We all have those days where you’d rather be anywhere but your job. However, bills still need to be paid, kids still need to be fed, and you still need a job. Rather than suffering through a job you hate, Top Applicant is here to help you find a job you’ll love.
It’s hard to build a career when you loathe the work you do, so stop doom-scrolling job listings and start making a real plan with advice from our employment experts. To prepare for your career transition, here’s what you need to know about making the change to a different job industry.
The Lightbulb Moment
It took Thomas Edison 1,000 tries to get the first lightbulb to work. So if your first career isn’t everything you hoped it would be, don’t sweat it! If you’re noticing common red flags such as boredom or burnout, you’re on your way to what we call a lightbulb moment.
The moment you stop accepting your situation and decide to start taking charge is that lightbulb moment. Think back to the last time you had one of these. Maybe it was when you decided to break up with your toxic ex. Or maybe when you realized that bacon tastes great in mac and cheese. Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, any moment can be a lightbulb moment if it gives you more clarity, perspective, and peace of mind.
Before You Make the Change
When the light comes on, it can be hard not to immediately take action. But trust us, planning for your future is more important than running from that overbearing boss. Top Applicant is making it easier than ever to devise your game plan with professional tools built with people just like you in mind.
Use Your Tools
Our Top Applicants get free access to tools like our resume builder and video sharing. We built every feature of Top Applicant to bring applicants and employers closer than ever before. To make the right career move, we also recommend talking to others who have made a recent change in careers.
Talking about work may be the last thing you want to do after work. But when you’re wanting to shift your career to a different industry, communication skills are often the most underutilized tool at applicants’ disposal.
Get Writing
Instead of doom-scrolling through any more listing pages, we suggest setting some time aside to write everything out. No, really—go get a notebook and write a journal! You’re free to write whatever you’d like, but we recommend starting with a simple list describing your strengths and what you’d like to improve.
With that list in mind, find ways that your strengths make you a great employee and write them into your profile on Top Applicant. We built our platform to be a catalyst for effective communication from your first application to when you finally land that job. As you spruce up your profile and create your free resume, making the change to a different industry typically requires a new portfolio.
Build Your Portfolio
As you continue to journal your progress to a different job industry, make sure to build your portfolio of any projects or accomplishments you’re particularly proud of. Even if your past accomplishments don’t align with your current career goals, they’re important because they display very important skills employers look for. Skills like diligence, teamwork, punctuality, and follow-through are all green flags to an employer in every industry because they prove you’re more of an asset than a liability.
We’re not suggesting that you include your 8th-grade science project in your portfolio. But maybe you’ve dealt with a very stressful professional situation and managed to create a positive outcome. Talk about your project and include it in your portfolio. This gives your potential employer great talking points and a valuable resource that helps them get to know you.
Finding a Different Job Industry While Working
The first rule of job hunting is that we don’t talk about job hunting. Just as it’s best not to discuss your disgust with your current coworkers, you shouldn’t discuss your job hunt. Thanks to the U.S. at-will rule, employees may be vulnerable to arbitrary and sudden dismissal at their employer’s discretion.
Under this rule, employers may opt to quiet fire by reducing responsibilities or placing an employee on a performance improvement plan if they believe that employee may not be willing to continue fulfilling their duties as assigned. So trust us, as hard as it may be to apply while working at the job you hate, living without a paycheck is even harder.
Slow and Steady
This is where your journal will get juicy. Completing the correct certifications and building your top applicant profile are great things to document. It’s also important to keep a record of the applications you have out. That’s why we made it easy with live resume and application tracking.
With these tools, our applicants become power users. We designed each tool to help applicants optimize their resumes, track who has seen it, and build a successful job search strategy. With Top Applicant’s tools, it’s never been easier to build a data-driven plan of action for a successful transition to a different job industry.
Settling Sucks
Why do we recommend building your career slowly and systematically? Because settling for a subpar switch can be even worse than your current situation! One of the most important aspects of any successful career transition is knowing where you stand. With a top-notch profile and a righteous resume, you’re bound to get offers in a different job industry. But if the offer isn’t as sweet as you hoped it would be, you have an important decision to make.
“There is no passion to be found in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”
Nelson Mandela
At Top Applicant, we don’t want you to like your career, we want you to love it! Our team has all had our fair share of jobs we didn’t like. But whether you’re washing dishes or designing the future, passion is what drives us all to be the best version of ourselves.
Keep the Peace
As your dedication and hard work pay off, you’ll inevitably receive the right offer to change industries. Earlier we talked about the right-to-work rule and the rights that it grants employers, but you should also be aware of the key rights it includes for employees.
In states that recognize at-will employment, employment is for an indefinite period of time and may be terminated by an employer as well as an employee. This grants employees the right to vacate their positions effective immediately. Even in states that don’t recognize the at-will rule it can be difficult not to leave immediately. Take it from professionals who have been there: It can be hard not to cut and run. But if you can make a graceful and swift change to a different job, your reference list will thank you.
Taking the Leap
Here is where you’ll be glad you started that journal. No matter how long it took to get here, you made it. Accepting a new offer and making the leap into a new career is as exciting as it is nerve-wracking. So as you make the leap, make sure you immediately focus on building a solid workflow and get to know effective pathways for communication. This will automatically build chemistry between other team members and start things off on the right foot. This can be as easy as working with your new manager on scheduling your week or attending a happy hour with your new team.
How to Stick the Landing
The mental gymnastics required to change careers may seem like an Olympic sport. But sticking the landing is easy if you stay focused and optimistic. Starting a new job is very much like attending a new school because it’s very easy to keep to yourself.
Remember, learning and building effective pathways of communication are key. Even if you’re a hardcore introvert, we recommend getting out of your shell and building relationships throughout your team and the company as a whole. This will not only help you learn faster, but you’ll enjoy the new environment you’re working in. As you blaze a new path forward in your career, stay optimistic and never lose sight of what you’re really working for.
Top 3 Takeaways
In this article, we’ve gone over everything from legal rights to making a graceful transition into a different job industry. That’s a lot to process! So here are Top Applicant’s Top 3 Takeaways.
1. Look Before You Leap
This is a good rule of thumb when making the change to a different job industry, or just life in general. To make the transition as professional and painless as possible, we recommend doing some soul-searching and a lot of preparation as you find your next job. During your job search, it’s also important to never lose sight of your responsibilities no matter how difficult it gets.
2. Grace Gets Rewarded
We’ll never claim to be saints, which is why we hold this takeaway to be true. Messy exits can create hard feelings and ruin relationships you built in your previous job. Whether you live in an at-will state or not, making a graceful career transition ensures the reliability of your references and defuses any drama that may arise. To see if you reside in an at-will state, check out Paycor’s helpful guide!
3. Life and Work Can Coexist
This may be hard to read if you’re like the millions of Americans who see their coworkers more than their families. But there are careers in which work and life can harmoniously coexist. There is a time for work, a time for life, and a time to take action. When you’re ready to stop settling for less than you deserve, trust the modern career builder to make your transition to a different industry.
Start Your Next Chapter
To jumpstart your career journey in a different industry, it just takes a few clicks! Sign up to get free access to all of our cutting-edge career-building tools. Or sign in to make your career transition the modern way! We’re proud to help everyone find a job that works and build a career they love!
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