One enjoyable aspect of maintaining The InterChange Desk is studying the web stats each day. Actually I check them twice daily, first thing in the morning and then again at the end of the day. Yes, just twice per day; I too have learned to control my “stats obsession”!

As any blogger or webmaster knows, web stats offer an array of interesting information. But it’s a couple of search engine look up terms, or strings, along the lines of “how do I explain my career change at a job interview” that have especially caught my eye recently.

Given that we hear or read things like, “most people will change careers several times during their working life”, from recruiters or in the careers sections of newspapers, you would think that aside from acknowledging the fact you decided to make a career change, you wouldn’t really have to “explain” yourself a great deal.

If one experience I had while making the transition from a finance background to web design, several years ago was anything to go by however, I can understand why some career changers are searching the web looking for advice on to deal with such a question.

In this instance I had applied for a job at a local design studio. I had gone in for a first interview with the person who would be, were I to get the job, my line manager. That “interview” actually went very well. We chatted almost like old school friends about this technology, and that compatibility issue.

So well were things going I was even taken into the work area, where we sat with the coders and developers and looked at, and discussed, some of the projects they were working on.

Despite, at that stage, having no commercial or industry experience whatsoever as a web designer, from the way the conversation had been rolling along, I don’t think anyone (amazingly even myself), would have thought that however.

Any doubts I’d had about my decision to become a web designer were pretty much dispelled by the conclusion of the “interview”. A few days later the interviewer called and asked me to return for a second interview, this time with the studio’s general manager.

“It’s just a formality, a chat, the designers here are looking forward to having you on the team,” he said as he ended the phone call. Unfortunately however, his assessment of my prospects was a tad optimistic.

The general manager didn’t seem the least bit impressed with me. “You’re from a corporate background, we work differently in the web creative industry. You just wouldn’t understand the culture here.”

Cultural issues had been no where in sight during my first interview, and I (eloquently) said as much. This didn’t seem to impress him though. “Look, in the corporate sector, if you ask someone to do something, they do it. Try that here and the guys will say, no, I can’t do that now, I’m more interested in my computer.”

Well that was news to me. You can ask someone in the “corporate sector” to do something, and sure they’ll do it, after you’ve asked them another four or five times, that is.

But before I could even begin to (more) eloquently make that point, he threw my CV, which he had been pursuing, down on the desk, and said “why the hell are you doing this?”

This for me though, was the “tipping point“, as they say in the web creative industry. While I understand the point of job interviews, particularly second interviews, is put candidates through their paces, and sort the good apples from the bad, I was definitely detecting some negative personal bias here.

It’s at moments like these career changers need to hold firmly to their faith in themselves, and what they are doing. I replied to his “question” quite simply.

“I am doing this because I want to, and because I can.”

It was also the first time I have ever terminated a job interview (that I wasn’t conducting).

By this point I had decided this particular company was not for me (despite the rapport I had with the people I would have actually been working with), and politely (if a little firmly) made my excuses and left.

Needless to say I was rather surprised to receive an email from the general manager the next day, asking me to consider an “entry level” role, at surprisingly enough, a very “entry level” salary.

While an entry level position was fine, and money was not my prime motivation, I did think I was worth somewhat more than his offer.

The cynic in me couldn’t help thinking that his whole approach had really only been to knock me down, and then “compensate” by making a job offer, at a very low salary, that he thought (and hoped) I would be grateful to receive.

As it happened fate intervened, and another studio I had also been talking to made a more attractive offer, which I accepted.

There are many reasons why people make career changes, and these will vary from one individual to the next. So if you are looking for ways to answer such a question at an interview, you should already know what to say!

And I don’t think there is a “stock standard”, acceptable, or “one size fits all” answer to this sort of question.

If you are changing careers, from say being a hotel concierge to a chemist, because you feel that will offer you more fulfilment and better utilise your talents, then simply say so!