The Secrets of Career Changers

I’ve spent a lot of time talking to friends, colleagues and strangers about their career adventures. I’m very interested in how they are navigating the changes in the labor market and in their own organizations. Even though the “future of work” is not quite here, it has been widely reported to be upon us. If the experts are correct, the future will require that we not only have a solid and portable skill set, but also that we be adept at “selling” it to employers, friends and colleagues (potential referral sources) and clients (if you’re striking out on your own).

I set out some time ago to figure out which transferable skills are most in demand, and what works and doesn’t work when it comes to selling transferable skills.

In my Hottest Transferable Skills post, I identified the hottest transferable skills. No big surprises there. To win in this global, technology-driven economy, we’ll all need to be well-educated, team-oriented, creative, innovative, adaptable, tech-savvy (not just literate) global citizens.

In my Transferable Skills Not Translating post, I shared the results of my unscientific survey of recruiters, hiring managers and the like. In a nutshell, they love the idea of hiring based on transferable skills, but did not put the idea into practice very often, if at all. Apparently, it takes a lot of courage to hire someone who has little or no experience in the job for which you’re hiring, even if they have been successful in other jobs and have likely built a good skills set.

Now, I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned from talking to career changers who have successfully left careers with which they were unhappy and began new ones about which they are excited and motivated. I asked twelve people that I know who’ve recently changed careers for the better how they sold their new employers (I weeded out folks who started their own businesses) on their ability to do a job that they’d never done before.

Here’s what I learned.

It’s difficult to sell most employers on the concept of transferable skills

You must be able to connect the dots for the potential employer (They won’t make the leap, so you’ll need to explain how what you did in the past prepared you to do something new)

Selling yourself works better when you have a good relationship with the buyer (8 of the 12 established personal relationships with people who could hire them)

Entrepreneurs and small business owners are more willing to consider candidates based on transferable skills (7 of 12 now work for small businesses)

You must be willing to accept a slightly lower position, or at least a lateral position, to demonstrate your ability to succeed in a new role (9 of 12 said they accepted positions that were of the same or lower status than the jobs they’d previously held; the remaining 3 said their new jobs were higher than their previous positions. The latter accepted higher level positions at companies smaller than their previous employers’ companies.)

Considering A Career Change?

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