I Switched Careers & So Can You! Here’s How! | Ep. 251

Intro/Outro: You know what it is. That’s right. It’s time to talk money with your money nerd and financial coach. Now tighten those purse strings and open those ears. It’s the money talk with Tiff podcast.

Tiffany Grant: Hey everyone. This is another episode of Tiffany’s take where I answer your money questions right here on the podcast.

If you want your. question answered, please go to www. moneytalkwithtea. com forward slash ask Tiffany, and I’ll be more than willing to answer for you. So for this episode, I received a question about pivoting careers. So someone out there listening is looking to shift into a whole new industry or role. So I figured there’s probably some other people out there wanting to do the same.

Let’s go ahead and answer this question. So first let’s start off with the basics. What is a career pivot? So a career pivot is a significant change in your professional path, often involving a shift to a new industry or a role. Now this may sound really scary and sometimes it is, but one thing that I learned over the weekend at FinCon’s Women in Money, Erica Young said to do it scared.

So that’s what we’re going to do. Okay. So I want to go ahead and give you some tips. To make sure that your career pivot is successful. I’ve pivoted my career many a times. Um, I went from wanting to be an admin assistant. No, let’s go even earlier. I, I started with wanting to be a chef. I was taking culinary classes in high school.

Then when it was time to go to college, I was like, okay, well, I want to be an admin assistant. Got my first job. Um. In that role, uh, as a receptionist, then I decided, I really want to go into HR. So I pivoted to HR then while in HR started money talk with Tiff. I pivoted to finance, got a job at a firm, and then I realized that was not really for me.

And so I pivoted to full time entrepreneurship. So as you can see, I’ve had many different interests and many different career pivots throughout my professional career, but. That’s why I thought that this would be very helpful to someone out there because there’s someone out there that’s ready to pivot right now.

So first, the first thing you want to do is identify what skills are transferable. So to give you an example, maybe you’re a teacher. Looking to transition into corporate training, your skills in public speaking, curriculum development, and people management are all highly transferable. So don’t underestimate the value of these skills.

You can put all of that on your resume. and frame it in a way where it fits the job that you’re trying to go for. So that’s another tip. Make sure that you zhuzh your resume for what it is you’re trying to go for. So if we take that same example, maybe instead of saying, um, you know, I taught a classroom full of kids, maybe you say, Um, people management and managing a classroom were super important for the job.

Now of course, don’t put it like that. I’m just going off the top of my head, but that’s just to give you an example of how to reword things in a way that makes it better for the job that you’re trying to go to. So um, Okay. Definitely take a look at your resume and make sure that every position that you have up there correlates to your new role and one tip that I have with that as well is To look at the job description and make sure you’re using the same Terminology and if there’s not an open position for you right now look at Other companies, job descriptions for the same type of roles, and then use that same language in your resume.

Because what happens on the backend is recruiters use technology. Okay. And sometimes they filter for certain words, keywords, um, certain tasks, you know, so on and so forth. And so you want to make sure that whatever it is they’re looking for, you have it in your resume. Now, of course, make sure that it is.

It’s accurate and not just a whole bunch of fluff. Make sure it flows correctly, but that’s a huge tip when it comes to searching for a new job in your career. Next, you want to consider maybe retraining. So maybe it’s important for you to go back to school or earn a certification or some something like that.

But sometimes self guided learning can just be helpful. can be just as effective. To give you an example, when it came to HR, I just found a mentor in HR. They let me shadow them, you know, at the current job that I was at when I was a receptionist, told me, um, a few different things. I was able to ask a lot of questions.

And so that actually helped me get the next HR role because I was able to speak the language. So one strategy that I have my students do is they have to do an informational interview. So what does that mean? That means that you reach out to someone already in the position that you are trying to go for and you ask them, Hey, can you, can we hop on a call?

I just want to. Ask some questions about this role because this is something that I’m interested in. And so you’re not trying to get your foot in the door per se, but you’re trying to understand, you know, on a one on one perspective, what’s important in this role. How do they like it? Maybe it’s something that you thought you wanted to do, but after the conversation, you’re like, Hmm, on second thought, you know, so it’s a great way to get more information.

So if you have anyone in your circle, or maybe you find someone on LinkedIn, you can do an informational interview with, so that way you can get some insider information about that role that they’re in. Um, also you might want to check out some online platforms like LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, Udemy.

There’s Thousands and thousands of courses across a wide range of industries that you can take, some for free, um, some you have to pay, but in order to make sure that you’re well equipped for this new role, those are some things that you could do. So you don’t necessarily have to go get a degree and all that stuff.

You may be able to just do some self guided learning and it’ll be enough. So definitely check that out. If you’re thinking about pivoting, also what I would suggest is to make sure that you keep your job, okay? So when I did all of my career pivots, they, I was still employed at the previous position before I got a new one.

Now that’s important because it makes the process a little less stressful, because you know that you still have, you know, some income coming in. You’re not, um, in a situation where it’s do or die, you know. So it’s just. allows you to think more clearly. So that would be my suggestion. Now, if you’re already out of work, which is okay, that’s fine.

Um, just make sure that you are evaluating all of your options. and not operating from a place of fear and not operating from a place of scarcity or lack. And I say that because that will really cloud our judgment. And sometimes we have out of the frying pan into the fire, um, when we’re looking at career changes or even changing jobs.

So just make sure that you’re able to operate with a clear mind. You’re able to think about all of. the opportunities and things that are in front of you and evaluate them efficiently. So another thing I wanted to talk about are some of the challenges that you might face when you’re making a career pivot.

So one, A lot of people are scared and this is a scary thing, honestly, because, you know, if you’re currently in a role, you’re like, am I going to be good at the next role? If you’re not in a role, are you still have the same concerns? Am I going to be good in the next role? And so one of my favorite quotes.

It’s everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear. And like I said in the beginning, um, at the event that I went to over the weekend, Erica Young said, do it scared, just do it scared. And what I’ve found in my career, when I was doing career pivots, other people would project their fears onto me.

So to give you an example, when I was leaving one of the companies. And going to full time entrepreneurship, they were like, well, Tiffany, you have a house. You are a single mom. You have two boys. Like, how are you going to survive? Are you sure you want to do this? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they were just projecting their fears onto me.

This is something that they couldn’t do or they couldn’t see themselves doing. And so they were like, well, how can she? And even if it was subconscious, it came out in that way. And so. Make sure that you are cutting out all the static and the, and the fuzz, um, make sure that you are surrounding yourself with people that are going to be very supportive of your decisions will be supportive in your roles.

Make sure you have a. Board of directors. Um, that’s another concept that I use at my students. So a board of directors are people that serve different positions. So, for instance, maybe you have someone that always gives it to you real. Maybe you have someone that’s currently in the career that you’re trying to pivot to.

Maybe you have someone You know, you can tell your innermost, um, feelings and things like that, too. So make sure you have different people playing different roles to support you throughout this process, and not only that, really throughout life. Um, I have a personal board of directors that I lean on, and some of them don’t even know that they’re on my board.

I just reach out to them when I need to, um, and you know, we just maintain a friendship. So try to think through that, make sure that you have the support and stuff that you need. So that way you can make this pivot a permanent one. Now remember also that a career pivot is a journey. It’s not a destination.

It takes time. It takes patience. It takes resilience. but the rewards like personal satisfaction, career growth, a renewed sense of purpose, those are all worth the effort. So make sure that you are realizing that even if things don’t go as planned, this is just a journey. You will. inevitably probably do multiple career pivots over the course of your working history, or you may do things that make you scared over the course of your career history.

It’s a journey and everybody’s journey is different. So also don’t compare your journey to the next person. Maybe somebody else just did a career pivot. That’s the same that you want to do instead of looking at looking at it in envy, maybe look at it. In terms of what can I learn from their situation?

Maybe you reach out to that person. Like, what are some things that you would have did differently? Or what are some things that you did right? You know, and just kind of learn from there. So I want to leave you with some resources to support your own career pivot. So make sure that you check out.

professional development courses on platforms like LinkedIn Learning and Coursera. Join local networking groups or online communities in your chosen field. Um, Twitter is actually amazing for finding your people. Um, there’s so many sub communities on Twitter. Um, it’s amazing. And of course you have the Facebook groups, you have the LinkedIn groups.

And then don’t underestimate the power of job search websites like Indeed, Glassdoor and LinkedIn. So thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Tiffany’s Take where I dove into career pivots. If you want your question answered on the podcast, feel free to go to moneytalkwitht. com forward slash ask.

Tiffany, and I’ll be more than happy to answer for you. But until next time, good luck. Bye.

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