Career Change Resources?

Question

What do you think are the best resources for deciding whether to change careers and to which career? I'm nearing 40, have been in one career for ten years, and have a family. I can't afford to drop my current job unless I have a new one with similar pay, and I feel I am too old to try a lot of different jobs before making a career move.

I'm going through "What Color Is Your Parachute" currently but wondered if there were other resources people would suggest?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi,

I went through something similar about 10 years before you did. I

I read the "What Color is my Parachute" book thinking that I could figure it out on my own. Then, when I couldn't and too much time passed, I decided to go through the career counselor route. We did a couple different assessments and figured out my values in a job, certain core competencies I desired, etc. Then the career counselor had me pick through certain standard career choices based on the assessment results.

Well, I couldn't find anything I liked. So, then I started to talk to different people in different industries and also tried to set-up informational interviews. Informational interviews were difficult to set-up and find though.

So, my career counselor told me to try going to this site:

http://www.jobpodge.com

It's a site of real life job descriptions. People giving their first hand experience of their jobs. This can help you skip some of the informational interviewing process.

Not sure where you live either but you can go to this site where my career counselor works and they have other links to different career resources:

http://www.novaworks.org