Posts Tagged ‘career change’

Career Transition: Advice to Career Changers – Be Specific

April 6th, 2010

By Judit Price, MS, CDFI, IJCTC, CCM, CPRW

Judit PriceThere are many professions in which career changers are welcome.  Experience, valued skills, and employers who appreciate new ideas and fresh perspectives can facilitate the transition.

Unfortunately, that level of acceptance and receptivity to career changers is not universal.  Each career changer has to recognize the challenges may be significant.  There are barriers that must be overcome and it is important to be realistic.  The fact is when many hiring managers contemplate hiring career changers, they view that hire with a greater degree of risk.  Without a track record in a particular job there is a real downside in considering a career changer for a position.

  • Will the candidate decide to change careers again?
  • Does this person really have the staying power despite their obvious qualifications?
  • Do I want to take that risk when there are plenty of unemployed people available?
  • And what happens if the person decides that this company, industry, or organization culture is a poor fit?
  • Here today, gone tomorrow?

These are some of the questions many hiring managers will ask themselves.  As a result, career changers are faced with potential employers who are considering these issues and as a result they have to develop some new strategies to cope.

The most important strategy is a laser-like focus on the industry, organization, and firm.  » Read more: Career Transition: Advice to Career Changers – Be Specific

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Career Transitions: It All Begins with an Ending

January 7th, 2010

By Susan Posluszny, MA, NCC

Susan B. PoslusznyEndings are the clearing process which allows us to move on with new beginnings in our personal and work lives. Through the work of William Bridges, author of the well known classic, Transitions, we learn that the transition process begins with an ending.  For those who are unemployed (willingly or unwillingly), an awareness that the transition process has predictable stages, with the first one being an ending, can serve as an aid in dealing with and moving beyond the loss.

There are four different aspects of the natural ending experience.  They do not occur in any specific order.  They are as follows:

Disengagement - a separation from the familiar place in the social order (a pilgrimage, divorce, death, job loss, and illness are examples of disengagement).  These, and many lesser events, disengage us from the contexts in which we have known ourselves.  They break up the old system that served to reinforce our roles and to pattern our behavior.

Disidentification – in one way or another, most people who are in transition experience a sense of not being quite sure who they are anymore.  The person loses a sense of self-definition and tends to question…”Who Am I?”

Disenchantment – involves the discovery that in some sense one’s world is no longer real.  Separated from the old identity and the old situation or some aspect of it, a person floats in a state of limbo between the old world and the world that is yet to be experienced.  Disenchantments come in many forms: relations that proved unfaithful, leaders who are unethical, idols who are petty and dull, and when a trusted organization betrays your trust.  Moving forward involves recognizing that a shift in perspective may well be in order…that is the realization that your old reality was in your head, not outside of you.

» Read more: Career Transitions: It All Begins with an Ending

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