Getting Back on Track After a Career Detour
Posted November 25th, 2013
Have you found that your dream career is more of a nightmare than you had anticipated? Or it may not be all that bad, but you notice that your career goals have changed and your current position doesn’t mesh well with them?
Or perhaps you had to take a job to make ends meet, one that’s not exactly what you envisioned for yourself all those years ago when you decided on a certain career path?
Career detours: those times in our professional lives when our jobs aren’t exactly in line with our career goals. Almost all of us have taken these career tangents at some point in our working life.
Read below for some tips on how to get your career back on track.
- Remember that just because you’ve veered off course does not mean you can’t get back on your original path. Or, if you’ve decided that the course you’re following – one which you once thought was right for you – isn’t the right direction for you now, you can change it. It may take time; it won’t happen overnight. But change is possible!
- If you want to change course, you’re going to need to have a meeting with yourself to decide what path you do want to take. Do you want to change careers? Or – not as drastic – perhaps you want to do a little more of one thing and a little less of another?
- Once you’ve decided on a “new” course, you’ll then need to talk to supervisors and even colleagues to see if you can take on new responsibilities/projects and even learn new skills. If where you are now needs only a bit of tweaking to get you where you want to go, talk to your boss about the possibility of making your current job more in line with your new goal(s).
- Don’t be afraid to take classes in skills that are totally unrelated to your current position. You may have to do this on your own time (weekends and nights) and on your own dime (no employer reimbursement for you, especially if your refined goals mean that you’ll be leaving your employer sometime soon).
- As you grow in your skills, education and on-the-job experiences, update your resume and start sending it out to people who can hire you. Or, make sure your boss knows you’d like to eventually move into another position within the same company.
- Meet with as many people as possible who do what you’re looking to do. Make sure they know you’re looking for work in the field (they might be able to help you). Ask them what they love most about their work, what they dislike the most, what they would change if they could. Ask them how they got to where they are today. Ask for advice.
If you’re looking to change or correct your career’s course, let the recruiters at Bayside Solutions help. We can help IT workers and other professionals find great temporary, temp-to-hire and even direct-hire opportunities with some of the Bay Area’s best companies. Contact us today.
