didn’t study for it while you were in education, building a portfolio is important. Take courses around your desired topic, prove that you’re able to do it and that you’re passionate about it, and have something you can show future recruiters. Even without qualifications, a portfolio to display your skills might be enough to prove your abilities.