Are you ready for a change?

Whether you're seeking a more fulfilling job or rethinking your career goals after a layoff, the questions you face are crucial. In Strategies for Successful Career Change, seasoned business and career journalist Martha E. Mangelsdorf distills lessons from a diverse group of people who have made the leap and landed on their feet. To help you navigate the challenges, pitfalls, and rewards of career transition, this book will show you how to:

• Align your professional life with your personal goals
• Identify your transferable skills, strengths, and constraints
• Explore possible new careers in low-risk ways
• Change careers while still paying the bills

You'll assess your current work life and aspirations, while taking into account logistical realities such as finances, health insurance, and family obligations. Through exercises, resources, and inspiring stories from successful career-changers, this supportive and empowering guide will help you find your very best next work life.

I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot.

- Ecclesiastes 3:22

This is a book about finding work you enjoy. If you're thinking about changing careers but aren't sure how to do it, this book is for you. If you've ever read or heard about people who've changed careers and wondered how they went about doing it, this book should help. Its a book about the "how" of career change - one that grew out of in-depth interviews with dozens of people who have successfully changed careers. Its about how to do research about a new career, how to test career possibilities in low-risk ways, and how to juggle money and family issues. It's about how to follow your dreams but still pay the bills. Whether you are seriously thinking about changing careers or just exploring the idea a little. Strategies for Successful Career Change can help.

However, if you dream of a perfect new career - one that will fulfill all your dreams for work and be without problems or drawbacks - this book may disappoint you. Work is seldom, if ever, perfect. And no career will be without problems or drawbacks. As I interviewed career-changers, it became abundantly clear that career change is hard work, often takes a long time - and is somewhat risky. What s more, although finding more satisfying work can definitely improve your happiness and the quality of your life, changing careers is unlikely to make you happy if you tend to be a chronically unhappy person.

But if you are thinking realistically about changing careers - and need down-to-earth, practical information about how real people do that - this book is for you. In my talks with successful career-changers, I identified certain patterns and themes that were part of a number of people's experiences. Although no one career-changer fits all the patterns, I could nonetheless see themes and best practices that emerged in various career-changers' stories. Throughout this book I'll share their stories, with an emphasis on how they made the transition successfully.

Why I Wrote This Book

My introduction to the art of career change came through my own experience of career transition. In my twenties and early thirties, I was truly blessed in my work. I had found work that really fit me at the lime, and I loved it. (It wasn't perfect, but I think it was as close to perfect as work gets.) In college I had been torn between becoming an economist or a newspaper reporter; I had majored in economics yet also loved being a reporter and editor at my colleges daily paper. Ultimately, I blended both interests and became a business journalist. I soon landed, in my mid-twenties, as a reporter/researcher at Inc. magazine, the nation's leading magazine about running and growing a small business.

Inc. and I were a perfect fit. I was passionate about small businesses, and, in an era when large corporations could no longer be relied on for employment stability, I believed that it was extremely important to help people learn how to start and run their own businesses better; it seemed extraordinarily important to our economy and to peoples lives to convey good, solid, practical information about how to start, manage, and grow a business. There was nothing I, as a journalist, wanted to do more; I couldn't imagine a better job.

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Copyright © 2009 by Martha E. Mangelsdorf.

Tags: Career & Money

About the Author

Martha E. Mangelsdorf is an experienced business and careers writer. She is a former senior editor and senior writer for Inc. magazine, and her work has appeared in a diverse range of publications - from Family Circle magazine to the Wall Street Journal. While a freelance journalist, Mangelsdorf for four years wrote a monthly feature on career change, called "Transitions," for the Boston Globe. More