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Career Change Resume Writing Requires A Very Different Approach Than Conventional Resume Writing

Since your career change resume will be competing with people who are not changing careers and who are submitting a standard job resume, you will need to implement the following six career change resume writing tactics to secure an advantage over your competitors.

Keep in mind that the sole purpose of your career change resume is not to get the job, but rather to get your face in front of the persons who are making the hiring decision [i.e.] to get a job interview.

Career change resume writing secret #1:
Employers Want to See Evidence

A person submitting a standard job resume may be able to get away with generalizations when describing their work experience simply because they have worked in the industry previously.

But when performing career change resume writing, your industry experience is usually nonexistent.
Therefore it becomes critical that you provide detailed documented evidence in your career change resume of how you have used your transferable skills in other positions and also instances where you have used them in non-work situations.

When I say documented evidence, I mean up to half a page of each example of exactly what you did and how this fits in with the requirements of the job you are applying for.

Example of career change resume writing:

Let’s say you are a qualified doctor, but after many years of practice, you have decided that you have been lacking in motivation and passion for quite some time.

You have thought quite a lot about a career in selling and after completing an inborn job skills analysis, you make the big decision to initiate a career change.

As you tackle your career change resume writing, you identify one of the transferable skills from your job skills list that you want to use in your job resume: influencing and selling skills.

While practicing as a self-employed doctor, you ran weekly staff training meetings for six nurses and reception staff in your business.
Your goal in the staff training meetings was to produce an extremely high level of excellence between the reception staff and nurses and the patients they interacted with on a day-to-day basis.

You introduced some fairly novel methods of customer service and ideas to achieve a culture of excellence as a way of ensuring your patients kept coming back and to grow your business.

Because of these somewhat radical and novel approaches, you had to do quite a bit of “selling” these ideas on a regular basis so they would be willing and enthusiastic to implement these new strategies.

So as you embark on your career change resume writing, you use the above example as a basis for explaining in detail how you used those skills in your staff meetings.

You would want to talk about perhaps what happened the first time you submitted some of these new ideas in your staff meeting, how the individual staff members responded to that, how you began to overcome some of the initial objections that were raised, and ultimately how you achieved your goal of changing the culture of customer service in your business.

If your job resume communicates this well, any prospective employer will see that you definitely had to use selling skills in this part of your job and therefore you potentially satisfy this aspect of the job application.

Career change resume writing secret #2:
Your Career Change Resume Writing
is an Exercise in Marketing

Your job resume is simply a marketing document.
In the same way that a sales representative tries to sell his products or services to a business owner, career change resume writing is a marketing exercise whereby you need to sell your product [you] to a business owner or board of directors, etc.

And as the case in all marketing, the successful marketers are the ones that design and implement a marketing campaign that stands out from the rest.

In every aspect of your career change resume writing, think “In what way can I make this job resume different from all the others [often hundreds] that the employer will have to read.

And so that my resume does not become just the same as all the other job applications the employer will read

There is one overriding characteristic to any job resume that is the key to securing a job interview if it is communicated positively.

Passion!
Genuine passion is absolutely irresistible.
But there is a big difference between genuine passion and manufactured passion.

If you are trying to be passionate, forget it.
If you are trying to be passionate, then it’s not passion.

There is only one way to have genuine passion, and that is to be totally in tune with what your natural motivated abilities and inborn job skills are.

To-know-that-you-know you absolutely must be in a job where you can express yourself by utilizing that certain skill set that is dear to your heart.

If you are not clear what this skill set is, then I recommend you complete the dream career finder inborn job skills assessment.

This is the best career assessment instrument that I know of to identify your innate passions and motivations in regards to the world of work.

Career change resume writing secret #3:
Use the ‘So What’ Principle

If you are now sold on the idea that your career change resume writing project is primarily a selling and marketing issue, then using this “So What” principle will catapult you ahead of the rest of the field in your marketing of yourself.

Here’s how works:

Every time you write something in your career change resume that relates to a benefit you believe you are offering the employer, then simply imagine the person who is reading your job resume saying “so what” to your claim.

Then go about answering their “so what”.

For example:

You might propose to write the following in your career change resume:

“When I was running staff training sessions for my staff, I needed to introduce some innovative new measures relating to customer service which I knew might meet some resistance from the staff and nurses.

So I had to sell my ideas to them and this is where I begin to gain selling experience.
(Once again, you would want to talk about some examples of what happened the first time you submitted these new ideas in your staff meeting, how the individual staff members responded to that, how you began to overcome some of the initial objections that were raised, and ultimately how you achieved your goal of changing the culture of customer service in your business by using your selling skills.)

Employer says: So What?

You Say: So if you decided to employ me, you could feel confident that even though I do not come from a sales background, I have actually been using selling skills like in this instance and in a number of other ways for many years.

Employer says: So What?

You Say: This means that you do not need to have any concerns whatsoever about employing me just because I do not come from a structured selling background because I have gained selling and influencing skills from these other areas while working as a doctor.

Employer says: So What?

You Say: So you can feel confident when discussing my application with the board of directors that I do satisfy the job description requirements.

This “so what” principle forces you to cover every objection that could, and most likely would be raised by the employer as they read your job resume.

This method of career change resume writing results in a very comprehensive marketing script that provides good evidence that you have the job skills list they are looking for.

So instead of selling yourself with the following words in your career change resume writing:

“When I was running staff training sessions for my staff, I needed to introduce some radical new measures relating to customer service which I knew might meet some resistance from the staff and nurses. So I had to sell my ideas to them and for this reason, I have had some selling experience.”

Your career change resume writing has now advanced to include a more in-depth self-marketing description.

“When I was running staff training sessions for my staff, I needed to introduce some innovative new measures relating to customer service which I knew might meet some resistance from the staff and nurses.
So I had to sell my ideas to them and this is where I began to gain selling experience (talk about some of those ideas).

So if you decided to employ me, you could feel confident that even though I do not come from a sales background, I have actually been using selling skills like in this instance and in a number of other ways for many years.
This means that you do not need to have any concerns whatsoever about employing me just because I don’t have a structured selling background.
I have gained selling and influencing skills from these other areas while working as a doctor.
You can feel assured when discussing my application with the board of directors that I do satisfy the job description requirements.

Career change resume writing secret #4:
Changing Careers Is Good

We are living in a world today where increasingly; change is respected and seen as a positive thing.

The average amount of time a person spends in one job has been decreasing over the past few decades and many employers now see someone making a significant career change as a potentially positive attribute.

Being stuck in the wrong job and staying there is not something to be proud of.

But seeking good career change advice to alleviate that frustration is nearly always a positive move.

As you go about your career change resume writing, be sure to convey the fact that you also see this time of career change in your life as a very constructive move.

Once again, articulate your reasons for why you see this as a good move.
For example, you would probably want to draw their attention on your job resume to the fact that over the years you have become more and more aware of your innate motivations and abilities and now you want to realign your career to make use of them.

And then you would communicate what your natural work motivations and abilities are using detailed examples as per #1 above.

Career change resume writing secret #5:
Support the Employer’s Risk-Taking

Asking an employer to take you on as a new recruit when you don’t have any experience in their industry has an element of risk involved for him/her.

But most employers are not afraid of risk [this is how most of them got into the business, to begin with], but they must be given good reasons to take the risk and see that the risk is worthwhile and justified.

Your career change resume writing should include some empathetic words to illustrate to the employer that you understand there is potentially some risk involved in employing you.

And then go about justifying why this risk is limited and how it carries some great opportunities with it.

[The opportunities, of course, are the fact that they are employing someone who has very accurately identified their unique work passions in life and can demonstrate this with examples, see #1 above.
There is nothing more than a business wants then somebody who loves to do the work they are employed to do.
And if you have identified well your core motivations and inborn job skills, then that will be exactly the position you should find yourself in.]

Career change resume writing secret #6:
What Is Your Career Change Unique Selling Point

In the world of business, we talk about a Unique Selling Point [USP] in relation to what unique aspect of a business can be used to draw customers in.

For example, if you owned a cafe, a possible USP might be that you serve fair-trade coffee or that you are open till 11 PM every night or that you offer a generous discount loyalty card system, etc.

A USP is the job market functions in the same way.

What characteristics of you as a job applicant separates you from the other job applicants.
Many people say, “I don’t really have anything that is different from the other job applicants”

If that is true, then you do not have any reason why an employer should employ you.
But I believe this is not true of you.

There will always be characteristics of a person that will differentiate you from other applicants.

The key is to identify these, then develop the details further for those defining differences so that you can communicate these through your career change resume writing.

As mentioned above your biggest and best USP will always be associated with those inborn abilities that you love to use and are good at.

When you are using these innate gifts, work becomes an absolute pleasure.
In fact, many people describe it as “not work at all”. Time just seems to fly by when you are involved in doing things you love to do.

If you haven’t already done so you can identify your USP by completing the dream career finder inborn job skills assessment.

When you can articulate well to an employer what things in life you are most passionate about and those passions happen to be in line with their needs, you have a well-synthesized relationship.

The answer to true satisfaction and fulfillment in all work is a person’s capacity to get in touch with those talents that they are born with and naturally motivated to use.

Career change coaching can speed up the transition process, save you money, and with the right career change consultant, considerably increase your self-awareness of what you are good at.

Here are some of the benefits you can get when working with a good career change professional.

1. Career Change Coaching Speeds up The Process of Finding a New Career

You have been pondering for quite some time about how frustrated and unfulfilled you are in your career.

You have a strong feeling that you need to be doing something else, but you don’t seem to ever get around to doing anything about it.

Many people who are considering a career change, stay in a double-minded state for many years before taking action, if indeed they take action at all.

An enormous step for many people is to seek career change advice.

The great thing about forcing yourself to take the first step is that you are not necessarily committing to a career change, but merely investigating the possibility.
And if after discussions with a career change professional, you do not change careers, the process has still been valuable because you are no longer in a state of indecision.

If you know you want to change careers, the whole process will usually happen a lot faster if you invest in career change coaching.

There are many reasons for this but probably the most important is that a career change consultant will be the catalyst for action that needs to be taken towards your goal, something that often doesn’t happen on your own.

2. Career Change Coaching Will Save You Money

We all know time is money.
So if you have been thinking about changing careers for two years but have not done anything about it, this is costing you money.

How?
Although there are some exceptions to this rule, generally speaking, successful career changers transition into a role that pays them more.

Most people should advance into a new role where their natural gifts and abilities will be used more than in their past position.

As a rule of thumb the closer you get to doing work that is more aligned with your inborn skills and abilities, the more you will be paid.
The best people in any profession get paid more than the average person doing the same job.
So career coaching will save you money on two fronts.
Firstly, because you will be working in a job sooner that will pay you more.

And probably more importantly, if you get involved in career change coaching, part of that process should involve you identifying, to a greater degree, the things that you are best at.

This, in turn, should result in you securing a job using your very best natural gifts and abilities.
And as previously mentioned, that means more money.

3. Career Change Coaching Reduces Frustration and Stress

I’m continuously amazed at how many people feel frustrated and dissatisfied in their current job.
Research suggests that up to 80% of the workforce is in this position, and the most common reason for it is that they are not in a good job fit.

They are not doing the type of work that they most want to do and are gifted in.
So the sooner we get help the better.
However, there is a tendency for us to allow unresolved career issues to go on for too long before deciding to take action.

This is particularly so for men.
They are a little more reluctant to seek career change advice.
It’s almost as if there is a subconscious voice inside us saying “if I need to get help to figure out what type of work I should be doing, that makes me a bit of our failure.”

I would say this is why it doesn’t make you a failure.
Firstly 80% of the population is in the same boat.
Secondly, the only time you fail is when you recognize there is a problem but do nothing about it. Thirdly, we are interdependent people.
We need each other to function well in this world. I need you and you need me.

So getting some help to figure out what you are good at and then to assist you in transitioning into a new career makes sense.

It will relieve stress in your life and can bring a sense of joy that you may never have experienced before.
And if frustration and disillusionment can be reduced or alleviated from our work life, this increased peace will have font effects in our family life and in our own body.

Physicians confirm that stress and anxiety will manifest themselves physically in a body, in some form of disease, sickness or ailment sooner or later.

4. Career Change Coaching Improves Self-Awareness and Confidence

It’s one thing to have some ideas about what we are good at; it’s something else for another person to see those gifts in us.

A good career change consultant will work with you to uncover what you are good at and what motivates you the most in the area of work.

You can start the ball rolling with this free career assessment. It is a process that will help you identify and confirm the things you are best at.

I cannot overestimate the increase in self-confidence, motivation, and energy that comes from truly knowing what you are good at.
Feelings of hope and great expectations for your future career well up as you envisage yourself using gifts and abilities that you may not have been aware of or at least had forgotten about.

Confidence in your career, and indeed in life, is a game-breaker.
It can transform people from depression and frustration to someone full of energy, passion, and optimism.

And career change coaching is one of the best ways I know of to tackle these issues.

5. Career Change Coaching Provides a Sounding Board

There is a tremendous benefit in having someone to simply bounce your new career ideas off, confirm presuppositions and even challenge and/or sharpen your career ideas.

And all the more if this person is well trained in providing professional career change advice.
Some people just need someone else to hear their ideas and confirm the direction they have been thinking about.

They may not even need much response from a coach.
There is power simply in the verbalizing of our own ideas and as well as the process of being heard well. Independent, focused one-on-one attention empowers human beings.

There is a proverb that says

“As iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another”.

There is nearly always benefit in presenting our ideas to another person who is qualified in career change coaching.

6. Career Change Coaching Keeps Us Accountable

Isn’t accountability a nasty word?
It reminds us of our school days when the teacher made us stand up in front of the class and said: “Peter, have you done your homework?”

Most of us aren’t very good at “getting things done” (i.e.) self-discipline.
We have good intentions, we really do want to get ahead and take action that will help us achieve our goals. But by golly, it’s hard sometimes to get the things done that we said we would.

One of the things that make people successful is self-discipline.

Successful people are ordinary people who willing to do the things that unsuccessful people don’t like doing.

I think that statement’s pretty accurate.
In that regard career change, coaching can swing you from an unsuccessful person to a successful one simply by providing a mechanism by which you will get things done.

You will push your career change toward reality.
There are a lot of things on the To-Do List of a person who wants to change careers.
Self-discipline is a short-term pain for long-term gain situations.

If you have weekly career change coaching, part of the process will usually involve you taking some action steps that you decide should be taken to move the process forward.

A good career change consultant should be able to show you ways to make completing your action steps a little easier.
But in the final analysis, it’s normally a case of:

If it’s going to be it’s up to me

It’s remarkable how beneficial the simple act of having to front up to somebody on a regular basis to tell them if you got done what you said you would.

Of course, you might have only got it done the night before, but got it done you did.
Most people will never achieve the same amount of productivity without some form of accountability.

Free Template Plus Career Development Plan Examples Provided Below

(plus free worksheet and instructions on how to create your own career plan)

This sample career development plan provides a great framework for you to develop your own one to five year career development plan. I have provided two career development plan examples below, plus a downloadable worksheet for your use.

How to Create Your Own One to Five Year Career Development Plan

Use the career development plan examples below as a guide for your own plan. Then use this blank career development plan template to input your own details.

This is one of the simplest and most effective career tools to get you up and running quickly with your career vision and development plan.
If you have come to this page without knowing much about career development, see the what is career development page.

Instructions:

1. Download and print the career development plan template

2. Study the career development plan examples below to get a feel for how your finished career development plan might look.

3. Using the guidance notes below and the sample career development plan worksheet above, set about creating your own career development plan.

Sample Career Development Plan #1

Sample Career Development Plan #2

Call Center Team Leader at Government Employment Center Transitioning to Area Manager With Same Employer

Goal Title: Area Manager

Today’s Date: 25/05/2022

Target Date: 25/05/2027

Date Achieved: __________

Goal: Must be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Relevant, Time-Bound

My goal is to become an Area Manager of the organization I currently work for within four years. [there are eleven other branches around the country, and I am prepared to move to another location if necessary]

Personal Benefits from Achieving This Goal. Why do I really want to achieve this career goal? Be very specific.

I enjoy managing people, being able to steer the ship more and I love the challenge of moving into greater levels of responsibility.
The excellent area manager salary is also very attractive to me.
I also have a goal of owning my own business one day, and this will be a good stepping stone by giving me greater people management, budgeting and strategic planning experience.

Possible Obstacles and Solutions to the Goal

Obstacle 1: Current management may see my formal management training to be insufficient.
Solution 1: Discuss this with Mr. C. and consider management training from Institute of Management, funded by the department.

Obstacle 2: Not very proficient at budgeting/spreadsheets.
Solution 2: Research online study, ask Mel in the accounts department for some help. Investigate online Udemy and LinkedIn courses.

Obstacle 3: I may have a reputation in the organization for not being very good at managing conflicts with staff.
Solution 3: Investigate conflict resolution training and enroll. Read “Getting to Yes”.
Read “How to Win Friends and Influence People”.

Obstacle 4: Not sure what Glory [my wife] really thinks about the possibility of having to relocate if I get offered a Area Manager’s position in another city.
Solution 4: Schedule a real talk with Glory about this issue.

Steps Required for Achieving Career Goal

[each of these steps will need a target date, date reviewed and date completed which are not shown in the example below but are shown in the career development plan template download]

1. Arrange a time with Mr. C. to discuss possible management training with the Institute of Management.

2. Increase presentation/communication skills. Join Toastmasters or similar.

3. Deepen my customer service training. Read the “Secret Service” book and two other customer service books in the next 18 months.

4. Take online course or similar in budgeting/spreadsheets. Ask Mel if he can help.

5. Gain more self-confidence around people. Lose 8 kg and enroll in a gym membership. Investigate using a personal trainer.

6. Enroll in conflicts resolution online course to help deal with difficult staff situations. Read “Getting to Yes”. Read or listen on audio-book Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”

7. Organize career development coaching for one to two months each year to help me with this career development plan. Find out if my department will fund this.

8. Ask Leah Mitchell if I can run customer service excellence workshops for CES staff on a monthly basis to enhance my teaching skills and promote customer service standards. [“You really only know something if you can teach it to someone else”, she used to say]. Check with her regarding the budget for covering extra staff during these training workshops.

9. Discuss my aspirations and action steps with HR manager. (This step may not be appropriate if your organization is not aware of your career goals or the nature of your relationship with the HR Manager or other relevant supervisors wouldn’t support it)

This sample career development plan is provided as an example to help you create your own career plan using the downloadable sample career development plan worksheet.

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Now that you have familiarized yourself with the above sample career development plan, it’s time to write your own

Steps for Creating Your Own Career Development Plan

These steps follow the sample career development plan worksheet.

The first few items on the sample career development plan including your career goal, title, today’s date, target finish date and date achieved should be all self-explanatory.
The other details of the plan are as follows:

Sample Career Development Plan Goal

Your career development plan should follow the SMART outline – be Specific, measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time bound.

Specific

Your goal needs to be well defined. To be specific you need to ask the what, where, who questions about your goal.
Explain very precisely what it is you want to accomplish.

Measurable

To be measurable, you must know without any doubt when you have actually reached your goal.
If the end result is not precisely measurable, you need to redefine your career development plan so that it is.

Attainable

Your goal must be attainable.
Is it actually possible to achieve this?
There is a balance between shooting for the stars and pursuing something that is not really attainable. If it’s probably not attainable, start with a smaller goal but one that is heading in the same direction but more likely to be attained. Aim big but start small! A career goal that is attainable by one person may not be attainable by another depending on their motivation, inborn job skills, and experience etc. Assess these characteristics in yourself first. Have a close look at your goal.
Can you honestly say that you think it is attainable with the right amount of effort? If so, go for it.

Realistic

A goal could be attainable but not realistic.
For example, it might be possible to become president of your Zimbabwe-based subsidiary, but is it realistic considering that you have four young children in school and a wife that doesn’t want to live there.
That might be an unrealistic goal even though it is attainable.

Relevant

Is your goal relevant to where you want to be in your career long-term?
Is your goal relevant to who you are as a person and what you want to achieve in your life.
Is it in line with your worldview, core values and beliefs as a person.

Time Bound

Does your goal have time boundaries?
If it doesn’t have a certain date by which it must be achieved, it probably won’t be achieved.
Make sure you fill in the target finish date on your sample career development plan worksheet, otherwise you open yourself up to never-ending procrastination.

Key to Success with Your Career Development Plan – Accountability!

One of the keys to success in achieving your career goals is to set aside regular appointments with yourself to monitor your progress. But more importantly you should implement some accountability with others around your career goals.

This could simply be somebody in your work environment who you are close to and you trust and will agree to meet with you to keep you accountable.

If this career development plan has been initiated by the organization where you work, then the person who will keep you accountable will probably be your supervisor, manager, etc.

If you are doing this outside of your organization’s umbrella, you could perhaps use a family member or close friend who would be willing to meet with you on a regular basis [say once a month] to keep you on track. However, this is not as effective as a person more removed from you with little emotional connection.

Other important ideas used in career development plans include:

• Commit to ongoing learning and improving your natural abilities and bents. Subscribe to industry blogs, podcasts, audio-books, etc.
• Carry out a thorough self-assessment. [Use this inborn job skills assessment]
• Become a good net-worker. Learn how to become a good conversationalist. Up to 80% of all jobs gained, come from the hidden job market. And most of these come through friends and contacts. This is an area you can’t afford to ignore due to its proven success in obtaining jobs.
• Use other career development tools.
  For example, you may find it beneficial to engage in some career development coaching.
• If your career development plan involves self-employment, consider commencing a small business on the side to allow you to get a feel for running your own business while still keeping your day job.
  Many successful business people start like this.
  I was able to build this careers business in the beginning with the help of Solo Build It on a part-time basis.

Other career development articles you may be interested in:

Career development theory

What Is career development?

Career development tools

Career development coaching

Career development plan

Five year career development plan

Could a Midlife Career Change Be Too Risky?

So what are the chances that a midlife career change will result in a more rewarding and fulfilling career.
That will depend on your career change motivation, (i.e) getting to the root of why you want to change careers.

Why Do You Want to Change Careers?

Do you know why you want to change careers?
A midlife career change is quite common, however it does present some issues that a younger person won’t usually face.

Some common career change reasons are:

1. It has been forced on you through redundancy, or the industry you have worked in for many years is disappearing due to industry changes.

2. You have been frustrated in your current career for a long time and you have finally decided to do something about it.

3. You have become more aware that your life and career balance are not to your liking anymore.

For other common reasons why people change careers see career change reasons.

How Do I Find out Why I Want to Change Careers

1. Simply write out the question, Why do I want to change careers? And then list every reason you can think of.

You will likely come up with more reasons if you write your reasons out rather than simply thinking them through.
And the more reasons you come up with, the more likely you are to have uncovered the main reasons. Here are three steps to finding out why you want to change careers:

1. Write out all possible reasons. There is something in the act of writing it out that forces us to go to a deeper level when looking for answers.
2. Find other people who have been through a midlife career change and ask them what their reasons for changing were.
3. Make an appointment with me or another good career consultant to discuss the issue. This is usually very worthwhile.

If you have been shying away from your midlife career change because of the expectations of others, or so-called societal norms, that’s probably the wrong reason.

There may often be a sense of “I have failed” when you have worked in one career for many years and are now faced with the fact that you don’t like what you do or are being forced to start over.

Perhaps you may feel responsible because you still have family to provide for.

What would happen to them if your new career change didn’t work out?
Maybe you’re concerned you won’t be able to earn as much money as you currently do.

If your career transition is an over 40 career change, or perhaps you are even considering a career change after 50, then the above concerns could be compounded?

But here’s the big question…

What Will Happen If You Don’t Change Careers?

That’s a great question to ask yourself.

And another that goes with it, “What’s the worst that can happen if I do change careers?
Or, “What if this midlife career change doesn’t work out?”

To avoid confusion and to help you make a rational decision, it’s usually simply a matter of listing all the pros and cons and weighting each of them according to the importance you place on them.

Or you can use this nice little piece of decision-making software which effectively does it for you.

Financial concerns often weigh heavily on a midlife career change decision.

A few questions you need to consider are:

1. Do you have an idea what you will do? If so what is the market rate.
2. Will the new salary or wage present issues for you compared to your current income.
3. If the answer to number two above is yes, then you will need to do some forward planning in regards to your cash flow to see how you might manage your career change financially.
   See my personal budget worksheet for further information on addressing these financial issues during your midlife career change.

How to Ease Your Career Change Fears

Some people transitioning through a midlife career change have started their new career before leaving their old one.
Could some of these career transition possibilities work for you:

1. Start off part-time.
Once you have identified what you want to do, is it possible to start off part-time, evenings, weekends to give you a feel if it’s going to work.

2. Run both careers at the same time by working less in your current job.
For example is it possible that you could reduce your current job to four days per week. Many employers are willing to look at that.

3. Is it possible that your new career interest could be directed towards opening a small business, once again part-time to begin with?

There are also many home-based businesses you can begin these days, for example a home-based web site business where you can use information you have gained in your job over the years and turn it into revenue producing webpages. Click the link above to find out more.

Useful Career Development Tools to Help Achieve Your Goals?

A great crafts-person needs good tools to create their best works. And people who want to maximize their career (and earning potential), need good career development tools.

1. Career Development Coaching

Career coaching is probably the most commonly used career development tool.

Its success is based around the interdependent nature of human beings.
Although many people can achieve success quite independently, most people will be more successful if they have somebody else supporting them and believing in them along the way.

For full details on why and how career coaching works, see my career development coaching page.

2. Career Development Plan

Creating a career development plan is one of my favored career development tools, simply because it is easy to implement and it can be done without any outside career help.

A professional career development plan forces you to think seriously about what you really want to achieve in your work life.

It then provides a series of action steps and accountability to achieve your career objectives.
Every area of our life in which we proactively plan will invariably result in greater success.
And this is the core reason why career development planning is such an important career tool.

For more information and instructions on how to create your own career development plan see the five year career development plan and the sample career development plan where you will find career development plan examples as well as a download for a free career development plan template.

3. Career Development Assessment

A key component of successful career planning is to implement a regular assessment of your career objectives to ensure you are achieving your goals.

This is often integrated into the goal setting of a career development plan (see above).

But if your career planning is taking place in-house with your employer, a career development assessment will usually be structured and managed by human resource personnel.

If the organization you work for is typical of many businesses, you may find your career development is not as important to them as it is to you. There is where you need to be quite proactive and persistent about your desire for your employer to be on-board with your career development direction. If your organization is not initiating regular career development reviews, or not following through on agreed strategies, you should respectfully and regularly remind them to do so (the squeaky door gets the oil).

4. Peer and Colleague Review and Brainstorming

Sometimes enlisting the help of your peers into the career planning process can be a useful, informal and one of the most cost effective career development tools.

Although this probably won’t be as valuable as employing a professional career development coach, it does have the benefit of getting some close insight from people you work with on a day-to-day basis.

An important step to this is to ensure that those you enlist will be honest with you in regards to the way they see your natural abilities and the areas where you don’t have much ability.

Another useful model is where you gather together a small group meeting [4-5] of like-minded people for a career brainstorm that all participants will benefit from. This group could include people you work with directly, or others in the industry who work outside your organization, or clients, or suppliers, or…

Here is the approximate agenda for the meeting: [let everybody know the agenda beforehand so they can be prepared]. For this exercise to be effective, most of the group should know each other.

1. Get each member in the group to communicate to each other what they see as others natural abilities and strengths. [Either record the sessions or have somebody take notes so you have a copy of what was said]

2. Have each person present a very brief one to five year career development plan to the group.
Brainstorm ideas for each person in turn about ways in which their career objectives could be:

• enhanced
• fulfilled in better ways than the recipient has identified in their plan
• achieved faster
• or in any other way that may improve the career journey of the recipient.

3. Use the group as a career networking platform for each other.
Around 70% of all jobs are gained through the “hidden” job market.
The hidden job market is simply all jobs that are filled without being advertised – most jobs are never advertised.

A good proportion of the hidden job market success flows from relationships between friends, acquaintances and industry colleagues.

One of the first things many employers do when they are looking for a new employee is to ask their current employees and work colleagues if they know of anybody who would be good for the job.

For this reason alone a small informal networking group is well worth considering as one of your career development aids. Platforms like Linked In use this networking principle, but there is something about meeting in person that makes this more powerful.

5. Employee Performance Appraisals from Past and Present Employer’s

What common strengths and noted abilities have been identified in your past appraisals on more than one occasion?

When a number of past performance appraisals are gone over, some important information about you can be gleaned and used to help you analyze where your strengths and weaknesses are. And this is helpful in mapping out your career advancement as you try to build on your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses.

But performance appraisals are only as good as the people who create them.
If the appraisal was written by someone for whom you had respect and treated you fairly and honestly, then the information they provide about your career strengths and weaknesses can be quite valuable.

And if a number of appraisals through the years have said similar things about your strengths and weaknesses, chances are they’ll be accurate.

Although a lot of employee performance appraisals are angled toward identifying areas for improvement, the real gems are when strengths are identified.

I also recommend completing the inborn job skills assessment to enhance your knowledge of your innate giftedness.

Other topics related to this career development article include:

What is career development

Career development plan

Career development coaching

Career development theory .