How to Leap Mid-Career from One Industry to Another

Women at Work

Harvard Business Review

Entrepreneurship, Workplace, Business/management, Business/entrepreneurship, Progress, Resources, Gender, Equality, Business/careers, Women, Hbr, Careers, Management, Business, Harvard, Human

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When you realize the line of work you’ve been in for years doesn’t interest you anymore or is in decline or won’t ever pay well enough, what’s your next move? Amy B speaks with executive coach Nina Bowman about the process of making a bold mid-career leap: how to identify a new path, build connections to land interviews, and tell the story of how you’ll succeed in a completely different role. Then, two listeners who made bold leaps themselves—one from academia to tech, the other from government to consulting—share their experiences and insights.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management inventory, and HR into one platform.
0:14.2	Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work.
0:22.1	From my perspective, a mid-career shift really challenges you to tell your story.
0:27.7	You need to make the argument for you.
0:30.4	It's a great exercise because it forces you to make sense of your career.
0:35.5	And there are no false moves in a career if you can make sense of them.
0:40.5	That's exactly right. And it actually has an additional benefit of giving you some deep understanding of who you are so that you understand you've had agency in your career.
0:53.4	That's right. And it takes work. Yeah,
0:55.4	it takes a lot of work. Because there's a lot of self-reflection and assessment in order to
1:01.6	create that narrative. And a stringent honesty. Yeah. Because if you tell a story that rings false,
1:08.1	yeah, doesn't work. Your listener is going to hear that. They will. Yeah, they will.
1:12.7	So weaving that narrative in an honest way, finding the common thread, it makes all the
1:18.8	difference in being able to make a transition. You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard
1:26.0	Business Review. I'm Amy Bernstein.
1:28.5	When you realize the line of work you've been in for years doesn't interest you anymore,
1:33.6	or is in decline, or won't ever pay well enough, what's your next move?
1:38.7	Changing jobs is hard already.
1:41.1	Changing sectors is daunting.
1:43.8	You've built a network, a reputation, skills, expertise,
1:48.0	a firm grasp of how business operates. Maybe you got a degree in this, maybe more than one,
1:54.8	and to just leave all that behind? But then you remember your board or lessened demand them before or underpaid.
2:04.5	One of our listeners who feels stuck doing the thing she is a PhD in that she's an expert on
	...

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