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Choosing a new career direction

How come you're looking for a new career direction?

Anyway, an optimist (and you must be if you’re here!) will view this period of restlessness as an opportunity to make changes for the better. You may or may not have had a career plan before but you ought to create one now. As your knowledge of yourself and what you want evolves, your plan will evolve with you. It helps you to avoid becoming stale, cynical and stuck in a rut. It stops feeding your inner gremlins of unfulfilled need and dissatisfaction because you're going to do something positive to change your life.

Bad jobs can be like bad marriages

A recent IIP survey revealed that an alarming number of British firms believe themselves to be populated by, the charmingly titled, 'dead wood' . What a waste for all concerned, but it's easy to see why it happens. Bad jobs are like bad marriages, people stay in them because they think there is no alternative but they don't see why they should be the one to move out, they're not sure if they'll find anyone else and besides they need the money and the food's not bad!

In any event, whether you were/are a corporate high flier in your current/last job or you're a job seeker with little in the way of qualifications, everyone has something to offer a new employer. Your confidence might feel a little bruised if you’ve been made redundant or passed over for a promotion you wanted, but bruises (and dented pride) heal in time.

If you're experiencing the 'there must be more to life than this syndrome', you’ll soon look back and wonder why you were ever worried about your future, because you are about to take charge of it with a vengeance.

More food for thought

There are stacks of personality tests out there to work out what kind of person you are and what kind of career would suit you best. By all means, try a few, but the thing is YOU still have to do some hard thinking and some deciding. Tests and advisers like career coaches may help but you are in charge of your own life - we've got some good tests on the site though so, assess yourself here for free. The Ocean Personality test we offer is brilliant.

You might also want to browse some of the career titles in our selection of great books on career management or great books for budding entrepreneurs.

So, what do you really, really want?

It's a deceptively simple question but it generally takes quite a bit of thought or soul searching to answer. Until you have some firm conviction around it, however, it is hard to build a winning plan to achieve your goals, however modest or ambitious there may be. So, time thinking about that is not a luxury, it's an essential. Choosing your career direction and maintaining your ability to keep earning a living is a big deal, especially as you get older.

By the way, the best ideas usually come when you’re relaxed. So, don’t forget that your next brilliant career brainwave might come when you’re out walking the dog, down the gym or making the supper - not sitting at a desk staring at a blank sheet of paper worrying about your credit card repayments or how much you dislike your boss. Once you have the desire to achieve your real goals, you'll be unstoppable. Don't panic, stick an 'everything but the kitchen sink' CV on a bunch of general recruitment websites and hope your dreams will come true - you must be more focussed than that.

Focus on 'why' not 'how'

Never worry about the 'how' you're going to get to where you want to be before you've figured out the 'why' or you could come up with a brilliant solution which still doesn't actually tick all your boxes, or you'll just talk yourself out of all kinds of quite sensible (or daring) career options before you've even started. We are so programmed to believe that we are doing the right thing if we are taking action that unfortunately we don’t always stop to think. To think about whether these suitable sounding jobs are in fact right for us. Will they make good use of our skills & abilities and do they match our interests and our values? 'Fairly deep stuff' we hear you say, but you will not make good career decisions if you don’t ask the right questions first.

There are 3 important stages to developing your career plan

1. Understand yourself and your needs. Who am I? What do I want?

2. Visualise your future. What does it look like?

3. Start writing your plan down - that way, it's more likely to happen!

1. Understand yourself

This is a reflective, thoughtful stage where you really examine your motivations, interests and skills. If you are a bit of an 'act now - think later' type you may find this hard to do at first, but apply some self discipline and stick with it. If you are prone to 'navel gazing and indecision' you will find it hard too, just in a different way. Get a friend or a coach to help you if necessary. Self-assessment will provide you with essential information about what is important and interesting to you. This is effectively an expression of your needs in your chosen occupation, so it is important to be honest with yourself and get it right.

So, did/does your old/current job make you feel happy, fulfilled, challenged, completely strung out or just bored senseless?

What do you actually enjoy about work? The company? The prestige? The perks? The money? The admiration? The gratititude? The sense of achievement? The intellectual challenge? Plodding along or pushing new boundaries? Working alone or working in a team? The drama and gossip or a quiet life?

The answers to these kind of self-assessment questions should start to inform your next step because there is no point in going on with the kind of job where you were/are very unhappy. It may be one of the reasons if we’re being honest that made or makes you a redundancy target, a promotion cul-de-sac, or your employers 'problem child' anyway. If you want to read some up to date research on what makes others happy at work download a copy of The Happiness at Work Index.

Mapping out the things which make you love or loathe the job will help you to think about your options before you start to concern yourself about how to achieve them. For example, if you love being part of a team will working from home alone do it for you?

2. Visualise your future

Here is your chance to use your imagination to describe a picture of what you want for your life and career if there were no constraints! So, what are your choices?

• What are your skills? Make an inventory of them - doing the Ocean test will help here if you struggle with this part.
• What are your transferable skills? Are you a good project manager? Are you organised? Can you manage people and budgets effectively?
• What are the personal qualities that make you worth employing?
• What do you actually like doing?
• What can you live with? All jobs have some dull bits.
• What do you hate doing? Obviously you need to try and avoid jobs which include a lot of these things!
• What makes you light up with excitement and energy? Is it something you can get paid for? Legally?
• Do you like calling the shots or following a strong leader?
• How much time do you really want spend at work? If you love your job you rarely question how much time you spend there.
• If you’re a commuter do you really need the extra money? Could you work more locally?
• How much money will you need to earn?
• Can you afford to work for free for a while to get some new experience on your CV?
• Can you afford to go part-time?
• Do you need to gain some new skills to get to where you want to go? Check out our training course finder section to browse what's on offer.
• Can you get some objective help to brush up your CV, interview skills or your image? Don't forget to visit these pages on the site, it could spark some ideas.
• Can you use old contacts or find new ones to help your plan along? The how to network your way to your new job pages might help you here.
• Could you start your own business? Have a look at the be your own boss pages.
• How about franchising as a more secure way of starting your own business? There are lots of different types, find out more about here.
• Could you try a new direction out as a volunteer to see if you like it first?
• Could you work as a contractor, interim manager or freelancer? Don't forget we've got plenty of resources and tips on the site about what it would take to do that. 

Be innovative: What would you do if you couldn't possibly fail? If the answers aren't immediately clear or seem too daunting or impossible, don't be put off. Keep at it and if you stay focussed you'll be amazed at how apparent coincidences start to occur.

If you find it difficult to think about selling yourself, think of yourself in the third person and describe yourself that way - it's amazing what you can say about yourself when you throw off your inhibitions about modesty (so British!) and try to see yourself objectively.

3. Planning

• Start writing things down in a note book and be prepared for the ideas to start forming from there.
• Stick a notebook and a pen by your bedside table so you can capture good ideas you had before going to sleep, dreaming or when you wake up.
• Having a plan written down makes you more focussed and purposeful.
• Talk to others about your plan. It helps to clarify it in your own mind and may generate ideas and offers of help. An old colleague might give you a lead to an opportunity they think would be perfect for you.
• Once you're not scared any more it's easy to focus and stay positive. As Susan Jeffers says in her best selling book - 'Fear the fear and then do it anyway!'

If you're interested in top reads on career direction to help you with this process check out our recommendations here.

Make sure that when your plan has crystallised enough (but not before!) that it includes the following:

• What you are actually going to do
• How you are going to do it
• When you are going to do it
• What help you will need to do it
• Some idea or measure of what success will look like

Please do start browsing the rest of this site for all the options on CV help, how to succeed at interviews, starting your own business, franchising, interim management, working overseas, working in the not-for-profit sector and training help in our course finder directories. It might just spark off a fresh idea or two. Companies like LearnDirect offer careers advice, though they are of course linked to a training arm so don't be suprised if they try to sell you a course!

What Now?

Well, don't hang about and get cracking. Before you know it, you will have a new life and if the feedback we get is anything to go by it could be much better than you'd dared to hope it could be!

Now you can search for jobs, register your CV and set up job alerts at our career centre or research our job hunting sites directory or Executive Search Firms!

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