If you are experiencing these feelings, it might be time for a career change:
• You’ve always been interested in other career areas but went with the “safe” route and now you feel burned out
• You don’t enjoy your work anymore and you wonder what other options are out there for you
• You feel stuck and stagnant
• You are finding fewer and fewer jobs available in your industry
• You’re over-qualified for the jobs that are available in your industry
• You feel the effort to get a new job in your industry is more than you want to undertake

How do you know if now is a good time to change career direction?

The reality is that job loss and job creation are natural components of the world of work. It happens all the time to varying degrees.  So there probably isn’t one perfect time to change jobs or careers. The decision depends a lot on your personal situation.

Before launching a job search or career change, though, there are several important steps to take which I also outline in my career guide and audio program, Fast Track Your Career: Three Steps for Finding Work You Love.

Gaining Personal Insight
Before you change careers, you need to figure out what you want. By assessing your current situation you can determine what you need in your career to be satisfied. Analyze your values, skills, personality characteristics, interests, and lifestyle preferences. It’s also useful to take inventory of your financial situation, especially if the career you’re considering might require additional education and training or relocation.

Getting a Reality Check
A critical mistake in making a career change is making the leap without getting enough career information. By exploring career possibilities you’ll be able to identify options that are best suited to your personal attributes and preferences. There are online and print resources you can use to learn about job outlooks and industry trends. The people in your network can also be great sources for information about trends and opportunities in various career fields. In addition, they can make introductions and give you referrals.

Charting Your Career Path
After you’ve done some self-assessment to learn what you want in a career and done career research to generate options, you have to make a decision about next steps. Your transition and job search plans will guide you to successfully getting the job you want and expanding your professional network. You’ll also need to update your resume, cover letter, and other support materials and fine-tune your interviewing and networking skills.
People change jobs or careers in search of greater satisfaction. By following the steps outlined above, you  will increase your chances for finding a career that better suits your personal goals and uses your talents in meaningful ways.

If you’re thinking about a career change, purchase the The Fast Track Your Career: Three Steps for Finding Work You Love career guide and audio program today. You will go through a step-by-step exploration and planning process by completing several exercises, so you can get clear about your career direction.

Special thanks to Andrea Delgado for contributing to this article. For more than 10 years, Andrea, was a program manager at an international development organization during which time she held multiple positions involving program and grant management and administrative support.  Andrea has been networking to find employment opportunities and has considered a career change into the private sector. Her dream job would take her into the international financial arena analyzing economic policy and regulations. Andrea has her M.A. degree in International Political Economy and Development from Fordham University; a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Politics & Public Policy from the University of Massachusetts at Boston and a B.A degree in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.”

Andrea can be contacted on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andrea-delgado/10/3b6/717

If looking for a career counsellor to help you in changing your career is fraught with anxiety, consider this. A licensed career counsellor is very qualified to objectively help you find a great career path for you. Each licensed career counsellor is especially qualified for changing career services, with a graduate degree in counselling and a further specialization in career counselling.

Not all career counselling services are the same. There are varying levels of career counselling that including career counsellor fellows, master career counsellors, registered professional career counsellors and master career development professionals. Generally changing a career is exactly what theyre trained to help with. They help folks make these career changing decisions and help get them on their way to the new career. They help people determine the education and skills that are required of the career theyre thinking of changing to, and help them find the educational facilities and tools to acquire that training.

Specific techniques and strategies for career changing that counsellors practice include group and / or individual counselling session that help clients clarify their life as well as their career goals.

Career counsellors carefully listen to the situations and circumstances that bring the individuals to the point in life that theyre thinking about changing their career.

Career counsellors administer tests that help assess career interests and skills. They interpret the results of the tests, and explain to the client what the tests suggest in the way of interests and abilities. Based on the test results, the career counsellor can advise the client on career changing goals.

Career counsellors encourage their career changing clients to complete exploratory assignments and activities that assess career appropriateness. They provide the opportunities that will help their client improve their own skills in decision making. They help the client draw up career plans and teach job hunting and resume development skills and strategies.

Before suggesting changing careers the counsellor may help the client resolve personal conflicts in the current job situation, or the potential for conflict in any new job situation through the improvement of human relations skills.

A career counsellor can also help the client and the clients family improve their work / life balance to the betterment of family and personal relationships. The counsellor can also be supportive to the person who is experience stress due to job loss, changing career due to forces beyond their control such as downsizing or termination, and just the fear of the unknown career and work environment.

To help those changing their career a counsellor must have at least a Masters degree in counselling, which includes the completion of at least two years of supervised counselling experience.

About the Author

James Copper is a writer for http://www.newcareerskills.co.uk where you can help yourself get a better career

Marketing is essential for generating sales, the income powerhouse for all kinds of organization. To leave an impact on the market and to contribute to sales, marketing is a fundamental function. It is so crucial that if done in the right manner, it can lift up the sales and eventually, the revenue of the company but if not, it may hinder even the strength of the enterprise. In Marketing Jobs, companies are providing different posts like Marketing Consultants, Marketing Managers, Marketing Directors, Online Marketing Specialist, etc. For a brief idea on these profiles, read on:

Marketing Consultants
As against the belief that career in consultancy does not have much scope, it holds a lot of potential in long run. From big businesses to small firms, every company seeks advice on handling their image and reputation in the market. They need assistance in drafting marketing strategies; to run suitable advertisement and promotional campaigns; to employ result oriented marketing initiatives and in coming with innovative ways of boosting sales. A marketing consultant is a specialist in marketing mechanisms who helps in all these functions and in answering the related queries.

Marketing Managers
In current dynamic atmosphere, every company needs proper marketing management and so, almost all of them have a separate marketing department. In order to deal with the marketing needs, businesses require managers who can administer and monitor all the activities and the mechanisms strategy that are being built and implemented by them. The marketing manager holds complete responsibility of devising management plans to extend sales and marketing functions further.

Marketing Directors
The Assistant Marketing Director is expected to provide support to the marketing and advertisement mechanisms followed by the organization. The work includes making surveys, creating new and innovative ways of marketing and coming up with new marketing trends. He/ She are also required to document the marketing and sales mechanism progress of the company. One achieves the level of Marketing Directors after acquiring vast experience by spending various years in the profession.

Online Marketing Specialists
There is a huge potential in the field of online or internet marketing as this industry is vast. In current times, internet penetration is very high, thus, making it a very important medium of marketing with a wider reach as compared to other sources of marketing. As marketing is essential for every business offering any kind of products and services, so is internet marketing important to the function of marketing. Internet marketing is an extremely powerful source of revenue generation as it is visited by million of people every day. Online marketing specialists are required to devise new and innovative plans to boost internet sales and are paid incentives and bonuses accordingly.

Marketing professionals are usually involved in marketing of 10 kinds of entities: goods, experiences, services, events, places, properties, persons, information, organizations, and ideas. They are involved in developing marketing campaigns that promote an organization’s product, service or idea.Their responsibilities will vary depending on the size, sector and focus of the company.

If your job has been downsized or even removed altogether, taking a decrease in pay isn’t a realistic option. Some businesses offer retraining in-house, or cover expenses for training programs elsewhere. But if not, you may find yourself looking for training on your own. Where do you start?

In Canada, Employment Insurance only goes so far. But if you qualify, at least you have an income while you are looking for work. While on EI, there are many free programs that offer help on finding work or finding retraining relevant to needs in the current job market. Availing yourself of these free programs is highly recommended.

In Ontario, the Second Career initiative is an option for those that qualify for EI. The Ontario Ministry  of Training, Colleges and Universities will pay for training that you need to get a better job. This program will help pay for tuition, travel, living expenses, books and even help support your dependants while taking courses. To find out if you qualify, you need to visit a Employment Ontario assessment center.

Retraining for a new career is something that many people are considering. Finding out how to do it is fairly easy. You must then decide, or get help on how to decide, what field you want to train in. Many of the free programs offered by Employment Ontario will help you find the career you want with jobs that are available in today’s job market.

What are the opportunities and limitations of the career field you’re interested in? Will it tie you to one place, or can you transfer your skills elsewhere? How much power will you have relative to how much responsibility you’ll have? Those in jobs with very limited power but big responsibility (such as a department secretary) often report higher than normal levels of job stress.

Write and look at a list of skills that are required in a given field of work, and compare it to your skills. Do you qualify? Is it a long process to get to where you qualify? Know whether the career you want requires a college degree, or even further education. Many scientific research jobs require a PhD as a minimum.

Read up on your career. Pore over internet articles, check out library books, and learn as much as you can about it. If you can’t be bothered to do this, then maybe you’re more in love with the idea of this job than with the job itself. If you can talk to someone in your desired career field, that’s a very beneficial source of information. If you can attend seminars and conferences you can learn more and possibly pursue more job opportunities.

Try for an internship. This is a great way to “try on” a career and get to know what the real day-to-day work is like. Though you might not get paid, you will have experience to put on your resume and may meet people who can help you in your career later.

There are two basic phases of the career search. The first phase is to look at yourself: your abilities, your weaknesses, your educational qualification, and areas in which you need improvement. Know what your career goals are, both immediately, one year away, and five years away.

Write down your broad goals, and then write down the objectives it will take to get to those goals. If, for example, you wanted to be a newspaper journalist, you might have as your goal to be a section editor in five years. Learn the steps it will take to get there, starting with a cub reporter position, assistant editor duties, and so on. If you have a plan, you’re more likely to get there than if you simply take whatever comes along.

5 tips to a successful job search:

1. Perform a self-assessment. This tip is applicable to both the new comers in job seeking and those looking to change jobs. This self assessment has a lot of benefits related to the way of being very objective with yourself reflecting as such a light on the salary needs along with the skills and experience. This will allow you to target the job that is right for you, enabling you to get a realistic perception of your life and job.
2. Do some research on the job market. This market will allow you to have the categories of jobs and later to see which one is at least 90% a match for you. In case the match is not on your favor try to look deeper into the matter and as such you will see that either your expectations were too high or the location didn’t match your preference. But once the problem is identified then yu can deal with it much realistically.
3. Selecting a career field. Though this fact is determined most of the times by your education you still need to make sure of the working field and as such being able to narrow the area of your job search. You have to consider whether there is space inside your working field to advance in you r career for the future times.
4. Improve your skills regarding the job search. In this respect there are the student advisers and HR advisers who can assess your skills guiding you to a right job search. You need to have a periodical update regarding the changes that have emerged on the job market. Apart form this consider the career workshops that can help in showing what the expectations of the employers are and how to handle in this new given circumstances.
5. The campaign of your job search should be run setting realistic goals in regard to job position, starting date, salary and location. If you set from the beginning smaller goals it will attract smaller salaries as well. Therefore you will need to pursue ads, to directly approach the employers and be as well enthusiastic and persistent.

1. The first strategy is to admit your mistakes – the ones who are able to take responsibilities for the mistakes they have done learning at the same time from them can transform these mistakes into advantages on their career.

On the other hand the ones who do not admit that they have made mistakes and blame others for these are prone to losing. Once the mistakes are admitted there is the chance to correct them though they can come back and determine you to make them again, but hopefully not that often this time.

2. You may be surprised at the power that ‘thank you ‘has over people. Once you know how to show your appreciation you can find very easy someone to lend you a helping hand. But nowadays people seem to overlook the meaning of this two words message due to the rush of daily activities.

   In order not to forget about this, do a kind of daily practice in this regard and say at least one time a day “thank you” to someone who has been around doing a useful thing for you. You can say words of thank you for someone who shares a piece of knowledge with you. You can thank someone for supporting you when you deliver an idea. You can as well thank someone for holding the elevator’s door when your arms are loaded with packages.

3. Asking for help is a good thing to do although many people consider this a lack of strength and less confidence within oneself. You can see this act as something that flatters the person you are addressing to for helping you. Most of us liked to be asked to offer a helping hand. Once you get the help from others can lead you to more knowledge gained as well as skills.
4. Remember that it is not only you that contributed to the success of your career. Once your project or even the entire career proves to be successful you need to give the credit to the others around you as most of the times a job well done is not only the result of a single man’s job. Working in a team is what actually brought you to the peaks of success and as such you have to share this with those who assisted you in a team throughout the job.

Once these strategies (that appeal more to the common sense) are not overlooked you can be sure that they will lead to hasten the pace of your career’s achievements.

Temp services can help anyone from a student straight out of school to someone whom just wants to try a new position or job. A temp service helps people looking for work by matching them with companies that have openings available. When we are trying to obtain work on our own it may seem as if there are no jobs available but a temp service has an on going list of people needing work and companies needing employees. Some of these positions are not even known to the general public so that gives them a heads up in helping the ones needing work.

Temp services and agencies offer jobs that are on a temporary base as well as jobs that are hiring long term. The jobs that are on a temporary base can turn into full time employment if the employer and the employee are compatible. When using a temp service it will be like having a contact in the company hiring because the temp service will have already reviewed your resume, talked to you, did any testing needed and gave the basic interview so the company that you may be chosen for will already have the heads up on your abilities.

Using a temp service can help you to obtain access to companies that you may not have had access to. The temp services can also help you obtain a job in the pay range you are looking for instead of you only finding the lower pay jobs in the news paper.

One thing to remember is that there are many temp agencies out there so make sure when choosing one it is legitimate. One way to do this is always know a temp service should never ask you for a fee for finding you a job. The fees are always paid by the company looking for the employees.

A first start may be to check out your affinity for certain types of careers. Taking a career test can help you figure out what you really want to do – or should be doing based on your personality type. Outgoing, gregarious people may find a career in entertainment, public speaking, or politics. Whereas those who like attention to detail and orderliness may find a career in a professional trade, in accounting or in management.

The next thing to consider is today’s job market. Ask around and find out what types of jobs are needed now. Who is hiring, and why? For example, it may not be a good idea to start a career in manufacturing cars and trucks. Then there are industries that are always seeking employees – like the medical industry. North American has a severe shortage in nursing and doctors. Or, if you have a broader look at medicine, you might consider alternative medicine such as accupucture and chiropractic.

Some good places to go asking about the job market of today is your local government employement office – in Canada that would be the Service Canada website. Another place may be your local Temp Agency. Go in or phone and ask what kinds of jobs the market is looking for right now. Avoid making the mistake for training in an industry that has jobs already saturated in the market.

Working as a temp is an excellent way to earn without having to stick with just one business. For anyone who isn`t sure just what industry they want to work in, it can also be a good way to get some experience in a variety of industries. However, the majority of people will use temp agencies to find work while they are still searching for a full time job. If you`re between jobs, then temporary employment is a handy way to keep paying the bills while still searching for that perfect position.

Why Do Temporary Employment

Temporary employment tends to be very flexible, but there are plenty of other benefits besides being free to look for other work.

•    Build skills. Want your resume to look more impressive? You can do this by working for different Canadian companies for short periods of time, increasing your skill base.
•    Experience. While this might sound like the same thing as building skills, it really means you get a chance to check out various industries until you are ready to make a decision.
•    Choice. You get to say yes or no to job offers, so you`ll only be doing what you want to do.
If this is your first time using temp agencies, there are a few things you need to know.

Choosing a Temp Agency

Picking one out of dozens of temp agencies can be rather difficult unless you know what you`re looking for. Some are very successful at placing people, others are not. In general, you want a business that is going to be quite thorough about checking your background and references, since an agency that lets anyone in probably doesn`t have a good track record with employers.

Find out if the agency charges anything for finding you temporary employment. Some places take a small fee or percentage off your paycheck, while others will only charge the companies. There are several schools of thought on this, but you`ll find that the free ones are likely to be just as good as one that charges you.

Take a look at the history of the temp agency before you sign up with them. It`s a good idea to talk to others who have been placed by the company and find out what their success rate is. A company that has a good history of temporary employment placements (without having employees returned) is probably doing a thorough job of maintaining their reputation and checking the potential candidates very carefully.

What to Look For

Not all temp agencies are the same. They might all get you temporary employment, but what about benefits? Some places will actually give you benefits including dental, medical and even holidays. It`s worth taking the time to seek this type of placement agency. Even if you don`t intend to be a temp for long, things change and you may find that you are in this for longer than anticipated. You will be more than grateful for the benefits if the position of temp goes on for several months or even years.

Make sure you find out who is expected to pay for the benefits, since this sometimes comes out of your pay. If the company offers to pay for benefits, all the better. Check this when you do your interview.

Temporary employment is certainly an interesting way to go, whether you need to pay the bills while waiting for your dream job, or are just trying to improve your resume. Finding the right temp agencies is key to being a success as a temp, so take the time to find the right one.