Switching careers

The great mid-life career switch by Gordon Adams

JUST a few decades ago you could expect to join a company and spend your life working for it. The only thought of change related to how you could move to a more pleasant or more financially rewarding position through an upward or sideways move.

And it was virtually unheard of to have spent years qualifying for a profession only to abandon it before you had run out of runway.

Two things have changed. First, the turbulent nature of business and the economy has made jobs-for-life guarantees a corporate unthinkable. Even the Japanese companies have been forced to change their commitment to lifetime employment.

Second, we can now expect to live far beyond the traditional retirement age. We can also expect to be in good enough health for much of that time making employment not only an economic necessity, but also a psychological need.

Very few people can avoid the issue of a “career switch”, with most fitting into one of the following four categories: circumstances, such as redundancy, force you to make a career switch; you realise that you simply cannot continue doing what you are currently doing; you need a new challenge; or you are scheduled to be retired and you don’t wish to or cannot afford to be. That probably covers everyone.

As soon as career-switching becomes a concern, you would be well advised to read Gordon Adams’ slim book.

It is certainly not the definitive answer, but it does serve a unique and important need: the identification of a narrower set of issues that you will need to research a whole lot more.

The starting point is a candid look at what you enjoy doing and what you struggle with, and in what areas you have developed expertise including such “soft” issues as your interpersonal skills. This will help narrow the field by pointing you towards a career you are more likely to enjoy and be good at.

The value of investing in professional career advice cannot be overstated, especially if you have always been within a narrow career band. Teachers don’t realise what wide arrays of careers are open to them, but then engineers, doctors and accountants don’t either.

Quality assistance is readily available from a wide variety of sources including professional and industry bodies which have posted valuable information on their websites.

Your network is also a rich source of information about careers and what they actually require. If you can be introduced to someone who is currently in the field you are interested in, you have an immediate source of information about what it really takes to succeed.

A study by One Life Live indicated that one-third of employed people would like to retrain for another career, but actually don’t know what that career is. Too many people chose their current careers for the wrong reasons, and making the same mistake with your next one can be avoided.

A qualified career coach is the obvious source of this information, as they are trained to assist clients to re-evaluate and clarify goals, find the motivation to take action, and pursue a future career.

People err in two directions - either believing they can do anything, or believing they can do nothing different from what they are currently doing. Career coaches can be very useful in both cases.

You will derived much value from compiling a skills audit. Such an audit, Adams suggests, should identify what you are particularly good at and the skills you possess that need to be enhanced. He suggests including skills developed from hobbies, interests and anything else you are enthusiastic about.

Honing skills and retraining are best done in advance of when they will be needed where possible. Voluntary work is a great source of such experience and practical training, and there are many sources of information and training ranging from the free to the cheap to the fully priced.

The book provides basic, very basic, guidance to starting one’s own business as a second career. If you have learnt much from working for others, opening a similar business in a similar field is an obvious path, particularly if you enjoyed the work you did.

For those with no relevant experience and only their lump sum payout, the franchising route offers a soft landing into the world of working for yourself. A franchise is a proven success recipe and the best ones provide superb guidance for getting it right quickly by essentially doing exactly what others have done successfully.

Finding another career can only be done with focus. The intensity of this activity, if you are to be successful, cannot be over-emphasised. Nothing of value is ever created casually, without rigour and deep thinking.

Chances are fairly good that your current or previous career was not the result of rigour and deep thinking. Your mid-life career switch need not be the same.  

The chapter on networking offers the following comforting fact: one in four people find their next job following redundancy through networking, and for senior management the figure is one in three.

This presupposes that you have a network that you began nurturing before you needed it. With the clear need for networks numerous organisations have emerged that provide a context for people to network, ranging from the for-profit to the not-for-profit.

This slim, quick read is well worth the time. Of course, it is best read before you have to. When you do need to make the career change, this will provide a useful introduction to the pursuit, but only as the first and not the only book you read.

Readability:          Light +---- Serious

Insights:              High ----+ Low

Practical:             High +---- Low

*Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy.