Ready for a Career Change Assessment to Find Out Which
Parallel Career Suits You Best?
Do
a career change assessment once you have decided to change career the
parallel career way... to determine which parallel career suits you
best.
Making
use of Your Assets and Skillset
With
a parallel career, you can have the proverbial cake (change career) and
eat it as well (keep your job).
Begin
your
career change assessment by looking at your current and previous
jobs. You must have picked up certain skills, learned new
processes and practices, gained a positive reputation, met many people,
gained access to customer or supplier lists, etc. If you are in a senior
executive position, other perks may include: company vehicle, club
membership, stay in 5-star hotels, fly business class, magazine
subscriptions, overseas travel, attend exhibitions, etc. We call all
these your Assets and Skillset.
The
first part of your career
change assessment is to identify your Assets and Skillset.
Your
Assets and Skillset can form the foundation
of your parallel career.
Combine this with the comfort of
a monthly paycheck and the result is a much less stressful career change
experience and a faster arrival at your end goal. Emphasize: It’s
easier when you’re still getting your monthly paycheck.
Example
of how you can leverage your Assets and Skillset in your parallel
career:
|
Your
Skillset
|
How
it Can be Leveraged
|
| Your
general skills |
Will
be very useful in your parallel career.
|
|
Your
special skills
|
Others
may be willing to pay you a fee for these skills. You could
start a parallel career as a specialist or produce an
infoproduct (example manual or e-book).
|
|
Learned
new processes & practices
|
Others
may be willing to pay you a fee for this knowledge. You could
start a parallel career as a specialist or produce an
infoproduct (example manual or e-book).
|
|
Acquired
industry knowledge
|
Will
be very useful in your parallel career.
|
|
Gained
experience and learned from mistakes
|
Will
be very useful in your parallel career.
|
|
Your
Assets
|
|
|
Met
many people
|
Some
of them could be your customers.
|
|
A
positive reputation
|
Helps
to open doors to kickstart your parallel career.
|
|
Access
to customer/supplier lists*
|
A
good place to start looking for your own customers/suppliers.
|
|
Company
vehicle
|
If
it’s a luxury vehicle, it adds to your status. If it’s a
workhorse, you
could save on the occasional transport costs for moving your
products.
|
|
Club
membership
|
Adds
to your status. Added status normally adds to credibility.
|
|
Stay
in 5-star hotels
|
Enhances
your status when you conduct meetings in these hotels.
|
|
Fly
business class
|
Opportunity
to meet successful people who will also perceive you as being
successful. Your next customer might be one of these people.
|
|
Magazine
subscriptions
|
You
could select those that also contain relevant material on your
parallel career.
|
|
Overseas
travel
|
Opportunity
to meet potential customers and suppliers
|
|
Go
for exhibitions
, expos, trade mission trips
|
Opportunity
to source for latest products and test market yours.
|
|
|
|
*
An important question to ask when starting a parallel career is
"Does your venture conflict with the interests of your
employer?" If you are marketing similar products or
serving to the same industry as your employer, a conflict may
exist.
There’s
always a fine line to be drawn between what’s allowable and
what’s in conflict. Re-read your terms of employment and if
still in doubt consult a legal specialist.
|
.
|
The
Second Part of Your Career Change Assessment - Your Passion, Talent,
Mission
If
you enjoy what you do then work becomes play. You would trade anything
(maybe, almost anything) for a career change that makes work into play,
wouldn’t you?
Wouldn’t
it be nice to spend the rest of your working life doing the things that
you enjoy doing? A sport? Music? Art? Literature? Computers?
Cars? Helping others? A charitable cause? When you enjoy
what
you’re doing there is no need to drag yourself to work. Why not look
for a parallel career that makes work into play?
| (1) |
Do
you have a passion for something? Example: modifying
cars, golf or ceramic art?
|
| (2) |
Do
you have a natural talent? Perhaps, you’re very good at
expounding difficult subjects and make it easy for others to
understand. Or your advice on home decoration is always sought
by your relatives and friends.
|
| (3) |
Is
your choice of parallel career something that will make a
difference in the lives of others? Maybe you’ve always wanted
to help homeless teenagers in your city. Or maybe your mission
in life is to save sea turtles from extinction.
|
Whether
it’s your passion, talent or mission you’ve spent quite a lot of
time thinking about it. You’ve read much about it. You’re naturally
attracted to anything about it whether you’re browsing books in a
bookshop or when a program about it is on TV.
If it’s a passion or talent you may even had lots of practice
doing it. If it’s a mission, you’ve most likely been dreaming about
it ever since you were young.
The second
part of your career change assessment is to identify your passion,
talent and mission.
Below
are some examples showing how your passion, talent or mission can
give birth to a parallel career opportunity:
Example
1 of career change assessment
Passion:
Modifying
cars
Parallel
career opportunity:
One
or a combination of these could be the opportunity that you're looking
for to start your parallel career:
(a)
Advertise your services and modify cars for others for a fee
(b)
Distribute exciting car accessories
(c)
Publish a website on “How to modify cars” and you could
include the top ten most well-modified cars where car enthusiasts send
photos of their modified cars and your site visitors vote the top ten.
(d)
Sell unusual accessories on your website
Example
2 of career change assessment
Talent:
You’re
very good at expounding difficult subjects and making it easy for others
to understand.
Parallel
career opportunity:
These
ideas could get your parallel career on track:
| (a) |
Research
material on popular yet difficult subjects. Use
your talent to create a series of
easy-to-understand e-books on these subjects.
Typical subjects:
|
|
·
“How
did the Universe begin?”
|
|
·
“Reincarnation
or Resurrection?”
|
|
·
“When
will the Israel-Arab conflict ever end?”
|
|
·
“The
difficult choices the U.S. President must
make”
|
|
[Tip:
Producing
and distributing e-books are easy and cost
very little these days].
|
|
|
|
(b)
You could create audio tapes or audio CD’s of the above as well
(c)
Sell these on your own website or get others to sell for you.
Example
3 of career change assessment
Mission:
You’ve
always wanted to help homeless teenagers in your city.
Parallel
career opportunity:
Your
parallel career could be started and developed as follows:
(a)
Speak to your local council,
community group or religious group and share your ideas and strategies
on this social problem
(b)
Be actively involved in
activities and projects dealing with this
problem
(c)
Be visible by taking positions of leadership (e.g. committee
leader, zone supervisor).
(d)
If you are in a full-time job (especially if you’re in a senior
position in your organization), you could get your company, it’s
suppliers and other business associates to sponsor an event or a project
for this cause.
You
have just seen that a career change assessment to find which parallel
career suits you best is simply done by assessing your Assets and
Skillset, your Passion, your Talent and your Mission.
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