Where does a career switcher get help? The best starting point is to talk to family, friends, and people where you work or have worked. Don't hesitate to talk to former employers and peers, especially human resource professionals.
An excellent way to get career-changing information is to visit colleges and universities in your area, including community colleges. Today many colleges have specific courses designed for the 50-plus person who wants to change careers. Talk to the career counselors in such schools. Look upon the cost, if any, as an investment in your future.
"Counseling," according to Drake Beam Morin's James Cabrera, "is utilizing a body of knowledge. It's making a calculated, educated decision as opposed to a gut decision. This doesn't preclude what some great entrepreneurs have established by following their gut feelings. But then there are many more prospective entrepreneurs that never made it than succeeded.
"It's an educated decision. A person gets all the facts. It is easy to relate to others in such circumstances but difficult when one deals with his or her career. If you weren't facing a problem-solving situation you would go through a step-by-step analysis of all alternatives, all the risks involved before you made a calculated decision. When one is involved in something as important as one's career, it is imperative to go through the same process.
"You are in a sense an entrepreneur. Your product is yourself. You have to see who will buy it at what price. And to do this you must have the facts-about yourself."
One caution: There are good counselors and bad counselors wherever you go. Listen carefully to what they say, but remember that you are the one who must make the final decision. Common sense is the critical factor here.
Another information source on changing careers is the professional counselor who charges a fee for services rendered. Good professional counseling can pay big dividends when it comes to career-making decisions. But be wary of those who charge high prices and promise you the moon. Get recommendations from friends and check with the Better Business Bureau in your area for those counselors that may have had complaints filed against them.
Don't forget networking, which is one of the best ways to find a new job or career situation. Many companies have difficulty finding competent people to fill specific jobs. The more people who know you are looking for a job the better your chances of finding what you want.
Retrain
Retraining may be necessary to help you launch a new career, depending on your circumstances. For example, if you have been out of the workplace for a number of years, moving into a brand-new field may require that you take some refresher courses to get started. In some cases, depending on your field, extensive instruction may be necessary, especially if you are the victim of a permanent downsizing.
That's what happened to Dick Hamel, 60, a highly skilled industrial engineer currently hard at work designing trade-show exhibits for his new company. Innovative Designs & Concepts in Freeport, Long Island. A talented man, Hamel recently lost his job at the Grumman Corporation. He was one of approximately 2,500 employees let go because of a canceled military contract. To make matters worse, Hamel had recently helped design a complex $11.5 million system for painting aircraft for his company and was noted for his efficient and creative factory designs.
"I was never out of work before and it really bothered me," says Hamel. "Any job change prior to that was my decision. My prospects didn't look too rosy. It was a traumatic thing to go through."
To help the aircraft manufacturer's "displaced workers," the town of Oyster Bay on Long Island received a $1 million grant to retrain Grumman employees who had lost their jobs.
"The school was in Amityville," says Hamel. "I went to the interview with the town to see if I had the smarts to be funded. I was accepted." The government-funded program paid for his books and $6,000 tuition for a 1,000-hour course in technical drafting.
Sowing the Seeds of Success. At that time the annual nationwide Drafting & Design Association contest was taking place. "I had not done any architectural renderings since 1947," he said, "but I finished my course about a month early, because each student worked on an individual basis. So I began to do some renderings. In 25 hours I produced an architectural rendering of the building. It won the first-place prize from more than 400 entries from schools and colleges all over the country."
Hamel got his job when a co-worker who had taken the drafting course suggested that Innovative Concepts & Designs call the school for a position they wanted to fill. "I went there, applied, and got the job," says Hamel. "When I went to the job interview I took the rendering along, which influenced the company in hiring me."
Hamel likes his new job. He says, "It's gotten more interesting because it is more artistic."
Adaptive and Functional Skill. Remember that you, too, bring professional experience to the work force, plus the proven skills developed over your 50-plus career lifetime. So don't sell your talents short. Also remember that your skills are portable and adaptable to any job you take.
Career counselors call these skills adaptive and functional. Adaptive skills can be termed as self-management, which a person uses to function in the workplace environment. These include such personality characteristics as assertiveness, creativity, emotional stability, initiative, resourcefulness, to name a few.
