- Thinking about making a career change?
- Find out what these experts and executives have to say about quitting your job and searching for a new one.
- For example, don't change industry and function at the same time, and don't wait until you're doing bad work to leave your current role.
The devil you know is, presumably, better than the devil you don't. That's why so many of us stay stuck in a job, an industry, or a lifestyle that's not working out.
But making a career change doesn't have to be intimidating. Ask an expert who's done it (or counseled hundreds of people who've done it) and they'll tell you it's about breaking down the transition into bite-size pieces and never letting fear be your guide.
Below, we've listed practical tips on changing careers, from folks with a range of backgrounds. There's Julie Sweet, a partner at a law firm who became the CEO of Accenture North America; there's Paul Ollinger, an early Facebook employee turned comedian; and there are nine other founts of wisdom.
Read on for the knowledge and inspiration you need to reshape your career trajectory.
SEE ALSO: Everyone wants to work at Google — but we found out how 15 ex-Googlers knew it was time to quit
SoFi VP and former Facebook exec Libby Leffler: Remember that the career ladder doesn't exist anymore
Leffler is the vice president of membership at personal finance company SoFi; before that, she worked at Google and Facebook.
She said the career ladder — a predictable series of steps from college graduation to retirement — is all but dead.
Thinking back on her own career trajectory so far, Leffler said: "I wasn't only focused on the next level up. I was really always drawn to things that intrigued me, gave me the chance to learn as much as I could, and gave me the opportunity to learn something new, with plenty of room for experimentation."
Leffler added that she never shied away from, say, moving to another team within her company, even if it wasn't a promotion per se. At Facebook, she started out as a client partner, then became a business lead to the chief operating officer and a strategic partnerships manager.
She advised others to do the same: "Sometimes this means taking that role that might be the same level on a different team, where you can learn a totally new skill, or you can change roles. Then you can level up into something else where you can leverage the new skill you learned."
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Marketing and strategy consultant Dorie Clark: It's never too late to transition careers
Clark is a marketing and strategy consultant, an adjunct professor of business administration at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, and the author of books including "Entrepreneurial You."
On an episode of the Art of Charm podcast, she explained why transitioning careers when you're no longer a fresh-faced new college grad doesn't mean starting from scratch.
In fact, you've likely tackled step one: meeting a lot of people, even if they all work in your current industry. Step two is to capitalize on your existing connections to help launch you into your next career phase.
One strategy Clark suggested is "reaching out to friends of yours who are as different from you as possible and saying, 'Hey, who do you know that I should meet?'" Or, Clark said, if you have some money saved up, you might use those funds to visit an ideas conference and schmooze with fellow attendees from varying backgrounds.
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Early Facebook employee Paul Ollinger: Consider what you would do if you weren't afraid
Ollinger worked in sales at Facebook between 2007 and 2011, making him one of the company's first 250 employees.
Today, he's an Atlanta-based stand-up comedian and the author of the book "You Should Totally Get an MBA," a comedic guide for those debating whether to apply to business school.
For the four years that he worked at Facebook, Ollinger saw the same poster every day, with the question, "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" At some point, he realized his answer was comedy.
In 2014, he made the transition. He said, "I got to a point where I couldn't not do it, that I had to just say, 'This is what I'm going to do,' despite not knowing how I would actually finish a project or knowing whether or not it would be good. I had to be OK to risk bombing at 47 years old in a comedy club."
Ollinger added, "That's a pretty insightful guidepost into doing what each of us is supposed to be doing. And if each of us is doing that thing at which we're the best and/or most passionate, then I think the world is better off."
Read more.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider