How to Transition Out of the Financial Services Industry
Get Ahead by LinkedIn News
We talk about leveling up, about geting ahead in your career and about excelling where you are right now.
You may desire to change career paths as you progress in your profession. If you are in the financial services industry and want to move on, understand how to translate your transferable skills, network, and more to transition.
If you desire to leave your career in the financial services industry behind, you are not alone.?
An increasing number of workers in all industries are “eager for change” and “taking their experience and skills to new roles at an accelerated pace,” according to a LinkedIn News 2021 study. It showed that of the over 800 million LinkedIn members globally, the number of people changing roles in October 2021 was up 25% compared to the pre-pandemic period in October 2019.?
Like any profession, transitioning out of the financial services industry successfully takes the right game plan.?
For career advancement coach and author of “Self-promotion for Introverts” Nancy Ancowitz, that started with self-assessment and the realization that her career in the financial services industry was causing burnout. She transitioned to the career coaching space.?
“I loved my job on Wall Street,” Ancowitz said. “I was the marketing vice president at a major financial firm, and I had a wonderful team. I had the best boss of my career. I had everything I wanted, [but] I had hired a coach who held up a mirror and said, ‘You're facing burnout.’ She suggested I take a leave of absence.”
Ancowitz first asked for a three-month leave of absence, which turned into a six-month, then nine-month, and then a 12-month leave.?
“During that time, I got enough sleep to actually realize that, ‘Wow, there's more to life than Wall Street, and I can expand my life, I can do more,’” Ancowitz said. “‘I can do some things that would be amazing.’ So I reflected that during my volunteer time, I was volunteering for an international community, helping people get ahead in their careers, helping them get jobs, helping them with interview skills, all these necessities that are really concrete and helpful and that I had learned over the years.’”
Ancowitz’s story contains one of the first key steps of transitioning out of the financial services industry: identifying your reason for leaving and pinpointing your new passion and career path.?
Start With a Self-Assessment When You Want to Transition Out of the Financial Services Industry
Take a moment to self-evaluate when you decide you want to leave the financial services industry.
“Take an assessment of not necessarily what skills you have [but] the value and the impact that you have,” said career and job search coach Kolby Goodman. “How have you been able to help an organization make money or save money, or save time, or limit their risk? As a candidate moving forward, that is how you are going to sell yourself.
“You are going to be hired by your next company because you are able to bring some kind of monetary impact. Really understand how that is, whether that is through your own research, going to your customers, your co-workers, and understanding how you have been able to have an impact on business. That will give you a good starting point to how you want to market yourself moving forward.”?
Also, brainstorm what you want to do next and identify your transferable skills.?
“If you are more introverted, you could brainstorm [alone] on a piece of paper or otherwise. You can do it out loud with a friend or a trusted colleague or a mentor or a coach,” Ancowitz said. “Think of your transferable skills, what do you have to offer that the world needs?
“I also believe in asking your colleagues or former colleagues, ‘What do you appreciate most about me?’ You get some gems. People will hold up the mirror for you, and sometimes you may not see it in yourself what you are amazing at. Maybe your analytical skills are better than you thought. And coming from the financial world, you may have great analytical skills, you may be great at doing research, you may be great at presenting, whatever it is, analyzing numbers, analyzing data.”
Take those skills and see where they could transfer, Ancowitz said.??
领英推荐
How to Use Your Transferable Skills to Transition Out of the Financial Services Industry
Once you have identified your transferable skills, it is time to make them work for you to start a new career path.?
“As for transferable skills, it is all about learning to speak the language of the hiring manager you're targeting,” Ancowitz said. “So looking, for instance, at a job ad on LinkedIn and saying, ‘OK, here are the areas of responsibility, education, experience. Here are the biggies that this hiring manager is looking for.’
“‘How can I convert what I have to speak their language, turning my experience, my skills, and my knowledge into language they will relate to based on their listing?’ Make them very oriented. Speak their language.”
Also, incorporate your soft skills into your resume and LinkedIn profile.?
“The transferable skill sets you want to focus on are the soft skills,” Goodman said. “The emotional intelligence. The empathy, listening, and problem-solving. ‘How does your brain tick? What are your built-in algorithms or operating systems that help you solve idea problems?’ If you are lacking in those, [be proactive], sharpen those skills, both hard and soft.
“Go to your co-workers, go to your boss, go to your customers or your clients and ask them a simple question of, ‘How have I been able to help you?’ The answer to that question will give you understanding about things that you can take that are appreciated no matter what the company, no matter what the industry, and no matter what the client. And those are the things you can really build on moving forward.”
Revamp Your Resume and Network
Update your resume with transferable skills to reflect the industry and roles you want to transition into.?
“I'm a fan of a top section that is just a couple of lines of text,” Ancowitz said. “Call it a summary. Never an objective. A summary is more about what you offer that they need as opposed to an objective, that is what you want. Come up with a few sentences that tie in those keywords of the [hiring manager’s] language that they use in their LinkedIn and other job postings.”
Make yourself as marketable as possible by highlighting your transferable skills as well.
“Historically, people tend to write their resumes as a list of responsibilities or skill sets that they've previously had,” Goodman said. “We need to evolve that into being a real piece of marketing about what they can do and the impact that they can have in their next role. You need to sell yourself as an asset…because that is how you are being evaluated. Who is this person, what is their expertise?
“What tangible outcomes have they provided with this expertise, and how do we as the employer benefit from that package? And that is where I think a lot of people go wrong. They sell themselves as qualified candidates, which are a dime a dozen. What you want to do is sell yourself as an impactful candidate who is going to have a positive return on investment.”
Also, network within your circle and with recruiters, hiring managers, and professionals in the industry you want to transition into.?
“A huge mistake when it comes to the networking part of this process is [people] ignore everybody that they have already invested social energy into,” Goodman said. “Before you go out there and try to make brand new friends with strangers, leverage the existing network that you have. Let's say you want to get into high tech, you want to go work for a Google or an Apple or a Meta, but you don't know anybody personally in those companies.
“You want to go on LinkedIn and figure out what your six degrees of separation are. How do you get a warm introduction to somebody either doing the job that you want or in the company that you want to be at? Start exploring and developing relationships through those warm introductions, because that is where ultimately, you are going to see a lot more success versus simply just cold outreach on something like LinkedIn.”?
Top Takeaways
How to Transition Out of the Financial Services Industry