I spoke with former client and management consultant Dan Finkel about his experience making a career change without losing his income. Dan pursued career coaching several years ago using the Inner Compass Process and transitioned from educational leadership to management consulting.
Dan used career conversations for the following purposes:
1. To learn more about the job and next steps
2. To ask questions about compensation
3. To identify how his skills would transfer over to a new role/industry, and learn how to talk about those skills in a new way that people would understand
If you are looking to make a career change without losing your income, Dan provided fantastic tips on to how phrase questions during your career conversations:
- If I came to work at your company, what type of things could you see me doing?
- At what level do you think I could work?
- What is the title of the role you see me in, what are the roles and responsibilities I'd be doing, and what is the salary range?
Overall, Dan said that career conversations help dispel some of his fears. He also found people were more willing to speak about salary than he thought.