14 Secrets to Career Change Success

By Curt Rosengren

Stop delaying.

Making a career change is challenging in the best of times, so this economy certainly doesn't help. Many people allow that to keep them frustrated and stuck—not just for now, but for the long haul. They think about making a change, decide they can't do it, and stick their dissatisfied noses right back down to the same grindstone. But what feels impossible today could be an open door in the future.

Prepare to feel fear.

You're 99.9 percent guaranteed to bump up against fear. It just comes with the territory. But it can actually be an enormously valuable asset. Productive fear shines a light on potential dangers so you can assess how to minimize or eliminate them. Ask yourself: Is this fear valid? What warning does this fear have for me? What factors would make this outcome more likely? What could I do about each of those risk factors?

Analyze yourself.

Start with questions like: What do I love doing? Why? When do I feel most energized? Why? What activities do I lose myself in? Why? What work sparks my interest? Why? What feels meaningful? Why?

Lay the groundwork.

Ask yourself, "What is it going to take to make the change? What do I need to put in place?" Maybe you need to start putting aside money for a career change fund. Maybe you need to start developing an expertise or building relationships in your new area of focus.

Take action.

There comes a time when exploring and thinking and noodling cease being productive and become just another way to procrastinate. Action creates opportunity. There are countless doors that will never open to you unless you take the first steps. Action is also a great antidote to fear. Sitting passively and letting life happen to you breeds fear the way still, stagnant water breeds mosquitoes. Stir it up a little.

Network. Once you have clarity about what makes you tick and where you want to go, you can start building a network. The idea is to create a framework that you can tap into when it comes time to make that change. Build your network before you need it.

Assume success.

There's a well-known self-exploration question that goes, "What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?" It's a way to help people shine a light on their dreams. Tell yourself: "Success is inevitable. Now prove it." Assume that the only possible outcome is success, and then challenge yourself to prove how that can happen.

Pay attention.

Make it a habit to pay attention to two things at work: what you love about your job and what you dislike. Your goal is to understand the details of your experience, because that gives you something specific to work with as you pursue positive change. Think of your work as a big research experiment aimed at helping you uncover what energizes you and what drains you.

Find good company.

When you surround yourself with people who are positive and motivated, who believe in their potential, a funny thing happens. Even if nothing else in your life changes, it starts to rub off on you. It starts to change your paradigm.

Get knowledge support.

You don't have all the answers, so don't pretend you do. Take stock of what you need to learn, and find ways to learn it. Find mentors, interview experts, or take classes. The less you grapple with figuring out the answers, the more energy you'll have to use them.

Help someone else.

As you look at your goals, ask the question, "How can I serve?" How can you help someone? Where are your opportunities to give? When you focus on helping and giving, you are often the recipient of helping and giving from some other direction. I can't tell you the equation that translates your giving actions into benefits for yourself. But almost everything I have been able to accomplish in my own career has been driven in some way by focusing on how I can help others.

Deal with past failures.

Are there any failures in your past that are keeping you from your future? Are you playing it safe anywhere, not because it's the wise thing to do but because you're letting your fear close doors? What one step can you take to start opening those doors again? You can either learn and move on, or let that failure limit your life.

Be sure you're not getting in your own way.

Perhaps you find yourself spending too much time watching TV and not enough time working towards what you really want. Or it could be that your diet is so packed with junk food that you have no energy to do anything but come home at the end of the day and collapse.

Get back on track after a derailment.

If you ever wind up off track as you pursue your passion, take heart. You're in good company. It happens a lot. The important thing is not whether or not you get derailed, it's what you do when you realize that it has happened.

 

What NOT to do: 7 ways to ruin your resume

By Hillary Chura

1. Apply for a job for which you are not remotely qualified

Many candidates believe the job hunt is a numbers game — drop enough resumes, and you're bound to land something. But shotguns are for hunting pheasant, not finding jobs. The reality is that recruiters hate wasting time on resumes from unqualified candidates. Morgan Miller, an executive recruiter at StaffMark, recalls the security guard who applied to be a financial risk manager (maybe Lehman should have hired him), while Scott Ragusa at Winter, Wyman talks of the aerial photographer who sought out a position as a tax specialist.

"Sorting through unqualified resumes is frustrating, unproductive and puts an extra burden on staff," says Katherine Swift, Senior Account Director at KCSA Strategic Communications in Natick, Mass. "It also makes it much more challenging to find the right candidate." So the next time you're thinking of blasting out resumes to all 60 of the job listings on Monster.com that have the word "finance" in them , save your time (and that of the recruiters) and only apply for ones for which you're qualified.

2. Include a lofty mission statement

More than ever, today's savage job market is about the company, not the candidate. As such, mission or objective statements — particularly ones with an applicant's hopes, dreams, and health insurance aspirations — will dispatch otherwise fine resumes to the circular file. Employers don't care about how they can solve your problems — certainly not before they've met you and possibly not even after they've hired you. Instead, write an "objectives" statement that explains specifically how your skills and experience will help the company you're applying to, not the other way around. And be very clear about what kind of job you're seeking.

3. Use one generic resume for every job listing

To stand out amongst the sea of resumes that recruiters receive, yours must speak to each and every specific position, even recycling some of the language from the job description itself. Make it obvious that you will start solving problems even before you've recorded your outgoing voicemail message. Your CV or query letter should include a just touch of industry lingo — sufficient to prove you know your stuff but not so much that you sound like a robot. And it should speak to individual company issues and industry challenges, with specifics on how you have personally improved customer loyalty, efficiency, and profitability at past jobs, says workplace and performance consultant Jay Forte. Plus, each morsel should be on point.

"Think hard about how to best leverage each piece of information to your job search advantage," says Wendy Enelow, a career consultant and trainer in Virginia. "Nothing in your resume should be arbitrary, from what you include in your job descriptions and achievement statements, to whether your education or experience comes first [recent grads may want to put education first] to how you format your contact information."

4. Make recruiters or hiring managers guess how exactly you can help their client

Sourcing experts want to know — immediately — what someone can offer, and they won't spend time noodling someone's credentials. "Animal, vegetable or mineral? Doctor, lawyer or Indian chief? That's what I'm wondering every time I open a resume. If it takes me more than a split second to figure this out, I feel frustrated," says Mary O'Gorman, a veteran recruiter based in Brooklyn.

5. Don't explain how past experience translates to a new position

Though candidates should avoid jobs where they have no experience, they absolutely should pursue new areas and positions if they can position their experience effectively. A high school English teacher applying for new jobs, for example, can cite expertise in human resource management, people skills, record keeping, writing, and training, says Anthony Pensabene, a professional writer who works with executives.

"Titles are just semantics; candidates need to relate their 'actual' skills and experiences to the job they're applying for in their resume," Pensabene says. An applicant who cannot be bothered to identify the parallels between the two likely won't be bothered with interviews, either.

6. Don't include a cover letter with your resume

A cover letter should always accompany a resume — even if it's going to your best friend. And that doesn't mean a lazy "I'm _____ and I'm looking for a job in New York; please see my attached resume." Says Lindsay Olson, a partner at Manhattan's Paradigm Staffing: "I'd like to know why you are contacting me (a particular position, referral, etc.), a short background about yourself, and a career highlight or two. It's important to attempt to set yourself apart from the competition."

7. Be careless with details

Reckless job hunters rarely make for conscientious workers. As such, even promising resumes must abide by age-old dictums: typo-free, proper organization, and no embellishment. Susan Whitcomb, author of Resume Magic: Trade Secrets of a Professional Resume Writer, says that almost 80 percent of HR managers she surveyed said they would dismiss otherwise qualified candidates who break these rules. She tells the story of one would-be employer who, when looking for an assistant, decided not to hire anyone because every resume she received contained typos.

"With a 6-to-1 ratio of jobseekers-to-jobs in the current marketplace, you can't afford to make mistakes with your resume," Whitcomb says.