Here’s a double serve of the Friday five for you this week. While you’d think I did nothing but spend my days surfing the net, that’s not quite the case. There’s a lot of good stuff out there, and we have to keep on top of it somehow! Happy reading, I’ll see you all again next week!

• Slash careers are a by-product of the multifaceted, multitasking times we live in. If you have a “job title” that looks like say this: designer / writer / speaker then you are a “Slash Careerist”! This could be a smart way of effecting a career change though. Begin doing part of the time (and in addition to your current career or work) what you would like to do all of the time…
• Some sort of study will usually be required by those changing careers. But how to fit in study time while trying to hold down a full time job, taking care of a family, etc? How to study with a full-time job offers a few good pointers.
• Ghosting… No, it’s not about pursuing a new career as a ghost buster, but is a training method used by sports people. It’s a little like role play, whereby you imagine yourself to be in a real, or live, situation during practice sessions. Think “fake it before you make it”.
• Finding Your Passion Amid the Hate is some great motivational reading at Success from the Nest, which I found this via a post at Antbag.com
• Refactoring Your Career is an article that runs a little a long the lines of my 10° career change article, in that it suggests making small changes until you reach the place you want to be. Software releases are subtly changed or “refactored” overtime, which end users seldom notice as it still appears to carry out the same function. Think of how software like Word or Excel has changed over time for example.
• 4 Reasons to Do (Work) Only What You Love: a very succinct and to the point article at Lifecho.
• Is It Your Job, Or Your Passion? Think about the amount of time you spend working. If you enjoy it, great. If not, then you should give the reasons why you stay put some thought.
• Find Your Inner Jerry Maguire. “What is it that separates those who succeed from those who fail?” Whoever thought we could take a few pointers from Tom Cruise?
• While aimed more at those who find themselves out of work suddenly, Five Tips to Jump Start Your Network is also useful reading for career changers looking to establish some networks. Never underestimate the power of networking…
• Time for some fun. Sometimes finding career direction is simply a matter of looking back to the future! The Futuristic Job Quiz will set you in the right direction. Who knows, you may find a job that is “groundbreaking” and “ahead of its time”!

Fancy a career change working as a full time reader of blog posts and articles? There’s easily enough reading to fill in a 40 hour week (if not more), so now just to find a way to earn money from it!

Here we go then, another “Friday five” from The InterChange Desk!

• Sometimes in the quest for our “dream job” we just need to look around for a role we simply like the name of, and then start working our way towards it. And if that’s you then Eccentric Employment, “a frequently updated Weblog of unusual, strange and interesting job opportunities” is the place to be. There’s information on anything from being a Cheese Intern, to an Aerospace Engineer, and almost everything in between. There’s even an opening for a Fairy… my niece would love that!
• Personal branding is not something that has been directly touched on here yet, though I have alluded to it in very roundabout ways once or twice. Is Your Personal Brand Unique? from Career Goddess, paraphrases a point made by Scott Ginsberg that a great personal brand is in-fact unique, not merely different. There’s a lot to be said for getting yourself noticed, and making a good impression at the same time.
• Resumes (or CVs, depending what part of the world you are in) have been discussed here a little bit this week. While I have suggested a couple of ways you can improve yours, the CV you have right now, may in-fact be fine. If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It is a timely reminder that a good resume is only part of a job search strategy, and it alone will not go landing you jobs.
• Time for a some motivational reading. Here’s a little Water Cooler wisdom on what to do if dreams and plans don’t fall into place or happen. In a way the article is suggesting we “choose” our dreams carefully. While we think we want one thing, and put all our time and energy into trying to achieve it, we may well be barking up the wrong tree. Are you following your dreams because that is what you really want, or what you are telling yourself you want?
• You couldn’t imagine I wouldn’t included a test or two in today’s Check List would you? Being Friday I thought we’d go for something not so serious. So are you a slacker? Or are you a workaholic? Maybe you are both, but either way I wouldn’t tell the boss, aren’t you meant to be working after all?! (A login is required to access these tests.)

Here’s another selection of links to round off the working week, and hopefully ease you into weekend mode!

• Are you perhaps thinking of a new career as a scientist? Then you need to be reading the Career Development for Scientists blog! There’s also an interesting post (which we should all read, not just scientists!) about the emphasis employers are now placing on “soft skills”. These are things like leadership and communication skills (or people skills), which are very interchangeable and can be utilised regardless of the industry you are working in. Can anyone say transferable skills?
• This / Not this is all about stepping out of our comfort zones. It’s all too easy to make conservative, or overly safe choices, especially when in unfamiliar situations. Travelling to countries where the culture is completely different, and we can’t speak the local language is a good example. Do you eat the local food, or make a “safer choice” and go to a well known global hamburger restaurant instead? Bad choice, right?
• This is a great article related the finding career direction series here. There are plenty of people looking to change careers and try something new, but uncertain where to look for direction. The best choice for your next career will not be based on what’s out there but on what’s in you. Says it all.
• Test time, come on, you enjoy tests, right? The JASPER Job Assets & Strengths Profiler poses a combination of word/picture association and agree/disagree type questions, to determine your work type. This test is completely free, anonymous, and delivers very comprehensive results.
• The Law of Attraction suggests that to attain our goals we should not only work towards to them, but they should also be foremost in our thinking. In other words, it’s a little like being pro-active while also thinking positively. What I found interesting was the number of times I’ve “worked” this way in the past to achieve goals without actually being aware of what I was doing. (If that makes any sense!)

Last week I wrote about a conversation I had with a former colleague some years ago.

To recap, he had been working for almost 30 years but could not find a job, or career, he enjoyed. His words still echo in my mind, “I have no idea what I want to do.” In the first part of this article, we discussed turning to, and recalling our childhood dreams, in the search for career direction and inspiration.

And we probably all know several people who went on to become what they dreamed of being as children, such as accountants, architects, real estate agents, dentists, writers, or lawyers, to name but a few ambitions.

But what about those of us who did not have such clear ideas about what we wanted to do? What about those of us who, despite giving the matter considerable thought, still cannot find any career inspiration or direction?

We were not quite as lucky as our school mates who, at what seems like age 11, knew where they were going. But the only difference between us and them, is that we are the people who have to do a little work, or research, to find a career that, in the words of Gilligan to the Skipper, “floats our boat”.

Let’s make a start. The first step is to compile, or list, your existing skills and qualifications. Whether you put these on paper or a spreadsheet, make sure that you have them recorded somewhere. This list, or skills inventory, will also be useful in determining your transferable skills, that is, talents and abilities that can be “reused” in other career fields.

A good example of a skills inventory can be found at the Online Writing Lab, and you can print out the list they have compiled, and simply mark or highlight whatever skills of yours appear on their list. Be sure to also add your own ideas.

As I’ve said before, knowing exactly what skills you already have will make the process of working out what you need to acquire a whole lot simpler. Once you have completed your skills inventory, put it aside for later reference.

Now it is time to embark on a little self discovery. Personally this was the part of the career change process I enjoyed the most, because while I was learning a little bit about myself, I was also having some fun.

Online career aptitude and competency tests are a relatively quick, and inexpensive, method of garnering information about yourself while also discovering some career direction possibilities.

While there are number of organizations providing online tests of this nature (one or two are listed in these posts), I have always found the tests offered by Tickle (formerly known as Emode) to be comprehensive and informative.

These are not tests of the “five question instant result” variety, and in fact you will need to allow 20 to 30 minutes to work through individual tests. I have listed four that I have found to be the most helpful, and while more are available, given that almost two hours is required to complete these four, I won’t suggest any more right now!

Career Personality Test is based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator which analyses aspects of your personality and then suggests careers best suited to your Myers-Briggs personality type.

Career Interest Inventory tests your interest in 12 different career areas and determines where your work related preferences lie. It provides a number of career options that suit your interests, plus also a list of more “off beat” possibilities that remain in keeping with your core career interests.

Right Job/Wrong Job examines some of your competencies and assesses your primary and secondary career personality types (unrelated, by the way, to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test).

The results suggest a job that is right for you, with reasoning why, and to offer contrast, a job that is wrong for you, and why. I found studying the comparisons between the two quite revealing. It also offers salary expectations, although these may only be of relevance in the US.

What’s Your True Talent? This test is a little more testing as it assesses your skills in five primary areas being, abstract reasoning, verbal ability, numerical ability, spatial ability, and mechanical ability. Again, career and job options that match your strongest ability or talent are provided.

By the time you have completed these four test you will certainly have two or three definite career possibilities that you can begin to further investigate.

There are a few points to bear in mind while taking tests of this nature though. The first, and perhaps most important, is the need to be completely honest with yourself. Remember no-one needs to see, or even know that you took these tests, so be completely open, completely yourself, when answering the questions.

Also, approach these tests with an impartial attitude. Answer questions as things are, not as you would like them to be. You may despise your current job or career with a loathing, but don’t answer the questions with any sort of bias.

For example, if you are an accountant and you are asked whether you enjoy a particular part of that work, answer honestly. Don’t adopt the mind-set that because you can’t stand accounting period, you therefore hate every last aspect of the work involved, and are determined your answers will reflect that attitude also! This will only skew the results in a wrong direction.

Another tip is to print out your test results and reports. Although a service like Tickle/Emode keeps the results archived permanently on your account which you can always access, having a paper version you can sit down and study, and also refer to at anytime, is very handy.

These tests not only suggest career options, and also some alternatives, they also offer a plan of action so that you can get the ball rolling, should you find something of interest.

Finally, you will be required to set up an account, which includes supplying an email address, and while basic test results are free, to receive the detailed reports you will need to pay a small cost.

At the time of writing this was about US$10 (ten) per report, but usually when you buy one report, you are granted full access for a week to all Tickle/Emode tests, so what you can do is buy one report, and then take as many others as you want, free, over the next seven days.

Tomorrow I will look at a few more methods of finding career direction, in the third part of this series.

Ok, it’s Friday already! So without further ado let me present a few coffee break distractions. And true, it may take a while to work through these, but aren’t Friday’s all about long coffee breaks?!

• A dream board is a way of creating a visual representation of a goal, and by having something tangible to focus on, this can help us strive towards it. If your goal, for instance, is to own a Ferrari then what better way to stay motivated than by a seeing a photo of a Ferrari each day? Career changers could make a useful adaption of this idea as well!
• Dr. Bamster’s Blog has a specialist focus on issues facing those 40 and over who are changing jobs or careers.
• Build a More Meaningful Career is an article written by Robin Ryan at QuintCareers. “30 million people go to work each day to a job they hate” was the line that caught my attention, and Robin suggests a few reasons why moving on is a good idea, if you are one of those 30 million people!
• Quiz time! This career interest test with 100 questions may seem long, and some questions may seem irrelevant, but bear with this one because it’s all going somewhere! A free ten point report result is delivered after the test, which you can re-access and view whenever you want, and there is also an option to pay for a more detailed report if you choose. A tip for non US residents, use 00000 (that is five zeros) as a zip code.
• You become what you think about, is the gist and summary of a great inspirational post over at Dream Jobs Dialog. As Michael Werner points out though, “thinking” should not be confused with merely “daydreaming”, but rather “thinking” is a plan of action in this context.

I am in the process of compiling a Links page that will feature some of the resources that are included in the Check List posts, but as there are so many career change resources on-line, it will take sometime to arrange.

In the meantime here are a few more things worth checking out:

• The JobHuntersBible is the companion website to that career change “bible”, What Color Is Your Parachute?, which by the way, I will be reviewing here shortly. Although the book’s author, Richard Bolles calls the “JobHuntersBible” a supplement to “What Color Is Your Parachute?”, it is still brimming with career change and job hunting resources.
• Career changers in Australia will be interested in this. The Australian Government is offering a variety of packages to assist people over 25 who are considering a career change. This includes “Work Skills Vouchers” worth up to AUD$3000, so people can study new qualifications, and can be used at a number of Australian educational institutions. More information is available at the Skills for the Future website.
• Time for another quiz! This Career Change Quiz from About, features 12 questions, and offers a short commentary on each of your answers as you progress. Although the quiz prompts you stop taking it all together at various stages, depending on how you answer some questions, I’d nevertheless recommend answering all 12 questions. You leave no stone unturned that way!
• And another one. This time the question is Could you cut it as a creative? Do you have dreams or ambitions of say being an artist, web designer, or maybe a film director? Take the first step to finding out! You’ll need pen and paper for this one, as it’s not interactive. I scored 21, so hopefully by starting a blog called The InterChange Desk I am fulfilling my destiny!
• And finally I wanted to comment on this article that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald last week. Seven biggest self-help myths takes a swipe at self help books, and while the article presents a number of very good, and very valid points, I take exception with the writer’s opinion that your job should NOT make you happy. Michael Lallo writes, “often it’s unpleasant, difficult and tiring. But that’s why it’s called ‘work’.” He suggests work is to be tolerated, not enjoyed. I think there’d be a number of people who disagree with that stance. Perhaps he has not held down a job he didn’t like?

Anyway that’s another week here at The InterChange Desk, thanks for taking the time to visit, and we’ll see you again on Monday. Have a great weekend! :)

Friday’s are always good for reading and research I think. You don’t want to be getting yourself in too deep so close to the weekend now do you?

With that in mind I’ve prepared a list of articles and quizzes to kick start your career change research.

• What’s Your True Talent? Try this on-line quiz from Tickle that tests your talents in five categories, Abstract Reasoning, Mechanical, Numerical, Spatial, or Verbal ability, and challenges you to answer a blend of logical and metaphorical questions. While free to take an email address is required to view the test’s summary results. A more in depth analysis of your test score is also available for a small cost.
• On Cruise Control is an inspirational and insightful article at Jugglezine offering strategies to avoid, or get out of, life ruts. It’s not an article that focuses on changing careers as such, but certainly some of the suggestions for getting out of life ruts make food for thought for those looking to change careers.
• Groper is on-line career assessment tool developed by Australian company Groper International and assesses your level of interest in over 170 occupations to determine the career, and area of study, that best suits you. The test costs AUD$29.95 and takes about 30 minutes to complete, after which results are emailed to you. Take a tour to learn more.
• Starting your own business is a sure fire of making a career change and doing the sort of work you enjoy. If only there were a way to overcome the anxiety and uncertainty that taking such a big step invokes. Yet “fear is not the problem… the problem is how we respond to our fear,” writes Life and Business Coach Linda Anderson in Overcoming fear of running your own business, an article that shows us how to come to allay the fears that may be holding us back.
• I very much doubt that any career, no much how we may love it, is completely free of stress. Reducing stress requires a scientific approach and the boffins at New Scientist have obliqued with an article that suggests Six steps to a stress-free career. Maybe this would make better reading on a Monday!