As I explain in Career Change Guide, you must first have a good understanding of yourself before you begin changing careers. I take you through all the steps in the book. The one we’ll touch on briefly today is your career skills. There’s a lot more detail about how to change careers successfully in the book.
Figuring out who you are:
What career skills and competencies do you have, and
Which career skills do you need for changing careers?
Make an assessment of your skills (your natural talents that perhaps you’ve honed through the years) and your competencies (combined skills for the purposes of accomplishing complex tasks.)
If you haven’t yet, read all of Career Change Guide: Section 1 – Who You Are. It leads you through a full self-assessment, including understanding your current career skills and competencies. (Skills are different from competencies.)
Then, have a look at your new chosen career path. What skills and competencies are needed to be successful there? If you’re not sure, ask the people you talk to in that field when you get to that phase (Career Change Guide: Section 2 – Your Search). If you know some, be sure to talk about this with the people in your network as it demonstrates self-awareness and shows you understand your chosen career path.
Review your work history and identify the skills and competencies that have been in play for your accomplishments so far. Can you think of any new ones you want to develop? Once you have a clear understanding, get to work on developing your competencies needed for a successful career change. After spending time going through the book and following the recommended actions, you’ll have a clear path to help you change careers successfully.
There’s more detail and guidance in Career Change Guide, so get the book and review the details. If you want to understand how to change careers successfully, first you need to understand yourself. Career Change Guide leads you through every step of the process. Follow the Recommended Actions and figure out how to change careers successfully.
Keep reading these blogs for career change tips to learn how to self-assess and understand the career skills you need and already have for career change. Buy one of the best career change books from Amazon if you want more in-depth stories, ideas, and examples of people who have used them. Also, check out the rest of this website for free career change resources, career change videos, and the free career change resume template.
