Career Management Alliance Blog

There are many professions in which career changers are welcome.
Experience, valued skills, and employers who appreciate new ideas and fresh
perspectives can facilitate the transition.

Unfortunately, that level of acceptance and receptivity to career changers
is not universal.  Each career changer has to recognize the challenges may
be significant.  There are barriers that must be overcome and it is
important to be realistic.  The fact is when many hiring managers
contemplate hiring career changers, they view that hire with a greater
degree of risk.  Without a track record in a particular job there is a real
downside in considering a career changer for a position.  Will the candidate
decide to change careers again?  Does this person really have the staying
power despite their obvious qualifications?  Do I want to take that risk
when there are plenty of unemployed people available?  And what happens if
the person decides that this company or industry or organization culture is
a poor fit?  Here today, gone tomorrow?

These are some of the questions many hiring managers will ask themselves.
As a result, career changers faced with potential employers who consider
these issues have to develop some new strategies to cope.

The most important strategy is a laser-like focus on the industry,
organization, and firm.  After establishing a new and clear set of career
goals, focus on specific companies or organizations that might be the best
fit.  Network with people who work in that niche.  Forget about being open
to “other alternatives” (in your communication with others).  It should
become easily apparent to anyone with whom you communicate regarding
opportunities, that you know precisely where you want to go.  People like
that.  If you meet strangers in professional forums, be very specific.
Nobody wants to hear that you are a “people person.”

Become familiar with the jargon of the industry.  Each profession has its
own language and people instantly recognize if you are part of the cohort by
use of language.  When you get an interview make sure you are familiar with
the terminology and the firm.  If you are still in the research stage and
haven’t yet built your knowledge base, it is possible to waste opportunities
that might have become available at a later time.

In interviews, discuss specifics.  Demonstrate how examples of your success
in the previous career relate to many of the challenges in the new career.
The important point is making the interviewer comfortable with the
understanding that you really appreciate the major hurdles in their
industry.

Never ask for a chance, an opportunity to show what you can do.  Focus
exclusively on the specifics of what you have done.  The key is
communicating the depth and breadth of your experience and its applicability
to the new situation.  No hiring manager is going to hire based on sympathy
and your shiny disposition.  Their jobs are also on the line, today more
than ever.  Than means they have to have the specific data to justify to
their manager a decision to hire.

Ignore headhunters.  These people are paid to find the best employees that
have been doing the same thing for a long time.  Headhunters are really not
interested in career changers because they are hard to sell.  Remember, they
get job profiles that are quite specific.  That chances of a career changer
fitting that profile is slim.

Finally, remember that positioning is everything.  The interviewer can only
see what you reveal.  Call for an interview and position yourself as someone
who has done specific work with a track record of success, again with
specifics in a defined area, finance, manufacturing, marketing and so forth.
That is very different from looking like an unfocused wannabe looking for an
opportunity, any opportunity.

In today’s reality, hiring managers will go “extra miles” to find the
perfect candidate.  Good enough isn’t good enough, and “being willing” and
“tries hard” will be rejected.  With a strong emphasis on basic skills and
complementary organizational capabilities, the career changer can
successfully position themselves as being right for the firm and right for
the times.

 Judit Price

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