Planning for a career transition or change
Sydney Career Coach, Tina Monk, was recently featured in a Daily Telegraph article highlighting professionals who have made a lateral move or leap of faith to pursue a career change passion. Below is the section of the article featuring Tina.
Whether you stay in the same industry, pursue a passion, switch to a completely different industry, or become self-employed, career pivots can come in many different shapes and forms.
Tina Monk, of Sydney Career Coaching, who is in her early 70s, is a careers coach who transitioned at the age of 65.
She is well placed to talk through the skills that are needed for a successful job change.
“I have been in business for over 35 years and worked as a corporate trainer and executive coach. I aged out of that at 65 because it is a very high-energy and demanding job. I pared it back and went full-time into career/life/executive coaching for private individuals because it is much less energy-draining,” Monk says.
“The best way to plan a career transition is to conduct a thorough assessment of your transferable skills, strengths and achievements, update your resume and, most importantly, leverage your professional network – 60 to 80 per cent of jobs are gained through networking these days.
“You need resilience and an ability to get on with younger co-workers. Teamwork is now vitally important – so you must be a team player. It also helps if you are upbeat and outgoing. You also need to be willing to embrace change and learn new skills.”
Many people want to change careers later in life because they feel they have the potential to do something more meaningful and motivating. Maybe they are bored with a long-term job and want to explore new opportunities, or maybe their skills are not being fully utilised.
Is it best to look for a new career with similarities to your old one?
According to Monk, that rather depends on how old you are. If you are 60, have always worked in IT and now want to retrain as a lawyer, that takes four years of training. Have you got that long?
The most obvious move when thinking about a career change later in life is a lateral one. Something within the same realm of experience, albeit a different role.
But there is great reward in shifting to something completely different. Something which uses different skills and encourages you to learn new things, which is vital for mental dexterity as we inevitably approach older age.