A hurry-up career change – part 2 of 3

And we’re back. Last week’s column launched a three-part series on changing careers fast, in this time of unexpected / possibly undesired career transition. With so many industries shedding employees under the strain of COVID-19 related slowdowns, workers may have no choice but to switch occupations in order to recapture a paycheck.

The problem is that career changes usually demand more time and introspection than many people can afford right now. The solution, a hurryup career change process, is at your fingertips in six straightforward steps.

The first two steps – update your job search materials and narrow your career choices – were described in last week’s column. Today we’ll look at two more steps, and next week we’ll finish up with steps five and six. Ready? Here are the next steps in the hurry-up career change process.

Step 3. Initiate networking and early job search. With the timeline for your career change compressed from a year or more to just a few months, “early” job search won’t be far separated from the campaign’s final push for an offer. Even so, initiating outreach in the early days of your process will help you shape the more assertive drive you make near the end.

The core strategy in this step is to connect with individuals – some of whom you may not yet know – to present a combined message of networking and job search. Hence, an email or

LinkedIn message to someone in your newly-adopted field might look like this:

“Hello Joe, we haven’t met yet but I learned of your medical billing experience through your LinkedIn profile and I was hoping you could offer me some advice. I’ve been working in direct patient care as a dermatology assistant, but I’ve decided to switch paths to the accounting and billing side of health care. Of course I’m open to job leads if you know of openings, but for now I’m interested in your perspective about the field. Would you have time for a conversation?”

In addition to LinkedIn, places to look for networking contacts might include related professional associations and industry groups, newsletters and trade publications, blogs, and schools that employ instructors or trainers in your new field.

Timeline for this step: Begin seeking contacts as soon as you identify your new career; initiate the outreach process by week five of your career change process and continue until your search is complete.

Step 4. Upgrade your training. Are you getting dizzy yet? In a career change with a more generous timeline, you would participate in training as a discrete activity after having fully researched a number of options. But of course, a hurry-up process doesn’t allow for one task to succeed another in an orderly fashion.

Instead, you could find yourself already enrolled in a class when you learn that a different program would have been a better fit. That’s a chance you need to take, to maintain a brisk timeline. If you stay focused on shortterm, skills-based sessions, you can balance the risk of over-investing before you’ve had a chance to confirm the best program. Even free or low-cost online courses can be a good starting point, while you get a better handle on what you’ll eventually need.

So why leap into training at all, if there’s a possibility it won’t be the best match for your goals or the market? There are several reasons, especially in this specific period of time we find ourselves in.

First, you really don’t know what you don’t know, so pretty much any related training will be an asset to your career change. Second, you need to demonstrate dedication to the new field in order to be taken seriously, and training is a strong sign of your commitment. Third, if you’ve been away from work, taking classes shows productive use of your time. Fourth, taking a class early on will help shape your networking and outreach later in the job search.

If you can’t find an industry-based class that starts soon, focus instead on short courses (one or two sessions) to brush up on writing, software, sales, bookkeeping, supervision or other basic skills that might apply to your new work. But keep looking for more closely-related classes, as you’ll need them to help convince employers you’re ready for the new field.

Timeline for this step: Sign up as soon as you’ve identified your career; strive to begin a course within the first two months of your overall career change process.

This is a lot of activity pressed into a few short months. To find out how the parts all fit together, come back next week for the final two parts of the six-step, hurry-up career change process.