Switching jobs within your industry is common, but taking a leap of faith to a new industry is not as simple as you imagine. It takes time, planning and a fair amount of hard work to pivot to a new industry. Even if you are in banking and want to make a shift to a more agile and competitive career, you could make this happen! At least I am proof of making such a big change, more here. It is important to examine how your current experience and skill sets might be relevant to the new industry, but first, you need to know yourself well.
These are the few steps you can take to leap into new industry:
1. Identify your core experience and skill sets
Transferable skills are competencies that you can use and tailor to different roles and generally it depends on which industry that you are looking to jump into. On a normal basis, most employers are looking for candidates that carry problem-solving, great communication, and are able to work within pressure and timeline.
Of course, some role would require specific skill such as Javascript, Python, C#, Swift etc (if you do not possess the skill, you are unlikely to get hired as a programmer). This example doesn’t stop you from becoming a programmer, but you might need to take your own initiative to take up courses and learn on your own before applying for this role.
Here are a few transferable skills which is relevant to most industries:
Basic Skills
- Ability to learn fast and quick
- Agile and able to turn around fast
Interpersonal Skills
- Able to communicate clearly verbally and in writing
- Negotiate and convince
- Collaboration with cross functional teams
Others
- Able to provide feedback
- Microsoft Office
2. Understand what you enjoy the most
When joining for a new job at your current industry or new industry, always ask yourself, do you know yourself well? Here are some short questions for yourself:
What do you enjoy working for? Where do you get job satisfaction from?
Do you enjoy talking to people?
Do you prefer to crack down raw data and turn them into useful insights?
If you are a people-oriented person, then you would probably be fond of talking to clients or your teammates. Vice versa, if you are a number person, you love to find errors and present the useful info to relevant stakeholders.
When you enjoy what you do, work will feel like an enjoyable hobby. You will get inspiration from it and feel motivated. If you do not work for what you enjoy, sooner or later you will get tired and bored from it. You would soon one day be trapped in a career dilemma whether you should change jobs or stay on.
3. Study about the new industry
Getting to know the new industry is a must, and info is easily available via Linkedin, Glassdoor and other job portals. You would be able to read the brief on the industry, what are the expectations, KPIs, day to day tasks. Inside the forum, other users would be sharing their personal experiences in the industry, providing a view from employee perspective.
You can list down your understanding of the industry at first thought and compare it after some time of researching. You will be surprised by the common perception that you might have about it.
4. Talk to people from the new industry
Talking to people from the new industry and making connections are helpful. By networking, you would be able to get to know peers and future colleagues in the industry. Most of the time, people’s connection or management is more important than doing the tasks.
5. Finding the missing gap
It is important for you to read the job description (JD) about the role that you wish to apply to. Job postings would list down the key expectations for you. If you do not have one of the skills required in the JD, do not let it put you off. The employer may be open to get you in if you have other skills that they want and it can complement the team. As long as you are deemed to fit into the culture of the team, you would be perfectly fine. Example, if you can demonstrate that you are a good integrator and listener for the team, these soft qualities would make you shine.
If you really need to learn about a whole new skill, such as technical competency, then it would be worth taking external courses before applying for jobs. This will help with your understanding for the job and employers would be impressed by your self initiative.
It is always about finding the best fit, not the best candidate.
6. Highlight your transferable skills to new employer
Last but not least, sell yourself well! Go to the interview with examples of what are the challenges you were facing, how did you apply skills and what was the outcome. Make sure these examples are relevant to the job that you apply for. Employers would like to know how you came across the issue and how you resolved it – it shows you understand the role and the business needs, which is incredibly important to set yourself apart.
Bottom Line:
Making the leap of faith to change industry sounds challenging, but it is possible with effort to study about it. Getting to know about the job and industry, next is accessing the understanding about yourself. Storytelling on your experience and how you could be a problem solver for the business.
You can do it with the right mindset.