Archive for December, 2007

Six Steps to Career Change

If you are thinking about changing career, it is very common to feel overwhelmed by the number of possible directions in which you could go, the new qualifications you might need and all the different ways you can study for them. Things become even more complicated if you are over 40 and children to consider or a mortgage to pay every month.

Deciding what you want to do and enrolling on a course or brushing up some of your skills at home is just the beginning. Next you have to produce a dynamic resume, find the sort of openings you want and succeed in an interview. To help you out, here is a step by step plan which will take you through the process from initial decision to final interview. It’s designed to be completed at the pace which suits you best. Read more…

Popularity: 83% [?]

Career Change Over 40

Many people reach the age of 40 and find they are discontented with their careers, but feel that age is a barrier to change. However, populations in the West are growing older, pensions systems can’t keep up, and so unless you’ve accumulated a lot of money, you are probably going to find that you have to work past what you might have hoped would be retirement age. Unfortunately, employers haven’t yet caught up with this trend and as a result, people over 40 or 50 are not always welcomed when it comes to hiring.

If you are in this situation, don’t despair – there are things you can do to improve your chances of getting a job, irrespective of the prevailing attitudes of employers. To start with, when creating your CV or résumé, you can target it very precisely for the job in question. You have got the experience which younger people don’t have and so you can highlight this in the early part of your résumé to make your application stand out, so that career change over 40 becomes a positive experience.

You don’t have to put personal information, like date of birth, on your CV – in many countries it’s against the law to ask for this information. Although age discrimination is now illegal in the UK, employers still tend to be suspicious if they don’t see a date of birth. If you feel the need to mention it, put it right at the end, which means you’ll have sold yourself before the employer sees it. You should also leave out your marital status or the number of children you have, if any. Remember, this is just not relevant.

Let’s look at the positive aspects of being a little bit older - you have experience and skills which youngster don’t have and these are incredibly valuable to a prospective employer. You may think this doesn’t apply if you are heading back to work after raising a family, but you’d be wrong – soft skills, which includes things like communication, time management and the ability to meet deadlines are extremely important in the market place and I’m sure that as a parent, you have got most of those skills down to a fine art. Make a list of all the skills you have build up over the last twenty years, whether they were gained in employment, at home or as a student. You might be surprised to realize just how many you have - and how many of them are transferable. Read more…

Popularity: 66% [?]

New Year New Career

As the New Year approaches, many people decide it’s finally time for a change of career.

How many times have you said that this year will be the one when your life finally takes off? And like so many New Year Resolutions, it was quickly forgotten when you found yourself caught up in the 9-5 drudgery once again after the Christmas break.

If you’ve been wanting to change direction, the New Year is a good time to start, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that all you have to do is go out and get a new job and all will be well. It may be for a month or two, but if you don’t spend some time really thinking about what you want to do, chances are you’ll end up in the same rut again. The problem is that jobs weren’t made for people – people are expected to squeeze themselves into jobs and when you apply to a company for work, it’s all about them and not about you. Unfortunately that’s the game you have to play if you want to be hired. Read more…

Popularity: 54% [?]