Pivoting Your Career

Lovelies, if you are considering changing your career, but the stories about how difficult making that transition are holding you back – please read on…

Several times a week I speak to women who want to pivot their careers.

They share their plans, we both get excited, and then they invariably give me a variation of: “But if I transition from [field X] into [field Y], I will have to take a pay cut, right?” or worse “I will have to start at the very bottom again!”

Let me hold your beautiful face in my hands and ask you: for the love of all thing holy, why oh why would you have to start over or accept a lower salary than you’re currently on?

Why do employers and (future) employees alike think that when you go into a new industry, suddenly you let go of ALL the experience you’ve gained so far? Why would you be at an equal footing with someone who has only just started working in general when you have years of work experience under your belt?

Have you not just spent YEARS learning a variety of transferable skills? Haven’t you learnt to communicate with a range of stakeholders? To collaborate with different people? To navigate the corporate world, to influence the right people, to make things happen?

And please don’t gave me the special snowflake excuse of “But THIS particular position requires very specific knowledge and expertise!” Sure, there’s a number of roles where you actually need in-depth knowledge or expertise on a certain topic. 

But the vast majority of positions – listen to me here! – DO NOT REQUIRE SPECIFIC EXPERTISE THAT ACTUALLY NECESSITATES YOU STARTING ALL OVER AGAIN.

In fact, I’d argue that you coming in from a different background actually helps you kick ass in this new field. You see things with different eyes, you bring a different angle, you have experience that adds to the depth of your understanding of this new gig.

How I know this to be true is through my own experience and my clients’. I myself went from being a lawyer in a law firm in The Netherlands, to being an HR Directory in Hong Kong in an education company, with a sizable salary increase (and then back to the law in that same company in Europe with yet again a dramatically larger pay check).

And I am no exception. My WINners often make drastic career changes whilst working with me – industry-wise, type of organisation-wise, type of position-wise. Sometimes all of the above at once! And often whilst getting promotions and increasing their pay-check to boot. 

They manage to do so because they have come to see that they need not accept anything less. This mindset shift is where success starts!

So being paid less or even starting at the bottom just because you are starting in a different field? Don’t buy into the myth, ladies.

It’s a fallacy.

If you want help to communicate your potential and your worth, whether it is in your current job or in a new field, my program might be able to help you (if it’s not, I will tell you too!). Message me to see if we’re a fit.