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Thinking About Changing Your Job? Here Are 3 Things To Consider

The rise of inflation over the past couple of years hasn’t just changed the way people spend money — it’s also changed the way we think about our jobs.

By the end of 2022, the inflation rate hovered just above 7%, continuing its downward trend from a high of 9% in June. But there’s still a long way to go before Americans no longer feel pressured to stretch every hard-earned dollar.

After surveying 1,100 global professionals in a Work & Financial Wellness Report, Remote.co found that 80% of participants said their current salary is not keeping up with inflation. Many employees have started to look elsewhere for jobs that meet their needs – 47% of survey respondents said they have either found or have started to look for higher-paying job due to concerns from inflation; nearly a third of survey respondents have begun freelancing or taking on a second job.

When 47.8 million Americans quit their jobs in 2021 during the Great Resignation, it was no longer an anomaly for employers to receive an influx of two-weeks notices. Next, came the Great Reshuffle as workers prioritized career paths that optimize flexibility and income. Then, before there was a chance to blink, things changed yet again.

Quoted in The Washington Post, Rand Ghayad, head of economics and global labor markets at LinkedIn, suggests we’ve now entered what he calls the “great remote work mismatch.” As employers herd employees back into the office, job openings for remote work have dwindled, yet these positions still remain preferable to many – if not most – job hunters. LinkedIn received 22% more job applications in November 2022 than it did in November of the prior year. Roughly half of these applications were for remote work positions, yet remote positions make up only 15% of the total number of job listings on LinkedIn’s platform.

As the inflation battle approaches its two-year mark, unrest grows among Americans who can hear the sound of a global recession tick closer and closer in the background. Remote.co says 71% of the people surveyed in its study are either considering or actively looking for a new job. But when we thread this needle with Ghayad’s idea of the “great remote work mismatch,” the question of whether people should leave their jobs becomes complicated to answer.

How can Americans possibly “recession-proof” their careers when blurry information makes it nearly impossible to form a clear answer?

The truth is, they can’t. And that’s why the situation is so scary.

Determining the Best Direction to Take Your Career

Despite the uncertainty surrounding the job market, there’s still plenty of things American workers do have control over, namely their reasons for pursuing a career change to begin with and how they go about doing so. Spending time and effort to think about these things now will make it easier to respond to the uncertainty that lies around the corner.

There are ultimately three things to consider before landing on a new career path.

1. Narrow in on your core values

With all this talk about a global recession, the thought of pursuing a career you love has fallen by the wayside. I’m not one to encourage people to only chase after their passion, since the things we love don’t usually equate to a fulfilling career we can excel at. With that being said, it is important to develop an understanding of the types of values you want to have and promote through your work.

Explore personality tests.

Knowing your values first means knowing yourself – a quite daunting task, to say the least. Staring into an abyss of endless possibilities can very easily lead to an identity crisis. Remove some pressure by taking personality tests that can provide a pretty decent starting point. Some of my favorites are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Enneagram Test. While you cannot put a personality into a box, these are great reference points.

Take career assessments.

Career assessments and vocational tests provide more concrete suggestions on suitable jobs options than personality tests.

Do some reflecting.

Like any major life decision, a career change should not be handled lightly. If you’re not someone who finds clarity through journaling like me, consider other options to help you think through your core values. Talk out loud to yourself and capture it with a voice memo. Go to your quiet place through meditation or prayer. Or go to a physical place where your mind becomes quiet — the woods in your backyard, the community swing set, an ocean.

2. Think about your core skill set

After being in the coaching business for more than a decade and having the pleasure of working with hundreds of clients, I’ve truly come to believe that everyone has a gift to offer the world. If you don’t think you have a skillset that’s uniquely yours, you just haven’t found it yet – and odds are that’s because you haven’t been looking in the right place.

Ask for feedback.

One of the best ways to figure out what you’re good at is to ask the people around you. It’s not uncommon to realize that your greatest strengths are things you never would have realized on your own. As I Iike to always say, you can’t read the label if you’re inside the jar.

Consider asking the people you’re close with these questions:

  • When have you seen me at my best?
  • How would you describe my natural talents and skills to someone else??
  • What kinds of problems have you come to me to solve?

Parents, friends, siblings, teachers, mentors, co-workers, former employers – these are all great people to ask for input. Most people have that one friend with a keen eye for analyzing personalities and strengths – make sure to ask them for their insight!

Do some reflecting.

After collecting information through these informal interviews, take some time to jot down some thoughts in that notebook of yours – or the metaphorical notebook you access through your quiet place. Here are a few more questions to ask yourself:

  • What rings true about what other people have told you?
  • When do you feel like you’re at your best, or your truest self?
  • What tasks come easily to you?
  • What do you remember being good at as a child?

3. Research salaries and trends in the job market

In uncertain times, it’s only natural to want to ensure economic stability. And odds are that most people looking to change their career in 2023 will do so for this very reason. Here are a couple of things to think about when approaching a career change for economic benefits.

Look at which jobs are expected to increase in demand.

The last thing you want to do is change your career to a field that dries up in the next couple of years. If there’s anything the recent wave of tech layoffs have taught us, it’s that there’s no surefire way to know what constitutes a “good field to go into.” With that being said, there are some career projects out there that tend to be pretty accurate.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is a great resource. Here are the top five jobs it predicts to have the fastest growth from 2021 to 2031:

  1. Nurse practitioners
  2. Wind turbine service technicians
  3. Ushers, lobby attendants, and ticket takers
  4. Motion picture projectionists
  5. Restaurant cooks

Determine your preferred salary to refine your options.

Take inventory of your monthly and yearly expenses and determine the salary you’d ideally like to have after switching careers. Then, research the expected salaries of fields recommended to you friends, family, and career assessments. Sites I like to recommend for this are Glassdoor and Salary.com. Use your ideal salary range as a way to narrow down your options to a few careers that meet your financial needs.

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