Make a Change: Do What You Love in Your Job!

What is your favorite part of your job? Do you like to manage others? Fix a specific problem again and again?  It's common for career changers to like one aspect of their job and feel like they are not doing enough of it.

The purpose of this article is to help you identify your favorite aspects of your past positions in order to make your next career move.

I recently met with a recruiter, Lindsay Hay, from Lakeshore Staffing. I was asking her how she got into recruiting and she explained that she was in the retail industry for six years in various management positions. Her favorite part of her previous job was hiring, interviewing and training new employees. When she was looking to make a career change, she decided she wanted to emphasize and build upon this skill set and human resources seemed to be an obvious career transition.

Lindsay ended up networking with a friend who knew of a recruiting position that was going to become available and ended up applying. She emphasized all her transferable skills on her resume and cover letter in order to share how she was qualified to fulfill the needs of the position. And several weeks later, she was hired. 

If you are looking to make a career change, below are several steps to help you identify your favorite aspects of your past positions in order to make your next career move.

Step 1. Make a list of your favorite tasks and activities from your previous jobs.

Step 2. Did you discover any patterns among your favorite tasks and activities? For example, perhaps you enjoy organizing, problem solving, creating, talking to people, brainstorming, or managing people or projects. Were there any tasks and activities you were so engaged with that you lost all sense of time?

Step 3: Research careers where you can emphasize the tasks and activities you like the most on CollegeInColorado.org (there is a great assessment on transferable skills on this site).

Once my clients have completed this exercise, I usually see them go in one of two directions: 1)They stay in their industry but they look for new jobs that emphasize the skills they want to build upon.; 2) They switch careers entirely knowing that they may have to have a couple of job positions to help them gain the experience they need in order to obtain their dream job.

If you're feeling stuck, take some time to evaluate your past experiences. If you can get a job that emphasizes the tasks and uses your skills that you enjoy, you will most likely be happier in your next career move.