Become a Psychologist

Changing careers is becoming common practice. As the saying goes, grass is always greener on the other side. These are perhaps the thoughts of people who have changed their careers or who are thinking of doing so in the near future.

An abounding number of people dislike the work they do; they secretly want to change their careers to something that would make them happier, provide them with more money, better job security, the freedom to do what they enjoy or a number of other similar reasons.

Today, I want to answer some common questions relating to the topic of changing careers, especially when it comes to changing careers within the IT field. This article may sound like chicken soup as I have a number of stories to share, but I hope that seeing what others have gone through will be helpful to other prospective career changers out there.

What is a Career Change?

So what classifies as a career change? Well, there are some misconceptions that I want to iron out first. Sometime last year, when I was interviewing a candidate for a possible position in my organization, he said that he wanted to change his career, and this prompted him to apply for this job. I was puzzled. I asked him again, reiterating that the job in this organization is quite similar to what he performed in his previous organization. He agreed, and told me that he had spent half a decade in the previous company and was looking forward to beginning a new career in my organization.

His concept of a career change is a bit different and he may be just one in a million who thinks working for a new company is the same as changing careers. It may be for some reasons that you continue the journey on a different vehicle but the path leads to the same destination.

So, in this context, he was working in a particular field, and was moving within the same field to a different company; that is not changing careers, it’s simply changing jobs.