When your alarm went off this morning, you pressed the snooze button four times. You just couldn’t get moving. Eventually, you dragged yourself out of bed, downed two cups of coffee, sat in traffic for an hour and stumbled into the office. The cheerful hello’s of your colleagues made you want to scream and the sight of the boss resulted in your feeling ill. The thought of sitting at your desk, watching the clock inch its way forward, made you want to run out the building and just go anywhere else. Could it be time to switch careers?
According to Entrepreneur, people are likely to change careers five to seven times during their working life. Here are five signs that it might be time for you to switch careers.
1. The Company Is Driving You Crazy
It could be your work environment that’s making you see red. Perhaps it’s the limited scope of your job or you’re not being utilised to your full potential.
The National lists a number of signs that the time is right to jump ship including:
- Your skills and responsibilities are not a good match with your abilities.
- The salary, even if it’s large, is not enough.
- You’re not being used to your full potential.
- There is no room to grow.
- You feel overworked and under-compensated.
- You’ve lost your passion and enjoyment for your work.
It’s often easier to continue in a straight line than to shift direction. But think about it: you won’t know what is around the next corner if you don’t make that turn. Perhaps now is the right time to think about what you really want from a job. If your current work is not the right fit for you, it might be time to jump ship.
2. You’re Worried About Automation
Automation is likely to hit certain industries hard. If you’re in bookkeeping, for example, you have a 97.6% chance of being automated. Software developers, on the other hand, only have around a 12.8% chance. Check out this nifty guide to assess the likelihood of your job being automated. It could be time to switch careers if you’re in an industry that’s likely to be automated.
3. Economic Reasons
Besides automation, some industries get hit hard during economic downturns. Says Entrepreneur: ‘A job in finance was lucrative in 2003. By 2008, not so much. If an economic or technological change has negatively impacted your current field, a change may be in order whether you were looking for it or not.’ The good news is that software developer jobs are predicted to grow by 17% from 2014 to 2024, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is much faster than the average for other occupations, which is at 7%.
4. Poor Match Between Your Talents And Your Job
Perhaps you’re a teacher who doesn’t enjoy high-intensity personal interactions, or an engineer who is bored by analytical work. If your talents and interests don’t match your field of work, it could well be time to switch careers.
Here are some ways to discover your talents and interests:
- You won’t discover you have a musical talent, if you never try an instrument. Attempt to try something new every week. If you want to try out coding, think about enrolling on a free bootcamp prepl via HyperionDev.
- What is easy for you to do? Ask others what you are good at – these are likely to be your talents. Think about what you loved doing as a child.
- Think of successes you have had, even if they are minor. For example, perhaps you organised a fantastic surprise party for your best friend – and it could be that you have a talent at event planning.
- Take a personality test to get a better sense of your natural proclivities. Two popular tests include the Myers-Briggs, which divides people into sixteen personality types based on research by the famous psychologist Carl Jung, and the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, which separates people into various temperaments.
5. And When Not to Switch Careers
It’s all very well to know when to switch careers, but here are a few good reasons why it might not be a good time to switch careers, according to Business Insider:
- It’s the end of the year. This has to do with hiring logistics. A lot of people who make hiring decisions are away and you’ll need to be more patient waiting for job interviews and callbacks.
- You’re house hunting. This is also a major life decision, and you won’t be able to devote enough time and care to a job AND a house search.
- It’s right before a monumental change like pregnancy or marriage.
- You’re over or under worked – this might not be a sufficient reason. Rather analyse how you’re managing your time, and then plead your case to the boss.
In closing, we’ve covered a number of key reasons about when to switch careers and when you shouldn’t make the leap. If you’re keen to change careers to coding, consider signing up for one of HyperionDev’s six-month, part-time online coding bootcamps in Full Stack Web Development, Mobile Development and Software Engineering.
