New year, new career? 7 tips on where to begin when you want a new career

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to change your job or career, Bluestream Recruitment is on hand to provide some guidance on where to start this all-important journey.


For some, the most difficult decision isn’t when to hand in their notice or where to go, but what next. If you want to change careers but not really sure what you want to do next, the following questions may help to guide your thoughts.

1.    Ask yourself seriously, why change career now? It’s no use searching for new jobs without an understanding of why you aren’t happy in the first place. What motivates you? What do you think will make you feel fulfilled and happy in your next role? 


2.    Write down the aspects of your current job that you enjoy as well as the ones you don’t. See how they match up. Then write down what you would like to be doing more of as well as new tasks you want to take on. Now you can start researching jobs which require these skills. This can also help you decide if you need to undertake extra training such as an online course, in order to develop your skill set, or if you are able to jump to your preferred position with relative ease.


3.    Perhaps you have skills developed during a degree / college course that you want to use in your job but the job you got when you left higher education didn’t require those skills and therefore you lack experience. At this point try to be realistic, if you completed a degree five years ago in for example HR and Business and want to become a HR manager, ask yourself what can you do to bring those skills up to date in order to be eligible for those kinds of roles?


4.    It can be very difficult to gain experience and juggle out of work training when looking to change career. Another way of going about it, is to speak to your manager / HR department. Explain to them what you are interested in doing and see if they are able to offer you some of the valuable experience you need or even a different position. They are more likely to reposition their trusted employees who are already trained on the company and systems than take on someone new who will need weeks, if not months, of training.


If you want to stay in the same career but do not like the company / environment where you are working, try these simple techniques to help you decide on if and where you want to go:


5.    Firstly, ask yourself if there is anything you can do to improve the situation where you are. This could involve speaking to HR about issues with management / co- workers or, as mentioned before, asking your superiors if you can get involved in other responsibilities outside your normal job role which interest you.



6.    If you have done this and have decided it’s definitely not the place for you, write down exactly what it is that is making you unhappy. For instance, you might write working hours, long commute or management style. You now have a list of non-negotiables to keep in mind when you start applying for other roles within different companies.



7.    Stick to your most important non-negotiables such as distance from home and working hours to give yourself a fighting chance of enjoying your next position, wherever you may end up.