Signs You Might Be Ready for a Career Change

At some point, we’ve all experienced the infamous Sunday Blues, whether we absolutely love our job, or not so much. However, when you find yourself experiencing these feelings more often than not, and on more than just a Sunday evening, perhaps it’s time to explore your options a little. In this article, we’ll explore the key signs it might be time for you to change careers and how you can go about making that change. Let’s get stuck in.

Why do people change careers?

The reasons for people changing careers could be endless. For some, it’s seeking out new growth opportunities. For others, they might find themselves excited by the idea of working within a different field. For others, it simply comes down to higher pay. No matter the actual reason, changing careers can be a daunting idea. Establishing whether or not your job is the source of your current discomfort is the first point of call.

Signs that you’re ready to change careers

You might be asking yourself whether you’d be happier at another company, or you’re currently feeling overworked, underpaid and unappreciated. Whatever you are experiencing at the moment here are the tell-tale signs that you should consider changing careers.

If you are experiencing self-doubt on a regular basis, something needs to change in your working environment. No one wants to constantly be made to feel bad about themselves – in fact, nothing in life is worth sticking out if it constantly brings you down. A rewarding career and work-life should boost your self-confidence and self-esteem, not drag your emotional well-being down. These are some of the questions you should ask yourself:

• Are you confident in your decision making at work?
• Do you feel like you are being seen and heard?
• When was the last time you experienced career progression?

Sunday Blues happen ALL the time for you. Life is too short to only live for 2 days out of 7. Your job should bring you excitement and not have you dreading the Monday to Friday life. Not every day is going to be a great day, but you shouldn’t actively only look forward to weekends.

This is a sure sign of something that needs to be addressed. Find out if this is you by answering these questions:

• Do you feel dread when the weekends come to an end often?
• Do you feel anxious or stressed at the thought of starting a new week?
• Are you experiencing depression during the week?

Is your body or mind telling you enough is enough? If you are unhappy in your current job, it can often manifest as physical or emotional exhaustion, sometimes even both. If you’ve begun experiencing signs of depression or emotional exhaustion, you’ll want to make a change quickly. Especially if your stress levels are starting to take a physical toll on you. Before changing jobs all together, you may want to speak to your current employer about your stress levels and what changes to the environment could alleviate this. Ask yourself these questions to understand if this is what you could be experiencing:

• Do you get a lot of headaches or body aches?
• Are you always exhausted?
• At the end of each workday, do you feel drained?
• Are you struggling to concentrate?
• Are you able to effectively manage stressful situations at work or are you reacting badly? Could your reactions be having a negative impact on your relationships in the workplace?

The boredom of your work can lead to apathy in the workplace, feeling unfulfilled and emotionally and physically drained. Perhaps you feel as though the work you’re doing daily doesn’t matter, then of course you’re not going to want to put in the extra effort. What are your answers to the below questions?

• Do you often not participate in work meetings because you just don’t care?
• Do you find yourself mind-numbingly working through tasks more often than not?
• When was the last time something at work got you excited?

It’s a natural progression for employees who have worked in the same position to outgrow their job. It’s when you find yourself not progressing or not being challenged by your daily work anymore that you need to evaluate whether there is room in your current company to grow.

• Do you feel that you’ve grown in the last year?
• Is there room for you to progress within the company?
• Are you hitting your KPI’s with no talk of career changes within your current company?

Value alignment is probably one of the most important aspects of any relationship. This includes the one you have with the company you work for. There is a 99.9% chance that an employee will find it hard to continue working with a business when their values aren’t aligned.

• Do you feel the company is heading in a direction that doesn’t excite you?
• Do you feel disdain toward the work you’re a part of daily?
• Do you feel the way you have to operate at work contradicts the way you think you should be operating in the world?
• Do you feel a lot of conflict between your personal values and the values of your current employer?

How to prepare for a career change

If you found yourself answering yes to the majority of the above questions, it’s likely you’re in need of a career change. How on earth do you go about it, you ask? Let’s take a look at 5 things you can do to set a new path for your career.

It seems like an obvious place to start but create your ideal dream job. What is it that you’re really interested in? Do you have transferable skills that you can carry over? What does your ideal job look like and entail?

Now that you have an idea of what you want from your career, it’s time to build the skills for it. You should look at it this way: Do I need to upskill, or do I need to totally re-skill? Upskilling means refining or advancing a skill set you already have. Re-skilling means you need to develop new skills all together.

Once you establish this, you’ll know exactly what it’s going to take for you to make a career change. There are so many options out there to further your education, short courses can help you build a specialised skillset through focused learning paths and qualifications will help you build a broader body of knowledge and skills. You can take a short course over a number of weeks or months; in contrast a qualification will take you anywhere from 12 months to a number of years. Map out what you need to build the right skill set and set a time frame.

A mentor is an incredibly helpful asset when looking to change careers . LinkedIn has the option to find mentors in the field of work that you’re interested in. Alternatively, there are plenty of websites that allow you to get in touch with industry leaders who may extend a helping hand on your new career venture. This is also a great time to begin networking and seeing what opportunities are out there.

Take some time to reflect on how far you’ve already come in your career by enhancing your CV or portfolio. Make sure you are highlighting skills that you can transfer into your desired industry. Take the time to highlight any big career achievements over the years, perhaps you got a promotion or won an award at your current employer? Make sure to highlight this!

As a wise man once said: “If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.” Be sure to create a set of goals, both short and long term to keep you on track with the career change you’re after. Setting goals will help you not only keep yourself accountable but it will also help you stop and reward yourself for your achievements.

If you’re ready to take the leap, follow your dreams and be happy ALL days of the week then it’s time to take action. A great place to start is by building the right skillset. You don’t need much to get going, thanks to the affordability and flexibility of distance learning. We have a variety of courses to suit almost any learning goal or level of experience.