When considering a career change in career the best starting point is to begin to determine all your career ideas in one place.
Organisation is the key.
One possibility is a folder in which to keep everything.
The key is that every idea is stored in one place. You’re aiming to pack it full of possibilities. This is a very spontaneous process – you’re not looking for logical, rational, realistic job possibilities.
Open the jobs section of a broadsheet newspaper and take some time to go through it quickly, skimming the job ads.
Always look for around 15 words, phrases or jobs, and highlight anything which evokes some kind of gut response in you. Try not to analyze the reasons behind your responses. It is best to do this with a general jobs supplement so you get plenty of variety.
Revisit the careers you dreamed you might do when you were younger, such as Train driver, or fashion designer, as it’s good to keep an open mind at this point. When you’re seriously planning a career change all of this activity helps, and weaves into part of a programme that I work through with my clients.
Try to keep an eye out for the jobs that people around you are doing. What you’re looking for is aspects or factors of people’s jobs that appeal to you , and ask yourself what appeals to you about that job, the answer may be “working for myself, working in the outdoors, working the hours determine, meeting lots of different kinds of people”, for example.
One good tip is to try and have three main areas to choose from. After you have got three themes, you eventually need to decide on one theme that you want to seriously pursue further.
This process is a small part of an entire career change programme covering values, skills and lots of other background exploration, therefore it is not an isolated activity, but it provides you with a means to start generating ideas to help you towards a rewarding new career.
