There are lots of parallels between career advice and dating advice. Unfortunately for career changers, this includes coming off as the icky ex begging for a second chance.
When you’re a career changer, you’re trying to enter a new industry or do a new role or change both industry and role. In short, you’re trying to do something you haven’t done before. Too many career changers, when they introduce themselves and talk about their background, over-emphasize the change they’re trying to make. This is a big turnoff.
For example, instead of emphasizing the things they already know about the new target industry or role, they’ll just talk about being a fast learner, which basically highlights that you plan to learn on the job. That’s like the icky ex who says, “Trust me, I’ll change!” Do you trust the icky ex? No, you don’t because you know that change is hard. You want to see the change, not promises of change.
As a career changer, unless you show employers evidence of change, they won’t assume you actually can.
Sometimes, a career changer will insist they have made the change by evidencing relevant skills or knowledge for the new job, but not showing actual results from, say, volunteering in your new industry or doing a consulting project on the side in your new role. That’s like the icky ex imploring, “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it!” No, you don’t bother telling them what to do because, if they really loved you, they would already know.
If you really are serious about making that career change, you would already have rebranded yourself as someone who made that change and as an insider in that new industry and/or new role.
If you are going for a big change like reaching the executive ranks, switching careers, starting a business, my book, Jump Ship: 10 Steps To Starting A New Career, gives a step-by-step plan to change your career to something you love – just $4.99 on Amazon.
