Working with clients who are going through a career transition takes a lot of reflection and time for the process to happen. Are they trying to get a different role at their current company, a job at a new company, move to a new industry or completely change the focus of their career? Looking at what they don’t like currently can provide some help them with a direction to go and ensure that those things are addressed with a change. Here are some common scenarios and questions that may provide some insight as you consider a change:
- Do you want to stay at your current company, but take a different role?
- Do you want to stay in the same function, but at a different level?
- Are you interested in diversifying your experience and going to a different function?
- What are your strengths and how can you leverage these in a new role?
- Are there any additional skills that will be needed to ensure success?
- Do you have support from your management to make this type of change?
- Do you want to change companies, but stay in the same function?
- Have you identified some target companies?
- Are you looking for a similar level or for a promotion?
- Are you looking to stay in the same area where you live or will you move?
- Do you have certain requirements that this company or role needs to have before you consider a change? (size of company, responsibilities, salary, commute time, benefits, culture, values that are important to you, number of employees)
- Do you want to change industries?
- What are some industries that you are considering?
- Would you be able to leverage the experience and skills that you have?
- Do you have some target companies that you would like to work for?
- How will you demonstrate that you can be effective quickly in this new industry?
- Is this an industry that is growing?
- Do you want to take an entirely different career path?
- If you could wave a magic wand and have your ideal role tomorrow, what would it look like?
- Think about the types of things you want to do and the outcomes you want to achieve.
- What things do you want to avoid?
- Do you want to be an individual contributor or a leader of people?
- Do you know someone who has this type of role that you can connect with and better understand it?
No matter which option you want to pursue, there are a lot of networking conversations that can help you build connections, gain input and reach a decision. Proactively pursuing networking groups and conversations with people that you know locally are good places to start. You also want to leverage the power of an on-line network to help you too. Reach out to your connections on LinkedIn and Facebook to let them know you are looking for a new role. Be prepared to share a quick 30 second speech on what you want, because you never know which contact could help you. Create a one page document that includes what you want, target companies and the key things that you need the role or company to have to share with others. Get more involved with LinkedIn Groups that would target companies, functions or roles that you would be interested in. This can help you expand your network and the people in the group may post jobs, help you connect to others or share job leads with you. This article called How LinkedIn Groups Can Help You Get A Job by Nancy Collamer does a nice job of sharing some ideas on how to leverage LinkedIn Groups to your benefit.
Going through this process can be very stressful. Gathering as much information as possible, can help to mitigate some of those risks and reduce your stress. Taking the time to reflect on the questions above will give you some answers and directions to pursue. Conversations with people who work in those industries, companies or roles can help you decide if that is where you want to go and if it meets your requirements. Leverage all of the different resources that you have available to you to ensure people know what you want. If you start to feel frustrated or impatient that it isn’t happening fast enough, just remember how great it will be when you working in a place that makes you happy, meets your needs and hopefully addresses many of the issues that you had in your previous role.
Are you looking to make a change in your career? The power of a mastermind is there to help you move forward with the help and support of a group. Would you like to hear more about the Powerful Leadership Mastermind group that is just getting started? We have a few spots left for the group which meets every other week on Tuesday mornings.
The group is led by me and my partner (and cousin) Kim who are both ICF Certified Coaches. We are offering an introductory rate to join and we are looking for people who are motivated to make a change in their personal or professional lives. If you would like to learn more about it and join the group you can click on this link: Powerful Leadership Mastermind or reach out to me.