Mark Anthony Dyson, Author at The Voice of Job Seekers

How to Plan Wise Career Changes

Editor’s note: Steve Armstrong is the contributor today. His bio is at the end of the article.

New Career?

Tired of being misunderstood, ridiculed, or feel exploited at work? Or do you just think that your skills should be developed further, and that you have already reached the point where the joy of work transforms itself into everyday routine?

It is time to change your career path, or simply find another job, unless you want to work hard without being respected or appreciated.

Career Planning

You need to make a decision about your desire for career changes. If you change your career path, it means doing something completely different. For example, you are a journalist, and now want to work in the field of engineering. Otherwise, you could take your chance to find such a job similar to the previous one (switching from journalism to teaching English Literature). Everyone has his own career path.

Career path may be defined as the way to develop yourself professionally, based on your current personal skills, professional competencies, education and work experience. In order to plan your career wisely, you should analyze your skills well (e.g. responsibility, punctuality, ability to work in dynamic environment, etc.) and to use them for enhancing your professional competencies (for a teacher they could be: knowledge in the specific field of teaching, pedagogy, work with specific documentation, etc.).

Most people do not realize their career plans or do not feel free to choose career paths. It leads to frustration and low self-esteem. Therefore, if you want to change your career path, first you should know more about it. Analyze yourself, ask friends and relatives, ask career counselors. They will help you. After that, start planning your career: its goals, actions you should take to achieve them, expected results.

More specific steps that a person can consider while thinking about changing his or her career include:

Think of whether you are satisfied with your current job or not
Decide if you need to change your career
Try to assess yourself: interests, skills and values
Brainstorm on the list of alternative occupations and explore them carefully
Set your goals
Prepare a career action plan
Train yourself for a career you want to pursue

When to Change Your Career

Now, it is time to reflect on the question: are you satisfied with your current job? If no, why? In what respect do your expectations differ from the reality? Maybe you have planned your career in a wrong way?

Look at your skills, competencies and (especially!) work experience. What kind of job could give you the pleasant feeling of working hard, being respected and well-paid?

Remember: If you are a thesis writer, working as an accountant could put you in trouble (providing you don’t have education or experience in accounting). Thus, look for a job that would be easy for you to adapt to. It’s never late to do it.

Plan and Educate

In conclusion, it must be said that in order to change your career wisely, it requires a lot of critical reflections and self-analysis. Plan your career as precisely as possible, formulate your expectations and work on developing your skills and competencies, to be sure that you will find the right job for you in the easiest way.

Author Bio: Steve Armstrong works part-time for a college paper writing service at http://www.solidessay.com/our-services/thesis-writer, where he consults students on how to format and structure their research papers and dissertations. Read more here.

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About Mark Anthony Dyson

I am the "The Voice of Job Seekers!" I offer compassionate career and job search advice as I hack and re-imagine the job search process. You need to be "the prescription to an employer's job description." You must be solution-oriented and work in positions in companies where you are the remedy. Your job search must be a lifestyle, and your career must be in front of you constantly. You can no longer shed your aspirations at the change seasons. There are strengths you have that need constant use and development. Be sure you sign up to download my E-Book, "421 Modern Job Search Tips 2021!" You can find my career advice and work in media outlets such as Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, Glassdoor, and many other outlets.

by Mark Anthony Dyson

Succeeding in the Job Search Today [INFOGRAPHIC]

At some point or another, most of us will go through the long-winded process that is the job search. It’s a tough business to be in, especially if you’re not getting the results you want. However, when you’ve done your research and have the proper information on your side, the outcome of your job search will likely come out in your favor.

This infographic, compiled by Interview Success Formula, a program that helps job seekers to deliver powerful interview answers, illustrates how job seekers can navigate through the job search today and how to do well in the process. Some takeaways to note include:

80 percent of available jobs are never advertised
20 percent of job applicants get interviews
The average length of an interview is approximately 40 minutes
The most important characteristics in a job applicant are multitasking, initiative, and creative thinking

Some other takeaway points that you should implement in your job search strategy:

Find out what are the job search tools you need to be the most competitive. If you need to have a portfolio find out what is the content that would differentiate you and other candidates.
Understand the brand differentiation for you to stand out in the field. Interviewers will compare and contrast your value versus candidates.
Be prepared to tell and show. Take the guess work from potential employers and demonstrate how your skills would translate to the open position he or she is hiring for.
Your preparedness is as good as your research and industry knowledge. Interviewing requires some anticipation of what questions will be asked to exploit weaknesses. Be ready to show that your weaknesses became strengths and were non-factors to your tremendous successes.

Check out the full infographic below and let us know your thoughts in the comments!

What do you think? What are some other ways to succeed in the job search?

About Mark Anthony Dyson

by Mark Anthony Dyson

Do you impress potential employers?

Do you impress potential employers? Nobody will hire you to just give you a chance. It doesn’t matter if you are hard-working and dedicated unless you own the skills and applied knowledge needed for the employers’ position. A lasting impression is sustainable if there is a pattern of project completion or successful business accomplishments.

Employers want the job done in spite of obstacles, personality conflicts, and bad hair days. The blog, America’s Job Exchange’s article, “What Do Employers Want?” stated, “A good employee gets the job done. A great employee gets the job done in spite of everything – including when priorities and schedules shift.”

What does it take for a job seeker to impress? Among having a great resume, cover letter, an impressive portfolio among other things, here are some important attributes needed:

1. Impress employers with wide range of collaborations and projects

Presently, the workplace excels when employees create and embellish their projects and deepen existing expertise along the way. Job seekers who show creative solutions while partnering departments and businesses establish core competencies attractive to future employers. Even more impressive is offering a range of diverse work relationships across various global cultures.

2.Impress employers with quick and perpetual learners

Job seekers who quickly absorb lots of content in a short amount of time shows you quickly create value from ideas. This often comes from lots of reading and writing in your niche, and finding new ways to apply new learning and theory. Job candidates acutely aware of his or her learning style thrive from taking something from nothing.

3. Impress employers with soft skills

Everyone has virtues that he or she excels in that employers find attractive. Do not discount attributes and virtues such as, patience, tact, and customer service. Interviews are tests exposing weaknesses such as patience, or handling conflict. Other soft skills such as communication, courtesy, flexibility, integrity, and interpersonal skills are still gold and stands out in a crowded field of candidates.

4. Impress employers with initiatives saving cost and time

You have heard numbers on your résumé catch the eye of the reader and demonstrates your accomplishments. Employers want to see step-by-step actions that made project goals attainable. Furthermore, explaining clearly project strength and weaknesses are a plus demonstrating your understanding of how your steps impacted cost/time results.

5. Impress employers with observations and evaluations

While interviewing candidates when I was a manager, we gave a short explanation of how our department worked. After the explanation we asked the candidate learned from the explanation. Whether or not the candidate learned from our spiel, we can successfully assess the candidate’s ability to assimilate blocks of information given in short period. This told us a lot about the candidates learning ability and whether he or she was the right fit for our call center area.

What do you think impresses employers? Please share in the comments section below.