After completing your education and deciding on your professional development, it is time to find a job. We find a job for ourselves. Sometimes it is more in line with our expectations, sometimes less – but we try to perform our duties as best and conscientiously as possible. Often, after a while it turns out that the job is no longer satisfactory and we start to feel that it is time for a change. We don’t find ourselves completely in our profession and we start thinking about changing our profession and educating new skills.
The reasons for the decision to change may be different. Sometimes the job that we decided to do was not something that we were completely satisfied with from the very beginning. Sometimes it is only after some time that the lack of joy from our duties and the feeling of lack of fulfilment at work comes. And in other cases, work gives us joy, but there is a need to broaden our competence and try something new in our professional life. Regardless of the reasons, the decision to change is very important and results in leading our further professional career along a different path.
What is the obstacle to changing the industry?
Change of career is often assessed as difficult – that is why it happens that people who for various reasons consider changing their profession give up trying to change their qualifications. Reasons vary – most often there are concerns about the time and cost of this undertaking. Some may also have no idea how to change and worry that even after a change of profession they will have trouble finding a new job due to lack of professional experience.
As a person who has retrained after graduation and is now supplementing their qualifications with a new passion – programming, I know that these fears are not justified. You can effectively change the industry and show future employers that our competencies can be as valuable as the experience of professionals who have already worked for some time in the profession.
Satisfaction with work is extremely important. It protects us from professional burnout and gives a sense of sense of duty. In a situation where the thought of retraining becomes intensive and frequent, it is worth giving yourself a chance to develop in another branch and take steps to change your profession.
Why do people really change the industry?
First of all you need to analyze the situation and the reasons why you want to decide to change.
The first reason why we may want to change our qualifications is the education we have gained, which has proved inadequate to market needs. It takes many years from the beginning of education to entering the labour market. During this time, the profiles of the occupied positions and the desired qualifications change. After graduation, it may turn out that the job search will be long and ineffective. Prolonged unemployment causes frustration, so in such a case reshaping becomes a solution to change the situation. Then it is worth considering whether there is any profession that overlaps with ours to some extent? Or maybe we will manage to retrain to a related and familiar path? If you have studied management, you can think about developments in the area of human resource management – and then HR and payroll, accounting or training. After administration – we can consider the economic, banking or accounting industry – there are many options for development and there is a lot of room for change!
Another important reason for wanting to retrain is the lack of opportunities for development on the current position and fatigue with the duties performed. It happens that after many years of work we are aware of the lack of opportunities and prospects for promotion, increase or learning new things. Staying for a longer period of time in one place can cause great dissatisfaction and growing indifference to the duties performed. It may also happen that despite the promotion option, the work gives us less and less satisfaction and we feel tired of the tasks we perform. At some point the growing reluctance to do the job becomes so acute that we will see the change of the industry as a necessity. In such a situation, it is worth to think about how our competences are shaped in the context of our profession so far. Are we very good at this job, but the lack of opportunities for professional development or competence has put out the fervor in us? Or maybe it was stopping in the middle of nowhere that made us realize that it is not exactly something we want to do? This will allow us to decide whether we should take care of the development of our competences, but in relation to another profession, or maybe we can think about the development in other, more interesting areas for us.
It may also happen that we will acquire new interests, a new passion that will consume us so much that we will have a desire to implement it into our professional life. In such a situation, there is no need to fight against each other – if something has interested us so much, it is certainly worth to follow our dreams and introduce our passion to work – if we are satisfied with our current job, you don’t have to give it up, you can combine everything with each other and then enjoy the great pleasure and joy of doing your job. Unfortunately, we do not always have this possibility. If the passion is so strong that we want to turn it into a job, we have to answer the question – how to do it well?
How to design your career change process?
We have rethought our professional situation and know that we want to change – we know what direction we are interested in, we are ready to learn and determined to change. What can we do to get a new profession?
Self-study
Taking up learning by ourselves is a good solution in a situation where we don’t want to invest a lot of money in further education and we are very keen on change. With this method of change, it is necessary to have a lot of self-denial and good organization of your own time. When learning on your own, the most sensible option is to learn new things without giving up work. On the new path we have taken, the concept of basics is possible after hours of current work. There is a fundamental difference between self-study and the decision to be taught by someone else. In case of problems we will have to solve them ourselves, so some things can sometimes become longer. It is worth to take this into account when planning for ourselves, when we would like to acquire new competences. On the web you can find a lot of free training courses, tutorials in the form of videos, forums, recommended books that help in effective learning. You should take care of systematic, frequent learning, preferably daily, in order to get used to the new topics as soon as possible.
Courses, studies, training
Taking a lesson is a good solution when we have additional resources for learning and the presence of another person – trainer, leader, teacher – effectively motivates us to further development. In the case of such solutions we cannot avoid learning on our own, however, in case of any problems we can count on the support of specialists in a given field. If we can afford to resign from work, we can take up education in a day mode, which shortens the time of learning, but without any problems we can also decide to study in the evening or weekend, which can be reconciled with work. Moreover, we can get a formal confirmation of our competences – in the case of the most time-consuming studies it will be a scientific title, while after courses and trainings we usually receive various types of certificates, certificates which can later be included in the CV when looking for a new job. Some courses offer even more opportunities – programming schools that have signed contracts with specific companies are growing in strength. This allows you to get a guarantee of employment immediately after completing the course. What’s more, the cost of paying for a few months’ tuition can be fully depreciated from the salary of that employer.
Gaining knowledge in practice
We can go for an internship, an internship – this is an option that allows you to learn a new profession in practice, directly in the environment in which you will eventually want to be. However, it may turn out that in this case we will have to offer the employer a high hourly availability. This way of gaining knowledge may therefore require you to give up your job. Therefore, you need to be prepared for such an option, bearing in mind the adopted lower rates of remuneration for internships and apprenticeship positions. However, this method allows for quick and effective learning, during which someone step by step introduces us to the secrets of the new job. Thanks to that, by realizing everyday tasks at a given position, we can gain new competences in practice.
I, for my part, took advantage of the second and third option – after studies in a niche major, I completed an internship in IT recruitment and I changed my clothes in this way. Now, being infected with a passion for programming, I am developing my skills in this area on a programming course. However, I am not considering leaving my current profession. In the future I want to develop my competences and combine both classes because I feel that this will give me the most satisfaction. I got into the internship because of my communicativeness and willingness to develop, that is why it is so important to be aware of my strengths and use them skillfully while looking for a new job. Currently, I spend a lot of time studying on my own, so in my opinion, each of the presented options is an interesting, demanding, but at the same time rewarding way. Especially when we observe the progress of our actions.
Knowledge gained – what next?
When looking for the first job in a new profession, we have to take into account what competences employees can expect and highlight the ones we have. It is always worthwhile to adapt your CV to the profile of the company you are applying to, and to write a cover letter or an e-mail from yourself, not from a ready-made template available on the web. Then we can draw the attention of the potential employer and convince him to give us a chance. After using this option, if we manage to attract the company’s attention and get an internship or apprenticeship, we have the best chance to stay in a given company on an independent position and develop further in the industry we choose. Looking for a new job, it is worth to create a network of industry contacts. A good way to reach contacts in a given field is to join groups on Facebook, LinkedIn or GoldenLine. In such places we can find both similar learners with whom we can exchange information and experienced experts who are willing to help and share knowledge. I highly recommend this kind of support – you can quickly learn a lot of things from the new area for us.
Let’s remember that the process of changing the career path takes some time and the most important thing in it is the sense of our decision and determination to achieve the goal. If you have the opportunity to gain new competences at the same time and not to give up your job – it is worth considering it. In this way you will minimize the stress associated with changing qualifications at a time when you are not financially stable. Of course, if you decide to quit your job and focus entirely on learning, it also has its advantages – devoting a few months of your professional life to learning new competencies shows a strong motivation to work in a given industry and confirms your willingness to develop further. The reshaping carried out after a thorough analysis of our motives and expectations will bring us an improved comfort in our professional life and allow us to enjoy our daily work anew.
