There was a time when changing careers simply wasn’t done. You were whatever you were, for life. But as our world sped up through its post-industrial days, this started to change. New industries emerged, others disappeared. Employers and employees responded accordingly. Still, career change was a high-risk affair. Generally, you’d only undertake it if you had to.
Fast forward to today. The pace of technological change has accelerated exponentially. The employment landscape is forever altered. Skills requirements change overnight. New roles emerge, old roles disappear. Start-ups disrupt, the old guard pivots, this company buys that company, this one goes under, that one arises. Combine all this stunning fluidity with a generational passing-of-the-torch, and suddenly, career change seems almost the norm. In fact, the very definition of what “career” means is changing.
Sound daunting? To some, it might. To others, it sounds like opportunity knocking.
Career Change
Let’s personalize this a bit. You’re you. You have your life, your goals, your responsibilities. You’ve made it this far, but suddenly, you’re facing a big change. Things aren’t moving the way you need them to. Your current career path is no longer the right one. You need to make a change. What are you going to do?
To begin, I do NOT recommend searching “career change” online. You’ll end up in the fetal position on your couch, overwhelmed and unable to function. Instead, let’s think constructively. You’ve made it this far, you have a legitimate suite of skills at your disposal, paired with verifiable experience. Surely much of this will translate to a new field?
Some of the best thinkers out there certainly believe so. Forbes took on the subject of career change recently in an article entitled How To Wow A Job Interviewer When Changing Careers. In it, they embraced something called the “connect the dots” approach, which draws on a method developed by Kathryn Sollmann. The Forbes article author, Nancy Collamer, sums up this method in essentially two steps:
- Research the specific needs of employers in your target industry.
- Reframe your experience in a way that proves to employers that your skills and experiences are relevant to their industry.
This is commendable thinking, but I’d like to play Devil’s Advocate for a moment, and posit that this approach is fundamentally rooted in a bygone premise; one which ultimately does a disservice to those it intends to support.
Connect The Dots, or Fill In The Blanks?
I think this connect-the-dots message is reassuring to a certain extent, because it seeks to affirm for people that the skills and experiences they’ve accrued to date are still relevant. Which of course they may be! But I think this way of thinking runs the risk of short-changing people’s potential to make real change. I think what we should be telling people is they CAN learn anything new they want and need to. And, that they can do so now, today, immediately!
Assuredly Item #1 above is great advice. You DO need to know what your potential employers are looking for. It is #2 that merits rethinking. Instead of trying to reframe your existing experience, why not go out and master the exact skills your target industry is seeking? Why not guarantee you’re the right candidate for the job? Instead of connecting the dots, why not fill in the blanks?
Let’s also add a #3 to this. Find a career partner that will see to it your newfound skills translate into rewarding employment.
The Udacity Factor
The most important thing to realize, is that career change is potentially easier to realize than it might seem. At Udacity, we take all the legwork out of item #1.
- Our industry affiliations ensure that the skills we teach are exactly those skills top employers are seeking.
- Our curriculum partnerships ensure that these skills are being taught by the most qualified subject matter experts in the relevant fields.
- Our hiring partnerships ensure that Udacity graduates are directly connected to recruiters and hiring managers.
Plus, with the launch of our Nanodegree Plus offering, we are now even offering a jobs guarantee!
As to #2, we believe the best way to prove to employers that your skills and experiences are relevant to their industry, is to master the skills and gain the experiences that are relevant to their industry! That’s what graduating from a Nanodegree program is all about.
So, if you’re contemplating career change, but wondering about the risks, take heart. It can be done, and you can succeed! It’s as simple as 1-2-3.
