Do you want a job change or a career change?
Episode 170 - This episode of The Job Hunting Podcast outlines what you need to know in order to make a successful transition
When considering a change in your professional life, it's important to understand the difference between a job change and a career change. While they may seem similar, they involve different levels of commitment and require different approaches. On the one hand, a career change can be a big decision, but with the proper research, planning, and mindset, you can find a new path that brings you fulfillment and success. On the other hand, your dissatisfaction with your current situation may be solved by changing jobs and finding a new workplace better suited to your strengths, personal values, and career drivers.
In this episode, I discussed the difference between a career change and a job change and outlined strategies to help you decide your next steps.
Resources mentioned in this episode
Other resources from RenataBernarde.com :
About the Host, Renata Bernarde
Hello, I’m Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I’m also an executive coach, job hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach professionals (corporate, non-profit, and public) the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.
If you are an ambitious professional who is keen to develop a robust career plan, if you are looking to find your next job or promotion, or if you want to keep a finger on the pulse of the job market so that when you are ready, and an opportunity arises, you can hit the ground running, then this podcast is for you.
In addition to The Job Hunting Podcast, on my website, I have developed a range of courses and services for professionals in career or job transition. And, of course, I also coach private clients
Timestamps to guide your listening
04:48 The biggest enemies to change, according to Steven Pressfield
08:29 The importance of thinking and writing about what you want in a job
11:52 Map out what your future would look like
16:38 The importance of doing research
20:08 Getting the help you need to achieve your goals
Transcript of this episode
Renata: Look for someone who is an expert in what you want to do. So that's a mentor. And look for someone who is an expert in career design, job search, and recruitment. That's a career coach. So those are two different things. Sometimes you find a great mentor, and this person may be great to give you tips and advice and connect. You even advocate for you, champion you for the roles, but that person can't necessarily get you a job.
Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Job Hunting podcast. This is the second episode that I'm recording in 2023. Oh my gosh, it's so nice and sunny outside. I live in Australia, I'm in Melbourne, and it's summer here, and it's been just a, you know, just the most amazing few days, to be honest, down under.
So if you haven't been to Australia yet, always come in the summer. Unless you like skiing, otherwise, come in summer, I live by the water, and I love being here. So it's a pleasure also to be with you recording this episode last week. If you've listened to 169, I discussed seven tips for job hunters. I looked at questions that have been floating around in my inbox. You know, I took some weeks off, and I saw some questions in my inbox. I also know that these questions come again and again in, especially for those that are starting their job search and they're doing it alone. So if you're doing it alone, you may find these questions.
Top of mind for you or they will be as you progress in the job search. So have a look at that episode. It's 1 69, and then today I want to talk to you about job change or career change because I'm recording this at the beginning of the year in 2023. It's January and a lot of people make New Year's resolutions, or they use the new year to reset.
If you're listening to this in the future, you could be listening month months from now. Years from now, you know, these things never really changed. They're very classic, in terms of career issues that people and professionals face from time to time. So, you know, it's always a good time to check if it's time for you to reflect on what you really want.
Do you want a job change or do you want a career change? You know, I've been a career coach for a few years now, three years full-time, but since 2016 I've been coaching as a side hustle. And there are always lots of surveys, you know, HR surveys done by reputable organizations like Gartner or Culture App.
I'll put some links below for you to have a look at the episode show notes and they show that employees are. Seeking new work-life balance and better jobs and, you know, top, top three reasons why people want to move jobs or change careers. These are things that are always, stuff that I read, but of course the pandemic has really shifted.
People's mindset shifted their ambitions and what they're seeking for in the future. The pandemic and the lockdowns created this massive change and pivot and like a big milestone in professionals. Careers and workplaces, we're still seeing employers really fighting hard to get people back in, the office, you know, the Walt Disney CEO telling people by March they need to be in the office.
Renata: And, of course, Ellon Musk. Has been very vocal about this as well. And everywhere we are trying to reimagine how the workplace will look like and how we're going to work together remotely and face-to-face in the future. The pandemic has accelerated a change that had been dragging on for years, and now we can see that there are changes that are here to stay because professionals have been very much affected by what the pandemic has done to their ambitions.
So the thing about New Year's resolution and January is usually we think about, you know, making job changes, making career changes, and then we don't follow through in his book "Do the work", Steven Pressfield describes the biggest enemies to change being resistance, rational thought and family.
And I thought this was really funny. So if you think about resistance, he's talking about fear, self-doubt, procrastination, addiction, distraction, timidity, shyness, ego and narcissism and self-loathing, perfectionists and so on. So the resistance that you create for yourself, not barriers of entry that you find outside, and those barriers of entries,
it's funny how he describes that as rational thoughts, you know, you overthinking and rationalizing or having these voices in your head creating and, you know, and, amplifying your resistance, and then friends and family coming to you and saying, but why do you wanna change? I mean, I've done this to my own kids, especially the oldest one, you know?
Renata: I'm like, why would you like to change? You have such a good job. So we do this because we are risk averse and we don't wanna, you know, lose the friend or the family that we have if they want to move, if they want to change too much. And we fear for what that will do to the relationship we have with them.
It's a lovely little book. I'll put the link in the show notes if you want to check it. But you know that this, resistant tends to come at the end of January, and then stick around for the rest of the year, and you procrastinate and you don't end up following up on your own ideas about what you want to do with your career.
So today, let's, look at how we can devi some strategies to help you decide what the next steps are for your career, for your job progression, and we're gonna discuss those. Look, there are several other episodes in this podcast that I can refer you to as well to continue to build your understanding of career design and career development to support you take more control over the outcomes and build yourself towards your future, your preferred future for your career.
But the best thing to do is to make sure that you're following this podcast and that you've signed up for my newsletter, because I send a newsletter every week, usually on a Tuesday morning, Melbourne time, which is, Monday evening or afternoon if you're in the UK or the US. But it is a great way to keep connected.
And if your career is important to you, then I'd love to be connected with you. You can do that by following this podcast wherever you find this. It could have been Spotify, it could have been iTunes or Audible or YouTube. but, you know, signing up for my newsletter. I will send you so much good content, and that will be a once-a-week newsletter from time to time. If I'm launching my group coaching program, I send more emails. You can unsubscribe whenever you wish. But I hope you don't, cause I really would love to be connected with you if you're interested in making sure your career is always top of mind for you.
Okay, so what are the strategies that I have decided to discuss with you in this episode? Number one, I'd like you to think, and then I'd like you to take it a step further and write down what you really want in a job, okay? You need to earn a living. You need to have a job. If you're not gonna win the lottery, then the next best thing is to earn a living.
Now, I make some assumptions about my listenership, and if you are listening to this podcast, I consider you to be someone who is in a privileged position, you can listen to podcasts like this. You have some control over your life and the outcomes of your career, and this puts you in a position where you should really take nothing for granted and take control of your career.
And the whole idea of career design more seriously, and that we do by writing things down, by really taking the time to develop a career plan. And that starts from knowing what you really want in a job. And our brains are not a very good to just have words and ideas floating around it all the time.
You want to download it on paper in order for your brain to rest from all of that thinking, all of that procrastination, all of those waking up in the middle of the night to think about stuff like this. So download everything to keep your brain fresh and creative and not so stressed. And the thing about you know what Steven Pressfield discussed in his book do the work that I mentioned before is that the resistance comes, you know, to do things like this, to take those next steps, to take the steps that require a little bit of work, because the
Resistance comes for us, when we are trying to activate things that are long term, that take a long time for us to reach, you know, this could be something to do with our health. It can be something to do with our career plans if it doesn't have immediate gratification. Job hunting doesn't have that career plan, doesn't have that we are.
Designed naturally to do this right. We were designed to flee and fight and flight and survive in the Savannah. So all of those sort of deep thinking changes that we need to start doing as. Civilized human beings, you know, taking care of our planet, earth, climate change, and you know, thinking long term about our careers cuz we're gonna live into a hundred.
We are not designed for that. So you need to really implement those.
Renata: things and overcome that resistance. And remember that this doesn't have to be perfect. You don't have to buy a perfect notebook to do this. Just start on a piece of paper, any piece of paper, and then just do it. Okay? So by doing this, like I said, you're giving yourself the opportunity to find the time and the words to describe what you want to do.
If you are struggling with that, if you have writer's block, stick around cuz you know number three may help the third strategy that I'm gonna talk. The second thing that I would like you to consider is to map out what a future would be, that you would want to achieve. You know what? The second thing that I want you to do is to map out what a future would look like for you if you achieve what you really want, if you have the job that you really want.
Every career has a. Future progression. You don't necessarily need to be advancing in your career if you don't want to. People have different ambitions for themselves. Some people want to progress and step by step, go from one job to a bigger job, to a bigger job, and so on. Not everybody needs to do that.
That's completely fine, right? Your ambition. Everybody needs to have ambition, but our ambitions are different. Some people want to just have a steady career, a sustainable career, have a similar job all their lives. They need to also do professional development to maintain their skills, to have that opportunity to.
Keep their jobs all their life. So whatever you do there is work to be done . Okay? but what would your future be? What would be the next steps for the next decade, two decades, three decades ahead of you? So think about those step by step. If the job that you really, really want, require extra skills that you do currently don't have extra experience that you currently don't have. You are verging from, wanting a different job to wanting a different career. and career change can come in different ways, right? It can be a 180 career change. So let's say right now you are an engineer and you want to become a teacher, that's a big career change.
But it could be that right now you are working as a consultant and then you want to work for a bank, or you want to work for a manufacturing business, or you want to work in retail. It's also a big shift that will require you some stepping stones to get to where you want to go. So think about flow charting the different paths.
Renata: So there isn't just one path that you can do to reach your, your goals. So think about the different paths that can lead you to that job that you really want and that future career progression within that, that job that you really want. You know, one of those paths could be stepping down and, you know, going back to study, for example, another path could be accessing a mentor or accessing a coach.
So think about the different ways, that you can get to where you want to be and flow charted as part of your homework and strategies for you to activate your career advancement.
I teach these things inside Job Hunting Made Simple, which is my group coaching program. And of course I teach that to my private clients as well.
But specifically, the Job Hunting Made Simple program is a roadmap that is, Tried and tested and successful, and it has been designed really with that ownership and control of your future career in mind. So that's how I, I sort of, I explain the importance of doing, something like job hunting made simple at some stage in your career because it will give you all the tools that you will use not only during that seven weeks that we're doing the program together.
But, anytime. You know, once you learn those skills and you have access to the program for life, you can go back to it at any time and, and do that. And I always recommend people when they start their personal portfolio with me during the job hunting, made simple seven weeks, that then they review that from time to time because things change.
You know, a pandemic, for example, is a good example. You know, something that can cause a massive shift in people's ambitions and future goals. You might want to go back to that personal portfolio that you developed and review it and see, okay, what's really resonating with me now in this stage of my career and, and, you know, how am I going to activate those wishes and that new goal?
Okay, so that was number two. Map out the future for you in that sort of job that you really want to do so that you can continue to have a sustainable career within that job that you really, really want or that career that you really, really want. Now the third strategy can help you if you get really stuck.
If you get stuck and you think, you know, you know, sometimes clients come to me and say, oh my gosh, I don't know. I have no clue. I am so, so lost. I couldn't ride anything. I have rider's block. Or if you wrote a lot and you have lots of big dreams and ambitions, and you might also need to do this next step, which is research.
Because even if you have a good understanding and a good idea, it's important for us to validate those ideas by doing our research. Sometimes we over-romanticize how things are going to be, and how easy it will be. Sometimes we're overconfident about our ability to achieve a certain. job or career step.
And, you know, by doing the research and gathering intelligence from other people, especially, it's important for us to really validate those goals and, sort of milestones and little steps for us to get there. And if you don't know where to begin, again talking to people in doing these other things that I'm gonna talk next can also help you sort of open up your horizons and think, alright, I hadn't thought about this opportunity, or that opportunity or this career.
And it will open up a lot of interesting ideas and doors, for you to consider. So expose yourself to different people, to different professionals, to different coaches. And you know, read watch documentaries. Some people tell me, look, I don't have that many people that I know. I'm an introvert,
Renata: there's no excuse. Especially these days we have the internet and you know, we've always had books and we've always had this sort of amazing encyclopedias that can provide so much information. But I would really encourage people to overcome their resistance of timidity and shyness to get out there and ask people questions.
So, Especially at the beginning, I don't feel like you need to have a pitch ready and be careful with perfectionism and to feel like, oh, I'm gonna go out there and talk to people when I'm ready. That's actually counterintuitive and it doesn't help you much because what you want is to go out there and learn, right?
You want to go out there and test out your. Ask people questions. I've been thinking about doing this. What do you think? If you were in my shoes, what would you do? What would you do differently if you could start again? Those questions that you know are mentoring questions that allow people to open up with you and give you advice and
tell you, you know, what they think, is going to happen next in their profession. You know, what, what is the next big thing coming up in, in your profession? What's the future for you in the profession that you do? So, all of these great questions you can just ask and then sit and listen, especially if you're shy.
This is a great way of developing, a network, and talking to other professionals. So do this research. It's so great, come back, get that notebook, or that piece of paper, write things down. I loved doing this when I was, working as a corporate professional. I would always come back and write copious notes of everything that people had told me,
So you know, I'm biased in that way, but I know that there is enough research out there that shows that this is a good. And number four, and finally, work with a mentor and also consider working with a career coach. Look for someone who is an expert in what you want to do. So that's a mentor. And look for someone who is an expert in.
Career design, job search and recruitment. That's a career coach. So those are two different things. Sometimes you find a great mentor and this person may be great to give you tips and advice and connect. You even advocate for you, champion you for the roles, but that person can't necessarily get you a job.
There's enough due diligence these days that ensure that organizations and recruiters follow protocol, follow procedure and hire the best person for the job. And for you to be considered the best person of the job means that you need to, understand how recruitment works, how job hunting works, how to.
Present yourself in front of a selection panel, and that's where career coach can really help you. So, working with a career coach, can, you know, there are several levels of investment. It can be very, much a big investment if you want to do one-on-one private coaching for a specific period of time.
Like I work with clients, private clients for three months, six months, or a. But it could also be that you just book a consultation and you come very well prepared with lots of great questions, and you get as much information as you can in that one hour. You can book a consultation every time you have a big important milestone.
Let's say prep for an interview or review an important job application. So there are different levels of, investment in working with career coaches like. And of course the group coaching program is a great way of accessing a career coach for, in my case, seven weeks with a job hunting mate symbol. It helps you by working with a, a person that is tried and tested and successful at helping others.
So make sure that whoever you decide to work with comes well recommended that person, you know, you, you know someone that has worked with them before and you trust them. You know, in my case, I use this podcast to kind of give people an idea of who I am and what I do. And I hope that, you know, that can convince some people to become clients of mine.
And that's usually what happens, people listen to the podcast for a few weeks or sometimes even just only once and then they reach out and start working with me. And that's fantastic. You know, it's important to work with someone that will build you a safe plan for you to follow. That eliminates as many risks as possible that, bypasses the steep learning curve of the recruitment process or the career transition that you're doing,
this usually means, you know, you're gonna invest in career coaching, but also if that speeds up the process for you in accessing a great job in the future, then that's probably worth your investment. So think about, the risk, versus the advantage of working with somebody. And this person can help you understand your talents, your strengths, and how to transfer the skills that you have already gained through your current work experience into this new profession, into this new career or new job.
Renata: It will save you time and money, and build that accountability because you have invested in this career coach and this person will know which buttons push to make sure that you're moving towards your goals and not being distracted by all the sort of bright lights along the way in the, job hunting process.
It can be very overwhelming. And, you know, working with somebody who is experienced in this can help you, focus and be sharp and ready for what can be a very intense time for. So if you're interested to know more about my services, go to my website. And you know, there are several other episodes of the Job Hunting podcast that can help you and they, have different categories or if you're more interested in job hunting or if you are in the job interview stage, or if you're worried about your wellbeing, you know, so many people want to change jobs or careers because of, stress and mental health issues. Even during the pandemic, I have a category for wellbeing. So look for those different categories and find other episodes that can help
and yeah, make sure you join and follow the podcast, wherever you have found this, and I look forward to seeing and talking to you again next time. Bye for now. See you at the next episode. Bye.