Bridge the gaps

you’re a facilities manager who organised your office refit. If you thrived on the creative challenge and your boss praised your work, you might put ‘project management’ on your skills list and ‘interior design’ on your list of industries where those skills might be appropriate. Perhaps you could pursue opportunities with interior design firms to apply your project management skills and oversee office refurbishments.’

Connect with relevant people to find out more about the industries and organisations in which you’re interested. Ask someone in the know what it’s actually like to work in an interior design company or speak to people who project-manage office refits about what the job really entails.

Mustering the confidence to do this isn’t easy but you’ll be surprised how willing people are to share their expertise. ‘It’s scary, but don’t wait for the fear to go away and don’t focus on trying to develop confidence,’ says Thomson. ‘Instead, recognise the fear but take confident action in spite of it. Confidence comes from facing fear, taking action and realising it’s OK – what you were scared of didn’t happen. If it did, and someone was rude or dismissive, you will learn that you can cope, recover and come back stronger. As you do this, every subsequent phone call gets easier.’

This technique helped Thomson sharpen her focus during her own search for professional redirection. Keen to move into data science, she teed up conversations with a recruiter, a data scientist employed by a large corporate, and one working in a smaller consultancy. Those conversations led to her securing an interim product manager role and a subsequent appointment as interim director of strategy and innovation – opportunities that wouldn’t have been open to her without those interactions. ‘These kinds of conversations with the right people in high-growth companies can lead to work,’ she says.

It can feel as if you’re falling at the first hurdle if the job you want requires qualifications you don’t have – but gaps in your skills are inevitable. And it doesn’t necessarily mean you need expensive qualifications to address them. ‘Remember, you only need 70 per cent of the skills or attributes listed on a job spec to apply for that role, sometimes even fewer,’ says Thomson.

Instead, focus your thoughts on what you have got to offer. A prospective employer might be willing

Don’t wait for the fear to go away and don’t focus on confidence… recognise the fear but take action in spite of it