In Part 1 of this posting, we talked about whether now is a good time for a career change. We identified the parts of your last job that you didn’t like to see if it made more sense to simply change those things about your job that you didn’t like but keep the things you do. That will allow you to search for a job in your existing field, but with a few changes. That’s a lot easier than starting from scratch.
On the other hand, you may determine that you really to DO hate the fundamental tasks of your career and now is the time to head in a whole new direction. But what are the odds you can make that happen at this point in your career? Or In this miserable job market? A simple technique to help you with this dilemma is to think about the job you’d really love to have – we’ll call this your “Dream Job”. Next, do a rough calculation of the money you need to make each year – the breakeven point where the amount of money you have coming in meets your required expenses. Don’t spend too much time on this line – ‘ballpark’ the number based on what you made in the past and whether you got by or not. We’ll call this your “Minimum Salary”.
Now ask yourself, if there was a position open that matched your dream job, what is the likelihood that a company would hire you at your minimum salary to do that job. If the answer is ‘very likely’ then your dream job is viable and you should use all your available time and energy to go after that. If the answer is not likely then something has to change. Start by looking at your minimum salary – can it be lowered? If so, what is that new number and now how likely is it that someone would pay you that amount to do your dream job? If the answer is still ‘not likely’ then would you consider another job that will pay you your minimum salary while you take steps to get the training or experience you need to eventually land the job you really want? If you’re really brave you might even consider selling a large asset such as a house, or taking out a loan to cover your expenses while you go to school full time to get the training you need in your dream job.
The point is to decide on a job that you would love to have and that you could land now – or come up with a viable strategy to earn your Minimum Salary while you get the training and experience needed to eventually land that dream job. Then go after it with all your energy and resources. As Grandma Ethel was fond of saying – life’s too short for bad wine.