Changing your career can be a daunting prospect, but if you want to do something new, develop your existing role into something else or just fancy a challenge, then it may be the right decision for you.
Many of our alumni have come to learn that making the decision to change your career is often the hardest part. With more and more higher education and adult learning courses becoming accessible to people who need to work and study at the same time, or need funding to study full-time, changing your career has never been easier.
What next?
Once you’ve made the decision to change your career, the next thing you need to consider is the new skills you’ll need and the steps you may need to take to re-train.
Ask yourself these questions:
- What areas of work are you interested in?
This is the big question – what career do you want to go into next? Think about what is important to you in your next job. Do you want to focus on a subject area that interests you such as cooking, art or engineering? Or are you interested in helping people or teaching?
You may also want to consider which values are important to you. Is money more important, or is it your work/life balance? Do you need a job close to home or the school run? How much responsibility do you want to have? You can try looking at our alumni stories for inspiration.
- What are your existing skills and how can you improve or add to them?
It’s surprising how many transferable skills that you already have can be built upon with supplementary learning. Skills such as leadership, written and verbal communication, customer service, organisation, Maths, IT, presentation skills and even driving are all applicable and valuable to many professions.
The key is to decide which areas you are interested in and understand what knowledge and / or skills you need to acquire.
Choosing the right course
Once you know the type of career you’d like to pursue, you can consider how much time you can commit to learning new skills, in what format (full time, part time, distance learning and so on) and over what period. Check out our full and part-time courses for some inspiration.
How your Alumni Association can help you look for work
Your Alumni Association is committed to helping you progress in your career. We offer you career advice and inspiring stories from your fellow alumni as well as keeping you up to date on the latest course information and giving you access to a network of other former students across a range of industries through the LinkedIn Group. Don’t forget to sign-up!