The Realities of a Career Transition

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If you’ve been thinking of making a career change, you are not alone. Even if you aren’t impacted by mass lay-offs, seeing your existing career go nowhere, would make you consider options that offer you growth and an opportunity to make an impact.?

However, career transition (which is more than just a job switch) can often be an emotionally fraught process – one that involves confusion, loss, insecurity, and struggle. Big changes can be exhilarating, but they’re also terrifying.

What makes career transitions so difficult??

Herminia Ibarra , Charles Handy Professor of Organisational Behaviour at 英国伦敦商学院 has been researching career reinvention for more than two decades.?

She highlights the following barriers that make career transitions difficult.?

1. Not knowing what to do next - Will introspection and soul searching suffice in giving you clarity?
2. Limiting Mindset - So far most of our career moves were scripted - get a degree, get campus recruited, work hard to climb the corporate ladder and so on. Suddenly these scripts are no longer applicable. Anxiety, uncertainty, loss of professional identity and fear of failure are only natural.
3. Inadequate Networks - Many professionals find it tough to network within the group of people they work with. Transitioning calls for tapping into far flung networks in new industries and disciplines where no one knows your track record. How do you go about it?
4. Financial Constraints - Taking time off from existing commitments that offer financial security to explore what’s needed to transition can be challenging and at times inhibiting.?
5. Lacking the right skills - Aspiring career changers, especially those with decades of experience behind them fear lacking requisite skills and being perceived as over qualified at the same time. These worries are very real with significant impact on progress towards a new career.?

So what works?

Herminia Ibarra presents a model for career reinvention that flies in the face of everything we've learned from "career experts"—and is tailor-made for changing careers in today's uncertain world. Read the latest blog on Bridge to Leadership to find out what she proposes.

Also Explore : The Masterplan Program by Strategy Training

Further resources to explore:

• Working Identity | Unconventional Strategies for reinventing your career?– By Herminia Ibarra
• Act Like a Leader and Think Like a Leader?– By Herminia Ibarra
• Why career transitions are so hard. How to better manage them?- By Herminia Ibarra
• Five Barriers to Career Change – and how to overcome them? - By Herminia Ibarra, Kendall Smith and Neil Courtis
• The Master Plan Program by Strategy Training