Career Change Advice and Tips

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All of the career change advice and tips on this site can be found on this page. You'll find resume ideas and cover letters for career changers, and plenty of tips on how to choose a career.

Career Tests and Decision Making Tools

Career Personality Tests
A career personality test is one effective way to ensure you make the best career choice for your personality type.

Career Aptitude Tests
An aptitude test can be used to assess your capacity to learn a variety of different skills. It can help you to understand the types of skills that you will learn easily and those that will be more challenging for you to learn.

General Aptitude Test Battery
The General Aptitude Test Battery, also known as the GATB, measures nine different aptitudes and can be used to help assess the likelihood that you will be successful in specific careers or training programs. Learn more about the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB).

Strong Interest Inventory
The Strong Interest Inventory (sometimes referred to as the Strong or the SII) is a well researched and extensively validated career placement test which can help you determine jobs that are likely to be a good fit with your interests.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
The Myers Briggs personality test (formally known as the Myers Briggs Type Indicator or MBTI for short) is a personality assessment which aims to give you insight into how you perceive the world and make decisions. It can help you determine careers that are a good match with your personal preferences.

Choose It! for Decision Making Confidence
Smart decision making will help you to gain enormous control over the direction of your career and your future. Choose It! is a free program that helps you think logically and systematically through all kinds of choices.

Career Decision Test - Decisional Balance
A decisional balance is like a super-charged pro and con list that helps you to think through all sides of a decision.

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Labor Market Research

Career Research
Use this excellent career research tool to discover new career options.

Highest Paying Careers
Top ten lists of the highest paying careers have limited value when you are making career choices. While career salary statistics are important to have, simple lists of best paying careers limit you because, they carry extremely limited information.

Career Change Question
A reader asked for information on making a career change and discovering potential career opportunities after spending ten years in the same field of work. Here is his question and my response.

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Transferable Skills

Transferable Skills Increase Your Job Options
Transferable skills are the skills you develop through any activity. By thinking of and marketing yourself as a set of skills that you can offer to employers, instead of just a job title, you can open up a lot of opportunities for yourself.

Transferable Skill Worksheet
Here is a worksheet that will help you brainstorm your transferable skills.

Transferable Skills Analysis
More tools and strategies for conducting a thorough transferable skills analysis.

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Work-Life Balance

Parents Returning to Work - Managing Work History Gaps
Parents returning to work will likely have gaps in their work history that, at some point, can start to raise questions in the minds of employers. Learn how to minimize the gaps on your resume and at the interview.

Moms Returning to Work
Moms returning to work have an easier time finding a satisfying job when they take steps to stay involved in their industry. Learn how to maintain business contacts and protect your earning power when you're out of work.

Retirement Jobs - Career Planning After Retirement
Finding appropriate retirement jobs and understanding career planning after retirement has become an important aspect of career management for many people. A significant number of people are choosing phased retirement which allows them to down-shift but not completely leave work and career responsibilities.

Second Career Choice in Your Thirties
Pursuing a second career choice and making a career change in your thirties is quite common. Often your first career decisions happen at some point in your late teens or early twenties. Those early career decisions are made with 20 something priorities and values in mind, so it's not surprising that some people reach their thirties and find that their career choices are no longer a good fit with their values or goals.

Second Career Options
When considering second careers many people make the mistake of assuming they'll have to abandon all of the momentum, skills and experience they've built up from their current career and jump into something completely new and unrelated. While it is possible and sometimes necessaary to make that kind of drastic career change, a subtle shift can often be a better career change option for people looking at second careers.

High Paying Careers
Finding high paying careers that are a good fit for your natural abilities and your preferences and values need not be a difficult task. Salary information is an important factor when making a career decision, and there are plenty of free, reliable resources that will help you find high paying careers in your area.

Work Values
Do you know whether your work values and personal needs match with your career choice? Matching work values with career choice is crucial for job satisfaction.

Life Work Balance
It's a shame to live life entrenched in a job that doesn't fit well with your personal needs or allow you to achieve life work balance. You'll make smarter career choices when you take the time to consider your personal needs.

How to Choose a Career
9 things to consider when choosing a career.

Pursuing Career Success on Your Own Terms
Take some time to think through your motivations for pursuing career success. If you're following someone else's dream and not really pursuing your own version of career success, then you could be setting yourself up for self sabotage.

Making a Career Change
Making a career change can be the right decision at many points in your life. With a little research, you'll find plenty of career change options. Learn to plan and manage your next career change.

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Job Search Strategies for Career Changers

Career Change Resumes
Usually, the best career change resumes are combination resumes. Use these tips to develop a winning career change resume.

Career Change Resume Writing
More tips on career change resume writing. Career change resume writing can feel like a challenging task. When you're writing a resume for a new career, focus on the skills you have that are relevant to your new career instead of your old job title and skills that are less relevant to your new career.

Career Change Cover Letter
When you're working on a career change cover letter, keep a few simple points in mind to highlight your skills and qualifications for your new job.

 
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