Been on the same career path for too long?  Or worse, you’re mis­er­able doing what you do so you look up cur­rent oppor­tu­ni­ties “in your same field,” think­ing that per­haps if you change com­pa­nies things will be bet­ter? So you start your search…Just for kicks, you browse over to indus­tries you deep down real­ly want. You see a fab­u­lous vacant posi­tion you know you’d rock if only you were giv­en the opportunity…it’s so tempt­ing, but you quick­ly talk your­self into believ­ing that it’s a long shot and you best stick with what you know.

Many of us have been there.  We read the title and the rest of the job descrip­tion and we get excit­ed.  This job has your name writ­ten all over it!  Then you read the require­ments: 3+ years doing x,y and z…that can be quite dis­cour­ag­ing, I know.

How­ev­er, what if…?  “If” sounds excit­ing.  Have you thought about your trans­fer­able skills?  Have you thought about your cur­rent qual­i­fi­ca­tions and how you can trans­fer them into a new posi­tion in a total­ly dif­fer­ent field?  You may not have a back­ground in said field, but you have been doing a, b and c for over a decade and this is how you would use your cur­rent expe­ri­ence and knowl­edge to do ________ (explain in detail).

I believe you can; I believe the best employ­ers appre­ci­ate and respect career chang­ers because they under­stand that it takes guts to let go of some­thing you’ve been doing for so long–something safe–and start some­where new.

“It is impos­si­ble to live with­out fail­ing at some­thing, unless you live so cau­tious­ly that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case, you fail by default.” J.K. Rowl­ing

I under­stand that we often have to work in places and with peo­ple who are not very fab­u­lous.  We all have bills to pay.  But if you can afford to take the risk, I’d say go for it!  Look for oppor­tu­ni­ties that make you want to jump out of bed in the morn­ing.  Get a list going.  I have what I call my “Dream Team.”  These are the dif­fer­ent clients, com­pa­nies and peo­ple I’d love to some­how be affil­i­at­ed with, pro­fes­sion­al­ly.  Get your own “Dream Team” list going and start writ­ing the com­pa­nies and peo­ple you’d like to work with and for.  Think of the many ways you can add val­ue to them.  Get to know the key stake­hold­ers and deci­sion mak­ers on a per­son­al lev­el.  Send them a well thought-out let­ter; send them many!  Be pleas­ant­ly per­sis­tent.  Polite­ly show them how you would help them solve a prob­lem they are cur­rent­ly fac­ing.  After all, they would­n’t be hir­ing if they did­n’t need help.

I knew a high­ly pro­fes­sion­al, super suc­cess­ful man who would send news­pa­per clip­pings to oth­er col­leagues.  How impres­sive!  It takes effort to read an arti­cle, cut it out and place it in the mail.  Be gen­uine and lik­able.  Know that it takes courage to be coura­geous!  I know you can do this.  And if all else fails, you have that safe, mun­dane career to go back to.  No pup­pies will die because of this.  You can always go back to your com­fort zone.  But imag­ine if you were doing what you loved?  The world would be bet­ter because of it.  The sun would shine brighter and the skies would be clear­er. The world needs your clos­et genius.  You could very well be the one who will show up and dis­rupt the entire indus­try.  But you will nev­er know if you don’t try.

“The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” Steve Jobs

As always, thank you for your sup­port.  Please don’t for­get to leave me a com­ment if you found this arti­cle help­ful and share your expe­ri­ences or new ideas on the top­ic, if you have any. 🙂