Jobs and Careers: Is It Time to Change?

[Enda Goodwin]

Job search is an opportunity to explore career options. You may find that you have more options than you thought. If there is anything about the direction of your career that you'd like to change, this could be your opportunity to do it. This is certainly a good time to take stock, and be sure your career is going in a direction you like.

You have options in what kind of work you decide to do next and in where you choose to do it. The "where" part includes industry and kind of organization as well as geographic location. Sometimes the culture of the organization where you work is as important to job satisfaction as what you do every day.

How can you best explore your career options? Here are some of the most effective ways to proceed:

• Do an inventory of what you have done. Pause and examine your work experiences, expertise, and preferences with your own downloadable Career Profile. It's designed to capture all of your most important career information and provides a framework in which to begin this process. Some users tell us that they had new insights on where they wanted to take their careers simply by completing this review. For anyone, doing this work is excellent preparation for interviewing as well.
• Examine your skills, interests and values to develop and evaluate your best career options. Most career experts agree that successful and happy careers are those consistent with these three key factors, so time you spend exploring them is time well spent.
• Explore what it takes to make a career changeor industry change.
• Network with people who know you and with professionals in the field about the options that are most consistent with your interests, values, and skills. While researching new directions on the Internet is useful, the best information and most important insights usually come from talking to people.

Considering self-employment or active retirement? These sections provide extensive information and proven approaches to decision making in these two areas. The active retirement section also has excellent tools for examining and improving your work-life balance and time use.