Anyway, it got my attention. Not just because it contains a post about changing careers, but specifically attempting to move out of the Information Technology sector into something totally different. Problem is…to what?

Once you’ve been in IT for as long as this poor soul has, and deeply desire to do something else, where do you start? Here’s a quote from his (or her) post that I think captures the emotion of a software developer who is either suffering from career burnout or real close to it. Take a look…

Been thinking of career path change these days. Totally got sick of doing programming and no value add to myself. Besides spending money on a degree that I don’t know will get but hope to get, I haven’t been updating myself ever since. I feel outdated with the fast moving programming languages. Java, PHP, ASP are so old news. Now, there’s AJAX, XML, and whatever is currently being used or tested online….

In addition, I feel stupid. Slow. Moody about my current choice. I ask myself again why on earth I took this up. Either I’m suffering from some depression about work or I’m tired of doing the same thing and unhappy about being value-less besides being able to document, staple, get user sign-offs, etc.

I’m so into the getting out of my current scope. A career change is not easy. Nobody said it was. One has to uncover the possibilities, plan and consider that the skills are transferable. This is getting more depressing.

Take heart, WishBone. You’re not alone. As a matter of fact, you’re not even in the minority.

I’ve faced the same challenge, myself. I’ve been writing Microsoft code here in the Atlanta area for 12 years now. I know a lot of people, but they’re all programmers or database administrators. And therein lies the problem.

Because programmers are an introverted lot, we tend to hang with our own. We’re the innovators in the technology field. And even though we don’t always seem like it, we do make great conversationalists…as long as you’re willing to talk about object-oriented programming techniques or Microsoft’s latest MSDN offering.

And I think that’s the problem. The Bible is right. No man can live as an island. Yet, too often, we programmers try. It doesn’t work. God didn’t wire man that way.

WishBone is right. Changing careers is hard. But if you’re going to do it, you’ll need help. Help that must come from outside your own circle of friends. What we have to get good at is making that circle bigger. And that means getting out of your comfort zone and forging friendships and acquaintances with people who have nothing to do with IT.

This wasn’t easy for me to do. But I made a concerted effort to do it. And when I did, I found something I didn’t expect to find: not only was making a career change a lot easier, I was a lot happier as well.

Tags: Career Change, God and Career

Marci Albhoer is the author of One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success. If you took note of the slashes in the title of her book, there’s a good reason for them: she calls the multiple career path “the slash effect.”

Marci was a corporate lawyer who was extremely successful. And extremely miserable. She wanted desperately to become a writer instead. But as she found out, it’s very difficult to leave a very high-paying job that you’ve had for a long time.

In an interview with Time Magazine’s blog, Marci shared a bit of her dilemma…

it’s really hard to leave a job you’re trained for, rewarded for and perform well. A friend told her, “I can’t believe you’re so good at a job you hate so much.”

Marci isn’t alone out there. Those with high-paying jobs can be every bit as miserable as those who make less money. In some cases, it can be even worse. If you’ve made the mistake of allowing your lifestyle to rise to match your income (house, cars, and the accompanying payment obligations), you can feel trapped into keeping a job you hate. It’s either stay miserable and keep your overpriced toys, or downsize and take a job you’d be happier doing.

And as you’ve heard me say before, and I’ll say again - you’ll never be happy in your career until you figure out what skills you enjoy spending your 8-hour days using. And that takes a lot of prayer and introspection. Maybe even some career counseling with some wise elders or pastors that you trust.

I fully believe God uses our job satisfaction (or lack thereof) to steer us where he wants us to go. And he certainly can do so as often as he likes. So don’t feel bad if you’re a “career slasher.” Life is too short to dread going to work every day. Find out what your maker put you on this planet to do. Then do it to His glory.

Tags: Career Change, God and Career

If you’re like the other 48 million Americans who hope to start a new job this year, you want to maximize your chances of getting a job offer from a company you really want to work for. As part of the hiring process, most companies want to check your references to verify your character.

But not all employers stop there. In addition to checking your references, they also do a quick internet search on your name to see if there is anything interesting written about you that might cause them concern. And if they find something they don’t like, it could dissuade them from hiring you.

That’s what happened to Washington attorney Christina Parascondola. A local bar in Christina’s neighborhood made an undue amount of noise and commotion by hosting certain questionable public events.

The local press printed Christina’s complaints. So did some popular blogs and internet message boards. One blogger who disagreed with Christina’s views posted a very negative entry about her in his blog. An entry that ranked very highly in a Google search of her name.

The Wall Street Journal quoted Christina as saying “when you google my name, it looks like I’m some kind of monster.”

As a result, she hired a company called Reputation Defender to minimize the bad publicity. Reputation Defender is one of a growing number of companies who help job seekers find damaging information about themselves on the internet. Then they do what they can to eliminate it.

Reputation Defender and their competitors claim they can either remove or neutralize negative comments, blog entries, or even embarrassing digital images of their clients. Such a service could help maximize job candidates’ chances of getting their next job or making a successful career change.

Sometimes, they’ll contact the publication and pleasantly ask them to delete the negative comment. Other times, they’ll use their SEO (search engine optimization) skills to neutralize the negative comment by making other positive comments that will rank more highly in Google searches.

Services like Reputation Defender can cost job candidates can run into several hundred dollars. But if someone has published some negative comments about you that rank highly in the internet search engines, it might be worth it to look into their services. It could greatly improve your chances of getting a job or changing careers.

But be advised: reputation defense firms cannot force anyone to remove negative comments about you. The Constitutional Rights of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press allow anyone to post anything they like. And any attempt to coerce a blogger to remove a negative comment may backfire.

This was the case with Christina Parascondola. Reputation Defender sent a letter directly to the blogger who originally posted the negative press. The blogger not only refused, but posted a new entry that mocked the removal request, saying he “had a good laugh over it.”

Tags: Hiring Process, Legal Issues, Reference Checking

Lyles spent much of her life being a hero. She was a single mother who worked hard to raise her two kids. Her dedication to her job allowed her to move from patrol officer to detective in a few short years. She was a role model to young women who felt trapped by single motherhood.

Lyles trusted deeply in God and believed she should always do the right thing. Even though working on the police force wasn’t an ideal job, Lyles took it to support her children.

But she had always wanted to be a flight attendant.

In 2001, she got her chance. Her kids were older, and shed married a man who supported her dreams. She graduated from flight school at the end of January and took a job with United Airlines. She loved her new job.

All that changed on September 11, 2001. Lyles was one of the flight attendants on United Airlines Flight 93 which crashed in a Pennsylvania field. The terrorists on board were planning to turn the doomed Boeing 767 toward the East and fly it into the White House.Lyles was one of the flight attendants on United Airlines Flight 93, the one that crashed in a Pennsylvania field.

Lyles was used to having courage. Her family and her previous job demanded it. Lyles was one of the five flight attendants who boiled water to throw on the 9/11 hijackers. She likely used her self-defense skills to help the passengers try to regain control of the aircraft as well.

She called her family minutes before the crash, telling them that she loved them and that she was praying for the passengers.

Lyles trusted in God and lived a life of daily sacrifices. When He asked her to make one final sacrifice for others, she was ready.

-Lauren Fogle

Tags: Career Change, God and Career

Here’s the good news: we’re in a buyer’s market. The depressed housing market means bargain basement prices for you if you’re planning on a job relocation to take your next position.

Here’s the bad news: we’re a buyer’s market! That means if you’re trying to sell your house to take a job in a different city or state, your timing had better be impeccable. It may take a long time to sell the house you live in now. Longer than it ever has in recent years.

This means you run the risk of having two house payments at once - something most of us can ill afford.

Take Conrad Coles, for example. Conrad lives in the southern suburbs of metro Atlanta where he owns a $528,000 house, according to the Atlanta Journal & Constitution.

Back in April, Conrad took a job in Richmond, VA with a major petroleum company, leaving his family back in Atlanta to until his house sold. His new company gave him 45 days of living expenses - pretty standard in corporate America for his executive level. Both Conrad and his new employer figured 45 days would be more than enough for him to sell his home and relocate his family to the Richmond area.

But it wasn’t. Here it is June 13, 2007, and the “For Sale” sign still decorates his front yard in Hampton, GA.

Major U.S. corporations typically pay anywhere fromj $60,000 to $100,000 to relocate a senior executive from one place to another. That figure is designed to cover moving expenses, househunting trips, realtor commissions, and closing costs (not to mention taxes). And that’s the average - some companies pay even more for top-level executive talent.

But not every job seeker is so fortunate. Even junior level executives seldom get a relocation package of any significant size. And there’s very little protection for them if their houses take longer than expected to sell.

If your job search or career change means relocating to a new city, this is an issue you must consider. If you cannot afford the prospect of two housing payments, you may have to make a tough choice.

You may have to limit your job choices to employers who offer a significant job relocation package to provide this level of safety. If that’s not an option for you, you may have to consider putting off changing jobs until there the housing market shifts back in the seller’s favor…at least for a little while.

Tags: Job Relocation, Job Search

It all comes back to skills.

God put you on the earth with a set of skills He wants you to use to service Him as well as others. You may have a very large set of skills you can use. Then again, you may have only one thing you do well. But whether your list of skills is large or small, there are a set of skills you have inside you that you enjoy using.

I call this skillset your “core complex” of skills. When you have a job that utilizes your core complex, you’ll find yourself looking forward to going to work every day. You’ll find yourself wanting to go the extra mile. Not only that, but you’ll become very content with the work you do. And godliness with contentment is great gain (1Tim 6:6).

Are you using the skills on your job that you particularly enjoy? If not, what are those skills you like to use? In order to answer that, you need to do a little introspection.

Think through the jobs you’ve had in the past. Even if they were only part-time jobs. If you used a skill in the past that you really liked, it’s a better-than-average chance that skill is part of your core complex. Write it down. Then think about another skill you enjoyed. Write that one down as well.

Pretty soon, you’ll have a pretty good list of skills that you like to use - skills that make up your core complex of skills. Once you’ve got a nice tight list, find out what jobs make use of those skills. Chances are you’d be pretty content in that job or one like it.

Skill evaluation is a very important part of career planning. It will give you some direction and indication of what job fields you’d be happiest in. Maybe you can find yourself in the minority - of people who like their jobs.

Tags: Career Planning, God and Career, Skills

The results run the gamut of helpfulness. Some say “you’re an ISFE” or a “Driver-Analytical.” I’ve even seen one that says “you’re a green.” Ooookay.

What Career Tests Really Measure

What’s really going on here has to do with the way people who have gone before you answered those same questions.

The testing service essentially compares your answer choices with large groups of people who answered those questions more or less the same way you did. The idea here is if your answers match those who have a meticulous eye for detail, then they’ll label you “analytical.”

On the other hand, if your answer choices indicate that you’re more aligned with quiet, pleasant personalities, they might label you as an “amiable.” You get the idea.

Then they compare job descriptions (all of which are catalogued) with people who have held those jobs in the past. If most “analyticals” have done well as computer programmers (and they have, by the way), then you should be happy working as a computer programmer. Or that’s the theory, anyway.

Theory Doesn’t Always Hold Water

Does this theory work? Sometimes. But other times not. It all depends on the individual.

Career Tests serve as a starting point. And not a bad one, either. Especially if you’re just coming out of school or are in the middle of your working life and haven’t really discovered anything you like doing yet (don’t feel badly if you’re in the second category - you’ve got a lot of company there).

But you regardless of your career test results, keep this in mind. The questionnaire recommends career directions based on other people who answered those questions the same way. If I can coin a term from Survivor, this only tells you what “tribe” you belong to.

What no career test can measure is YOU. It’s okay to say that you’re like a certain group of people is a number of respects. But not in others. Chances are the career advice those test scores give might have some job choices on them that you wouldn’t like at all.

I’m a Real Life Example…

I know that certainly was the case for me. In 1992, I tested out to be an “analytical.” Based on that, I should have been perfectly happy with a career in accounting. I wasn’t. I hated it. But as a computer programmer - totally different story. I’ve been writing computer code since 1995, and have been there pretty much ever since.

What was the difference? I have a lot of creative juices that I like using in my job. Accounting doesn’t allow for that. On the contrary, creative accountants go to jail!

Programmers, on the other hand, have to find creative solutions to problems to technical problems - some of which other programmers have never found before. That was exciting to me. But somebody who loves accounting might not be able to deal with that level of uncertainty. YetAgain, you just never know.

My point is, you can’t blindly go by what a career test tells you. It’s a good starting point, but it can never measure the one thing that will make you happy as you change careers: You.

Tags: Career Advice, Career Change

Those right things involve researching the companies that can make the best use of your skills. Then identifying people that work in those jobs, making contact with them, and offering to take them to lunch in exchange for an “informational interview.”

Do enough of these and you’ll soon develop a core group of people willing to help you find jobs in their companies - jobs that you’ll have the inside track to get before anybody else even knows about them.

Personal Networking Pays Off, But It Takes Some Work

How hard will you have to work in order for this technique to pay off for you? I wish I could answer that one. I can’t. The answer is different for everybody. But I can tell you that it pays off in spades. Take Henry, for example.

Henry lived in Atlanta, and wanted to move to Phoenix, AZ. Phoenix is significantly smaller than Atlanta, but Henry desperately wanted to move there, so he started developing a long distance network of new acquaintances that could help him.

Through his research, Henry uncovered 108 places that sounded interesting enough to work for. Henry made a total of 127 phone calls to people who worked in Phoenix at those 108 companies. After all those calls, he narrowed down his list from 108 possible employers to 46.

Get This Many Job Offers, And All You Have To Do Is Cherry-Pick

He travelled to Phoenix to meet with some of the people he had called. When he returned home, he had narrowed the list down to 27 possible opportunities. Out of those 27, he got 12 job offers. 12 offers!

From there it was easy. Henry just picked the one that sounded most interesting with the people who seemed the most pleasant to work with. As far as I know he’s still there, and probably as happy as he’s ever been.

Now, will you have to do as much work to find a job in a new city as Henry did? Maybe. Maybe not. But I’ll tell you what - when you’re facing the daunting task of moving to entirely new surroundings, it sure is nice to have a huge network of contacts who know you, and know how to get ahold of you if they want to hire you.

Conducting a job search in a far-away town is hard. But not impossible. What Henry did isn’t that hard. But he didn’t do it with 5 resumes and 2 phone calls. It will take some work. But if you’re willing to put in the effort, a job relocation like this can work for you, too.

Tags: Career Planning, Job Relocation

Finding a job in another city is challenging, but not impossible. But you have to go about it systematically and sensibly. There are many ways to do this. Below, I outline one possible way.

Be advised, without knowing any more about this person’s situation than they gave in the question stem, I didn’t have a lot to go on other than “stay out of the personnel departments.” Nonetheless, I felt compelled to steer this poor soul in a direction I thought might be somewhat helpful.

So here’s my answer…

The first thing I have to ask is why do you want to move to a city before you know there’s work there for you? That’s the one you have to answer first. Let’s assume you have a great reason and you know there are jobs there with companies that will value your skills enough to hire you. Assuming that…

Do some research. Go online and find what companies there are that have the jobs you want.

Then ask some family members or friends if they know of anyone in that city that you can call on the phone. Call them on the phone and ask them who they know in those companies you’re interested in working for. Then telephone those people and ask their advice on getting hired in that company.

Once you get 3-4 people in those target companies willing to give you advice, plan a trip to that city for a couple of days. Offer to take those people to lunch so you can pick their brains in person.

This is called an informational interview, and you need to become good at doing them. They pay off in spades when you get ahold of the right person who can help you.

Once they see you and shake your hand and can tell you’re an ok guy to work with, they’re likely to pass your name and number to their bosses with a personal recommendation. Then you have an inside track into those companies.

Your goal in all this is to stay out of the personnel department if at all possible. Go directly to the hiring manager or someone who works for that authority.

Job relocation is challenging enough. But relocating to a city without first having a job there is risky business. How do you know there’s a job there you won’t just hate? Again, do some research before you go there, and make a few visits prior to moving there.

The benefit to you will be a lot less job stress and a better idea if you really should be moving there in the first place. With some concerted effort and a lot of help from some new friends, finding a job in a new city will be a lot easier.

Tags: Job Relocation, Job Search, Job Stress

But they turned you down.

After you get over the initial shock of their negative response, you’ll undoubtedly replay the interview scenario over in your mind. “What could they possibly not have liked about me? My clothes? My breathe, perhaps? What could I have done differently to have at least made it to the next step in the interview process?”

Don’t feel like you’re the only one who has ever had these reactions. We all have. And probably will again. It just comes with the position you’ve found yourself in: job seeker.

Remember, finding the right job is a lot like finding the right spouse. 99.9% of the job interviews you go one are going to end in your NOT getting the job. You’re looking for the one that doesn’t.

True, getting through the “no’s” takes a lot of time and effort - not to mention the emotional let downs when it becomes clear that your most recent effort won’t turn into a job offer for you. But you’ve got to go through it…kind of like Georgia on your way to Florida. You’ve got to go through it.

That’s why it’s so important to know what jobs you truly want before you even begin interviewing, but that’s another topic for another day (so keep your feed reader pointed right here at Career Peace).

But just know this: if the job interview you just went on didn’t produce a job offer, know this: There is NOTHING wrong with you!

You weren’t the one they were looking for? Well, guess what? They weren’t the one you were looking for, either. That company just happens to be in the 99.9%. You just didn’t happen to find this out until you met them.

How many first dates have you gone on where it became painfully clear that this relationship was going to come to a grinding halt as soon as you said ‘good night?’

Smile. Write them a thank you note, and move on to the next potential employer.

Tags: Job Interview, Job Search