Career Transition: A Step-by-Step Process

Career Transition: A Step-by-Step Process 

When I was an undergraduate, I had an acquaintance majoring in Electrical Engineering. It was an incredibly demanding degree that kept him up until the early hours of the morning doing homework and projects. One day, I asked him how he liked his major. 

“I hate it,” he said. “But it’s too late to switch. I’ll just stick it out.”

How many of you have felt this way, stuck in a major or career path that made you miserable? Maybe you didn’t know how much you would hate it until you started. Maybe you were looking for a stable, “sure thing.” The reasons are endless, but the result is the same: you feel unhappy. 

While there are many ways to escape this unhappiness, the one I’ll be focusing on is the process of a career transition. Changing careers can challenging.  It takes courage to switch career paths, change fields, and dive into the unknown. But I’m here to tell you that it is possible, and once you find your career fit, you will feel so much happier. 

The steps of a career transition can be summed up in three parts:

  1. Assessment
  2. Preparation
  3. Action

I’ll go over each in later blogs, but I’ll give an overview for now. 

Step 1: Assessment

  • Understanding the emotions you have related to your career transition
  • Assessing your finances 
  • Writing down your skills and abilities
  • Evaluating your career options
  • Deciding your values, motivators, and interests
  • Reviewing your accomplishments

Step 2: Preparation

Create, gather, and prepare the tools you need to job search and make a career transition effectively. This includes:

Step 3: Action

Put all of your previous work into action and begin the job search process. This includes:

  • Networking
  • Working with recruiters
  • Interviewing
  • Negotiating
  • Starting a new career!

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