Life Lessons in the #1 Skill Needed for Successful Career Transition
We all know there are several helpful skills that help a person to make a successful career transition.
But I want to talk with you about the number one skill that you can learn to make a successful career transition.
Oftentimes, women come to me and think that if they make a career transition, they will have to start at a low-level position just to “get a foot in the door.” This might have been true if we were transitioning careers in the 80s or 90s but that is not the same case today.
Today, you can use the skills, knowledge, talent, and expertise that you already have to position yourself actually as a top candidate for high-level, high-paying roles in a new industry.
The way to do that is through skill articulation which is a strategy that I teach across my mentorship programs. Skill articulation is how to clearly speak to the expertise that you currently have and the benefits you can bring with those skills. The first area that we focus on is finding a person’s career area of impact. I make sure that my mentees specifically think about the industries, and the impact and functional areas that they should be seeking at this stage in their careers.
Too often when we're planning career transitions, we just chase money, chase somebody putting us on, or chase an opportunity without first really thinking intentionally about what we desire in our career.
You use skill articulation to transition industry by having a funnel approach to your career development. So often when we think about transition industries, the only thing we think about is our new job title. But that means we're not thinking about the industry, or the impact or functional areas that we should be seeking at this stage in our career. And that is a big mistake because it's so much harder to transition careers when you're just looking for a job title.
Identify everything that your skillset will allow you to contribute. Think strategically about your answers when researching the type of interview questions certain industries will ask. Take what you know about yourself, what problems you know they're trying to fix, and then during the interview, you can put it all together into a nice little package.
We want to position ourselves as the experts that we are. So often we're afraid of doing that because it’s easier to just hope and pray that they hire us. But we need to elevate our positioning and realize that the employer who is hiring needs us. It's not haughty; it's not ego—it's honest. It's just an honest supply and demand. The supply is high, the demand is not.
And for you, maybe it's not the money. But you should go into every transition knowing you can get the money. I think sometimes we take the Mother Teresa approach to our career. We're like, “I just want to help people; I don't need to be paid much. I'd be happy living in productive poverty.” We can have money and be good people and help people. You can be an outstanding nursing administrator and be paid well for it. All of that is available.
That doesn’t have to be your reality.
Read about my mentees Kimmie and Tracee and how they made career transitions and made more money.
Read about the best path to transition careers on my recent blog post.
Does this sound like something you want to know more about? I want to invite you on a call with me this week. 📲
Learn more at Mentor-me.org or schedule a Mentor Moment today.
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