April 05, 2010

The ABCs of Career Change

With the job market on the upswing, wouldn't it be nice to ensure your resume could be seen by the employers and recruiters that are currently hiring? One way to do that is to post your resume on all the top career websites where hiring managers search for resumes of candidates to fill their open positions. That's where a service like Resume Rabbit can help.

You enter your resume and job requirements just once - and in the time it takes to post your resume to one job website, Resume Rabbit will instantly post your information on up to 85 top career websites. So, if you want to use the strategy of a successful job seeker, go to Resume Rabbit.

Determine your perfect career path--free

Considering a career change? If so, you might want to take a test or two to determine what career is the best fit for your type of personality. Or if you've found yourself out of work, or you simply haven't enjoyed your last few jobs, you might want to try LiveCareer, a complimentary and informative online personal assessment tool that takes only 15 minutes. It helps you identify your unknown talents and skills, and then matches them to jobs and careers you may not know you're well suited for.

LiveCareer, is easy to use. There is a series of questions that ask you to select what you like the most and least amongst 3 things. When you're done you'll instantly be provided a great deal of insight on yourself and the environments you thrive in, as well as the kind of jobs, careers and activities you're suited for. You might be surprised. It's fun, incredibly accurate and no cost to you. To give LiveCareer a try, follow this link.

Article:	The ABCs of Career Change

By Deborah Walker, CCMC,
Certified Career Management Coach

Making a career change is one of the toughest job-search challenges. For clarification, "career change" means much more than "job change." A career change means choosing a completely new profession or industry. A "job change" is simply changing employers within the same industry and profession.

The two main reasons people make a career change are:

1) The industry or occupation becomes obsolete
2) Job dissatisfaction.

What makes a career change so difficult? After all, most job seekers attempting a career change know exactly why they would do well in a new profession or industry. The problem comes down to communication. Most job seekers have difficulty communicating in their resume their ability to excel in a new career. Resumes, by definition, focus on career experience (history), but career changers need employers to see their expertise (current skills) in order to be viewed as a viable candidate.

If you are attempting a career change, it becomes easier when you understand the ABC's of career change:

A: Assess
B: Bridge
C: Communicate

Assess what you want changed.

Before you can make a successful change, you must decide what needs changing. Is it the duties you perform? Your overbearing boss? Your current geographic location? The industry you work in? The size of company you work for? The level of responsibility you hold? Once you pinpoint your exact source of unhappiness, you're on your way to making the correct choice for change.

Bridge the gap between what you've done and what you want to do.

The key to selling yourself based on your expertise rather than your experience is transferable skills. Transferable skills work like bridges to help you cross over from one industry to another or one occupation to another. Transferable skills are those skills you now possess that qualify you as a viable candidate for your career change.

Communicate your ability to excel in your new profession or industry.

Your resume is your front-line communication tool to prospective employers. No matter how well you interview, if your resume doesn't sell you, there won't be an opportunity to convince them in person. Use your accomplishments to prove the strength of your transferable skills, and you'll get interviews faster and with more enthusiasm.

An experienced career coach can help you apply these ABCs to your current resume and your interview skills. Once you practice the ABCs of career change you'll be on your way to changing your career and changing your life-for the better!


Deborah Walker, President of Alpha Advantage, Inc., is a nationally respected career coach with extensive experience as a former headhunter and corporate recruiter. Her clients include top executives at Pepsi, Ford, Motorola, Target, Sun Microsystems and AT&T.

Her resume and career advice is featured on more than 3,000 websites and published in professional association newsletters nationwide, including the American Marketing Association, APICS, National Black MBA, and Women in Technology International.