3 A's of Career Change - I
 To start with, this 3-page-article is not about job change – it’s about career
change. That means, we will speak not for a java programmer jumping from X Corp to Y Corp
and continue to be a java programmer. This is for you if you are like a programmer jumping form X Corp to join Z University as a professor. Now that you are clear with this, let’s get started.You may find the other two parts of the series here: 3 A’s of Career Change II: Augment 3 A’s of Career Change III: Ace Analyse In this step, you ask a few questions to yourself. Do not hurry yourself to complete this in a short time – take your time to do this. Keep a notepad handy to note down your answers. At the end of this step, you will have your strengths mapped to the available career options. 1. What do you want to change – your career or job? It’s very well possible that you still love your career but issues with your present job may be bothering you. Get the answer to this question first because if you still love your career, you may just require a job change, which’s much more easier than a career change. 2. Why am I dissatisfied? Now that you are sure, it’s not the job that needs to be changed but your career, ask yourself a second question – why am I dissatisfied? Try your best to get an elaborate answer to this question. It’s based on this that you would need to chalk your plans. You may come up with points like ‘not able to support lifestyle’, ‘talent is not utilized’ or ‘this career doesn’t fit into my long-term career plan’. 3. What are your talents and strengths? The purpose of asking this question is to identify your strengths on paper so that it can be used in the subsequent steps. List down as many strengths as possible. You can also consult your close aides to help you out. 4. What are the career options that you are interested in? This question would allow you to get those career options out of your mind onto a paper. 5. What are the qualifications required for each of these careers? Do your research to get this right. The Internet can be of great help in making this easy for you. 6. Do you already have these qualifications? Some of these may be linked with your personality while some others would be educational. Map the strengths that you had listed down in the previous step to the career options and their respective qualifications required. Doing this in a tabular format will help you get the complete picture. This will also let you know what skills you can take with you to the new career and what need to be learned. 3 A’s of Career Change II: Augment |
