Switching careers laterally - Part 1

As some of you know, I first changed my career from Manufacturing Automation to IT Software & Consulting; and more recently I made a move to Banking Industry.

Managing lateral career changes has two aspects to it. First - how do you convince the employer that you are the right person for the job, even though you don’t necessarily have prior experience in the same field per se. And second, once you get the job, how do you excel in the new domain.

Each of these, calls for careful planning, preparation and smartly mapping your expertise into the new environment. Let’s talk about the first part today.

A careful lateral switch

You will need to research and systematically identify the domain or industry you would like to move to. You also need to identify logical entry points. Once I decided to move to the software industry, Telecom was the logical entry point for me, given that I was working on device drivers and communication protocols, which is common to Telecom Industry. So careful mapping of overlap between the two domains will help you narrow down your options for logical entry point.

Once you have done your research thoroughly and identified your entry-point, you can look-up senior decision-makers at your dream companies. Before you approach them, follow their strategies, recent news about them, and develop a point of view. Often, I am pinged by prospective candidates, who have a well-studied, mature point-of-view on what my company is doing, or where the digital market is headed, etc. Good leaders who are looking for talent, are okay with such unsolicited soft-selling of one’s candidature.

There are a few ways to get started and crack the interviewing process for a lateral switch.

Leveraging failed interviews 

It is quite normal to fail the first couple of interviews. Don’t lose heart. In fact, these interviews help you understand what employers are looking for. Use this opportunity to dissect the failure. In one of my interviews when I was looking at switching to IT consulting, I failed miserably. I could not convincingly answer, “How do you assure quality of the software you write?” While we were doing a lot of QA testing, simulated testing, etc. in my previous jobs, I could not relate my answer in the language of Software industry or PCMM framework, as it was new to me. Without letting this bog me down though, I went to a bookshop right after the interview and bought the most popular books on PCMM and Software Project management. I studied them and was able to correlate my experience with the PCMM framework and articulate it in the industry’s language. Can you imagine, after such preparation I landed a job in the world’s first PCMM level-5 company – Wipro!

Subtly shifting the conversation

You will not always know the answers to an interviewer’s questions. And that is perfectly okay. The more important bit is how you find a ‘bridge’ between what you know and what the interviewer is after. In one of the interviews, I was asked “Have you developed UIs?”. I had not. However instead of saying a plain no, I replied, “The type of software I develop, mostly involves device drivers, and not much UI.” And the next question was “Can you share some of the problems you faced in developing device drivers and how you solved them?”. This is a very standard technique of shifting the conversation to what you know. Also a good interviewer is more interested in knowing what you know, and if that can be leveraged in the role they have.

Don’t fake it

I have heard a lot of people advice “Fake it, till you make it”. I would discourage you from that. A good interviewer will always see through your lies. I would rather hire someone who does not know a few things, but is genuine and has potential, than someone who claims to be what they are not.

If you don't take risks, you will become legacy!

When you are switching domains or industries, by default you are taking some risk. Those who show the courage to take risks, progress faster in career. I have known quite a few highly talented individuals who were either risk averse or complacent and hence remained stuck in a legacy domain and were not able to realize their full potential.

One very good way of de-risking could be to start a step lower. That way, your learning curve is not steep and risks are contained.

Once you land the job the challenges do not stop there. It is certainly not easy to establish and succeed in a new environment, especially if you are a lateral hire. We will speak about this in better length soon. Watch this space for my next blog “Switching careers laterally – Part 2”