Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter

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For many, changing careers can be a scary proposition. There is often no clear path, leaving career switchers fending for themselves.

But there are some key ingredients to cultivating a new career outlook. Career Trend, a website focusing on professionals in career transition, recently outlined some tips in an article by Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter called, “Career Changer: Can You Quell `Bottom-line Ache’?”

Barrett-Poindexter writes, “As in any change, the most effective and manageable transition involves charting a course.”

Though she focuses largely on finding work in the business world, her recommendations could apply to moving toward encore careers in nonprofits, government agencies and elsewhere:

• Do not expect career change to be immediate. It may be a series of steps – up, down and sideways.
• Research opportunities and prepare to show hiring managers how you would provide value.
• Understand employers’ unique needs and showcase stories from your career history that will matter to them.
• Avoid job boards and recruiters; they are generally not effective for people switching careers.
• Strategically chronicle your skills that would transfer into a new career to show hiring managers how you would fit in and excel.
• Be confident, clear about your goals, open to adventure and flexible. Embrace the idea that your goals may evolve during the career change journey.

Barrett-Poindexter, founder of Career Trend, offers various other pieces of advice to potential career switchers. She encourages people lacking the precise experience required by a particular job to “seek out experience through class work, training, volunteer channels and more to fill the gap.”

For more tips and insight, read the Career Trend article here.

And if you’re on Twitter, using the hashtag #CareerCollective you can check out advice from Barrett-Poindexter, Miriam Salpeter of Keppie Careers and more than a dozen other career bloggers. The theme this month is “Best Advice for Career Changers.”