For those of you that have changed career path. When/how did you know it was time?
Fariz Hakim
16 replies
Was it on accident or did you plan it all along? Was the first choice disappoint you more or the other choice was more attractive?
Or have you, for whatever reason, as a person changed?
And if you could give advice to a person that hasn't found their "true" career path yet or already have one but is afraid to make the change, what would it be?
Really appreciate for any story and insigt
Toodaloo!
Replies
Kiefer Kazimir@exemplar
It was mostly accidental. I had been working as a baker but came across WeWorkRemotely.com somehow. I saw an ad for a customer support position at a remote company based in France and thought, "Hey, that seems interesting. Why not apply?"
Eight years later and I have a pretty established career as a technical writer and have lived in over a dozen countries. I still live abroad now.
> And if you could give advice to a person that hasn't found their "true" career path yet or already have one but is afraid to make the change, what would it be?
Try not to think of your career path as being equal to your "true purpose." Sometimes, jobs are just a stepping stone to something greater -- and this something greater isn't visible until years later. Steve Jobs had a good quote about this, which is: "You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." I've found that to be largely true.
If you feel like your new job opportunity is exciting and could branch into more interesting things, I say go for it!
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Interesting questions, would love to hear others' stories too.
After completing my Engineering I started working as a Business/Data Analyst with Fractal. My creative problem solving skills helped me grow as a Business Analyst and I was quite enjoying it. After 3 years, I moved to Quantiphi and started managing the BI projects for various clients. I was doing fine, and one fine day the founders suggested I should get into a sales or a marketing role, as it will go well with the kind of personality traits I have.
I thought for a week, spoke to my friends, professional friends, and I took the challenge up!
And it was a good decision.
And changing career tracks has helped me big time. From Engineering to Analytics to AI to Marketing and eventually now to Growth.
Depending on what one's aspirations are, one should choose changing or not changing career tracks. If you want to start your own company then having knowledge of multiple domains and functions helps for sure. But if you stick to one function/tech/profile then your vertical growth expedites sooner.
At the end of the day its about finding what you love to work on :)
@kapilgadhire Really interesting career you got going on there haha. I think having the right environment also helps you to uncover/unleash the hidden potential that you never know you have in the first place :D
For me it was when I realised that i was no longer so passionate about my role and coundnt really see any next roles that would solve that issue.
The way i did it was the expensive way, via an MBA, but i don't think you need that for most career changes. The better and cheaper way to do it is to start working on something in your spare time (whether it's blogging, coding, building a website or startup idea etc.) This will give you a feel for a/ do you like the other activity better and b/ are you good at it.
Another option is to take a gap year if your company allows (or take some time off) and try to do some kind of internship in the gap.
Hope this helps and best of luck!
@iamgoconnor Thanks for sharing! Really nice advice on actually start working on the other things you would rather do :)
I changed my career from the coding field to the management field.
I felt liking coding is not made for me, it lacks my interest in the same. While pursuing my graduation in coding I used to attract towards management subjects more than coding subjects. That's how I explored the management field and pursued my career in digital marketing.
@vaibhav_taneja I already heard many people go from other things to coding, but rarely the other way around. Thanks!
Career decisions and the way people's career shape is one of the problem statements we are trying to solve. I started my career as a teacher, moved towards EdTech and find myself building a platform to help young people achieve their career goals. From the outside it may look like I changed careers, but to me it was a natural transition into new roles.
From my own experience, I think it's important to identify your core skills, and view them in context of market requirements before taking a career decision, especially when making a change.
@geetanjalishrivastava YES! I think having a "vague" goals could also be an advantage. In your case, you always have been helping young people, it just how you do it changed :)
@fariz_hakim I think what helps most people is having at least some idea of what they want to do in life, and not just follow the herd / trends / peer advice, whether it's in the beginning, or at a later stage.