Gone are the days of choosing a company at a very young age and working for them throughout your entire career. Not only do your interests change as you get older, but your priorities change too. This idea is supported by corporate psychologist Dave Popple who mentions that job seekers shouldn’t necessarily feel pigeon-holed into the same path they embarked on in the early days of their career.
He mentions that you are likely to make a poor career move if you continue to operate under the illusion that you are the same person who first entered the workforce. Your skills change and what drives your changes? You shouldn’t continue to do a job for the person that you used to be rather than the person you are now.
If you aren’t currently happy with your occupation, you are not alone. A new Monster poll showed many different reasons for job seekers looking for new jobs. The main reason was wanting more money (44%). However, (24%) noted it was to get out of a career rut. A bad boss was another major reason with (13%) mentioning that as their primary motivation for seeking a new job. Being curious was another with (11%) noting they wanted to see what was out there for them. Last was having an unbearable workload at (8%).
Unsure about what kind of steps you should be taking for your career move? Here are some tips that can help.
1. Research Everything
If you know that you want a new job in manufacturing and operations, but you aren’t entirely certain where you should start, it’s time to start treating the process like a project. It’s more important than anything to get to the bottom of what you should be doing with your next career move. If you want to make a major change, you need to put in a major effort. Not enough people put the time, energy, and resources into this process to make it as productive and as efficient as possible. Try to throw together a comprehensive timeline that you can use to figure out how to achieve what you are setting out to do. You want to figure out where you should be dedicating your time and energy to make the right move for your career.
2. Reflect On Options
It’s at this fork in the road where you want to consider all of your options. If you’ve got to this point, you want to think about all of the paths that you can take for your career trajectory. Try to come up with a list of jobs that you have an interest in. Look at the ins and outs of each job. Try to narrow it down eventually to the top three. From there, you will want to conduct even more research. Figure out what people do in these jobs. What do their lives look like? What is their workday like? What skills do they have? What skills does the job require? What training do they need? Will it leave you in a good financial position? These are the things you need to be thinking about when you are trying to figure out if it’s right for you.
3. Take An Assessment
If you don’t know what to do and you don’t know what you would be good at, it’s time to take an assessment test. The founder of HR Virtuoso says that if you have any particular interest in a field, you could always learn the technical skills required while you are on the job. If your personality fits and you have an innate capacity to be good at something, you are more likely to excel at a role.