Choosing to develop a new career is a serious commitment of time and energy. It makes sense to gain some insight into potential new careers before fully committing yourself by taking small actions that allow you to test the new career without locking yourself into a specific direction.
How did you, or how do you plan to, test new career alternatives quickly and with minimal investment?
A great way to test new career interests at low cost is to participate in evening classes sponsored by your local public schools or community colleges. I live in the Worcester, MA area, and the public schools in Worcester offer a catalog of programs they call “Night Life.” Courses are offered during the evening at minimal cost and include a wide range of topics including arts and crafts, business and investing, computers, culinary arts, dance, language arts, music, and even certification programs.
Several years ago I became interested in HTML programming, and I took a multi-week course as part of Night Life. The primary value of the course was learning that I didn’t want to do HTML programming!
One of ACT’s clients is currently testing a number of different career alternatives including floral design. She advertised a flower arrangement business on Craigs list and quickly acquired a number of customers. While making the displays, she realized that she may have an allergy to flowers! Needless to say, she was happy that she tested this alternative before jumping into it full time. Her plan is to verify if the allergy is real and, if so, dismiss this alternative and continue to pursue others.
When I was thinking of moving into management consulting, I networked to find people who would let me “sit in” and participate in a few of their workshops. I helped them logistically and in return, I got to see what it was really like to do the work. I found there were some aspects I liked and others that I didn’t and so when I made the transition, I knew specifically the type of work I wanted to focus on.
Another way to test career alternatives is to spend time visiting relevant schools. As an example, the Bay State School of Technology lets you visit their Canton campus where you’re encouraged to sit in on a live class with real students and instructors. They offer a hands-on approach to learning which means that 50% of the time involves instruction and 50% is in the shop or lab. At the end of your visit, you will have the information you need to make the decision if a particular career is right for you.