Whatever the reason might be for considering a complete change of career, it makes sense to boost your chances of making the leap. Here are some tips to help you feel more confident about your chances of switching careers.

1. Know which direction you are heading in.
Knowing you want to leave your current career in favour of another one is not enough. You must know which career you want to step into. This knowledge will allow you to explore what skills are required for your new career, and whether you need any new qualifications.

2. Can you switch careers while staying with the same employer?
This is more likely to be possible if you work for a large employer with several different departments. For example, if you work on the shop floor at a major chain store perhaps you could switch to working in HR instead. There are lots of businesses big enough to incorporate lots of different working roles. Consider this route first – if there is nothing else you would enjoy doing you can start looking at other career paths instead.

3. Go for a career you feel passionate about.
It’s possible to feel excited about any career to begin with. But if you find you have a real passion for something, it rarely goes away. You’ll know when you have found it – it won’t feel like a job or work at all. The secret to your own passion could lie in your hobbies or pastimes, so consider every possibility you can find.

4. Study for your new career – even if you are not required to get new qualifications.
Some careers require you to hold a degree or other specialist qualification. But even if your new career requires neither of these things you should still make a point of studying towards it. It may be as simple as brushing up on old skills you have long since forgotten how to use. But whatever you do to study for your next career you should recognise that all studying pays dividends eventually.

5. Send out the word.
It’s worth remembering that you don’t have to approach your proposed career switch alone. If you know what career you want to move into, spread the word and talk with your friends and family members about it. It could well be that one of them will have some useful information on your career choice, or know someone who already works in that field. They may even know of a job opportunity you could apply for.

It’s not enough to decide on a change of career. You have to create a plan of action to get you from A to B. By implementing the above suggestions you should find it easier to make this life changing journey.

This guest post was written by Allison at UKTutors.com, which provides a wide range of tutors for all types of students.

Not everyone can do that or even wants to. Routine doesn’t sit well with some people who like a little variety in their lives. For other people, that particular eight-hour block of time conflicts with other plans. School, family obligations and part-time jobs often mean working 9 to 5 is impossible. Of course, just because these jobs have different hours than most others, don’t think these are easy jobs.

If you’d prefer to have a schedule that offers different hours, here are 8 jobs to consider:

1. Chefs and bakers
You might not eat lunch until noon, but someone had to start preparing it long before you sat down. Chefs get up early to get the freshest ingredients from local markets and to start chopping vegetables and marinating dishes so they’ll be ready for you. Bakers also need time to make all those delicious baked goods you scarf down in a few seconds. While you were still snoozing, a baker was making those pastries you picked up on the way to work. The next time you pass by a restaurant or bakery that is closed in the middle of the day, realize that they were working long before you were.

2. Construction workers
Construction work is tough for many reasons, one being the weather. Imagine wearing protective gear while building a skyscraper on a hot summer afternoon. To avoid spending their entire day in dangerous heat, construction crews often start working before the sun rises so they can be done early. It’s safer for them and means they’re heading home before most 9-to-5 workers call it a day.

3. Nurses
Nurses in hospitals are there for the patients around the clock all year long. Naturally, no single nurse can cover every shift alone — and they’re often long shifts — so someone needs to be there during the day, late at night and in the morning.

4. Home Carers
As a home career you look after people in their own homes and assist them with whatever they may need help with. This may start in the morning with dressing, personal care, during the day you do some housework duties and prepare meals. There are different shifts throughout the day and also during weekends.

5. Hair stylists
Hair stylists need to be available to clients when it’s convenient for them, and not everyone can sneak away for an hour or two during the day to get a haircut. And you probably don’t want a groggy stylist holding a pair of scissors at 6 a.m. just so you can get an appointment before work. That’s why many salons don’t open until late morning but then stay open until late evening. As a result, they’re working when many other people aren’t, so you can make an appointment.

6. Teachers
Some teachers teach only day courses, so their workday might not look that different from yours. But others teach in the evenings as well, especially if they teach at a college. So they might have a six-hour gap between their morning class for undergraduates and their evening class for grad students. Plus, grading papers and holding office hours mean work well beyond the hours they spend in a classroom.

7. Retail sales clerks
When you buy clothes, groceries or even a car, you probably don’t do it during the middle of a workday. Retail salespeople work evenings and weekends so you can buy what you need without having to leave the office.

8. Security guards
When everyone leaves their 9-to-5 jobs, someone has to make sure the office is secure all night. Security guards patrol the grounds to ensure that no one gets in the building and they alert the police if something goes wrong. Of course, you can find security guards at banks and stores that are open only during standard business hours, too.

IT and communications

Technology is one of the strongest growth sectors and shows the highest demand for staff, with CAD, CAM, developers and general IT skills in short supply, according to the latest Report on Jobs from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation and KPMG.

The findings are also backed up by Barclays Job Creation Survey, which found that 78 per cent of companies in the industry are planning to create new jobs within the next 12 months — more than any other field.

Technology is also leading the way in Scotland. According to a recent report from trade body ScotlandIS, the software and IT industry is growing faster than any other area, with nearly two-thirds of IT and telecoms firms in Scotland planning to take on more staff in 2012.

Renewable energy

Last year the government invested £5.7 billion in renewable energy (such as wind, wave, solar and biomass and energy from waste), potentially supporting tens of thousands of new jobs. They plan to spend billions more in order to see the UK capable of delivering more than 90 per cent of its renewable energy by 2020.

The UK is now a real player on the global stage. In February Ernst & Young ranked the UK fifth in the world in attractiveness to renewable investors, up one place on the previous year — more good news for job seekers thinking of entering the industry. Scotland is also looking to the sector to provide jobs. According to a report by Scottish Renewables, renewable energy will be a major source of investment in the near future.

Green skills feature highly on the list of global skills most in demand by Hays Recruitment. Their report states: “This is a fairly new area, but a growing one, with particular demand in the green energy and construction sectors across all regions.”

Oil and Gas energy

Renewable energy may be the future, but the oil and gas industries are currently performing well. According to a recent report from Hays, demand for energy professionals across the UK is increasing, with employees enjoying average salaries of £55,850 — more than twice the national salary average of £26,244.

Matt Underhill, Managing Director of Hays Oil & Gas said: “Last year we reported a 30 per cent rise in contractor wages for UK professionals. This was particularly encouraging for UK-based oil and gas professionals as the rates are a good indicator of the state of the job market. The 2012 guide figures demonstrate that the UK oil and gas industry has maintained this recovery and day rates remain buoyant.”

Motoring & Automotive engineering

The motoring industry currently employs more than 700,000 people and is the UK’s largest sector in terms of exports. With the Government investing £50 million over the next three years to support auto manufacturers and low-carbon cars high on the agenda — for example, by encouraging companies like Nissan to build these vehicles in the UK — the prospects for the industry look good.

According to The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, car manufacturing rose by 15.6 per cent in January and is predicted to show strong growth in the coming months. The motoring and automotive sector also came second (to Engineering) on the Reed Job Index of companies showing most demand for staff in March.

Healthcare

Looking further ahead, healthcare promises to be a buoyant industry. As people live longer, the requirement for healthcare grows. “But the lack of healthcare professionals poses a considerable threat for the global economy over the next 20 to 50 years,” according to Hays, which listed healthcare on its top 10 global skills shortage list.

“Talent shortages are a global problem,” said Charles Logan, Director at Hays. “We operate in 32 countries and these skills are the ones that our clients globally say are in most demand. For anyone considering their career options in our globalised economy, these are the skills to focus on.

The Barclays Job Creation Survey also listed healthcare amongst the fields most likely to be hiring, with 62 per cent of UK companies planning to create new jobs in the next 12 months. With deregulation occurring across the NHS, allowing GPs to contract certain private providers of healthcare services, the long term prognosis for the industry looks good.

According to Tony Schwarz of The Energy Project and blogger for Harvard Business Review, no, all stress isn’t considered bad. Mr. Schwarz says, “We live by the myth that stress is the enemy in our lives. The real enemy is our failure to balance stress with intermittent rest. Push the body too hard for too long — chronic stress — and the result will indeed be burnout and breakdown. But subject the body to insufficient stress, and it will weaken and atrophy.” Schwarz goes on to describe that we lose an average of one percent of muscle mass per year after thirty. By keeping constant stress in your life, you can bolster yourself (physically and mentally) to prevent that loss.

Keeping with the idea that all stress isn’t bad, we can all reflect on when and for how long we feel stressed. Do you feel like your heart is racing all day long? Is it only in the morning during your commute? Once you evaluate when and for how long you are stressed, you can find a solution.

To get back to basics, how can you avoid the chronic stress? I can hear you laughing – yes, it is possible. The normal rules apply:

1. Keep physically active – This will help you burn off that angst

2. Avoid alcohol – We all know that sometimes a drink after a long day will set the world right. Excessive alcohol can leave to even greater stress and usually results in poor sleep patterns.

3. Avoid caffiene – The Corner Office loves their morning coffee as much as the next person. We’ve been even known to indulge in a Diet Coke before noon. But all that caffiene makes your heart beat faster and body work harder. Cutting out caffiene can also help you sleep at night.

3. Get a good night sleep – Falling asleep sometimes seems the hardest thing when you are stressed. Adopt a routine to ease you into a relaxation point. Keep a notebook by your bed to write down all the things on your mind.

4. Talk to your boss – If your stress is based around work, talk to your boss. They might have some good ideas to help alleviate the stress you are feeling.

Do you know any other tips for stress reduction? Let us know!

Language skills are in demand worldwide.  According to data from TLJ, job postings requiring multiple language skills continue to increase across Europe with over 120,000 job listings in France, the U.K. and Germany alone — and more than 200,000 in total. In the U.S., there are more than 180,000 job listings with a language skills requirement.  

“Entering the ever-growing global language jobs market presents a strategic opportunity for CareerBuilder since many companies today rely on multilingual workers as they expand into new economies,” said Tony Roy, President of CareerBuilder EMEA. “It gives our clients access to a new diverse pool of bilingual and multilingual job seekers to fill their open positions. Job seekers, in turn, are able to explore opportunities in markets around the world.”  

According to a 2007 Nielsen Report, more than $83 billion is spent by consumers every year to acquire language skills. TLJ allows customers and candidates to search from 72 primary languages and hundreds of dialects worldwide.

 “The acquisition is not only exciting for Top Language Jobs, but for linguistic professionals across the globe,” said Aytac Irfan, Managing Director of TLJ. “The increasing demand for multilingual talent, coupled with the CareerBuilder network across Europe and in the U.S., will add a plethora of new opportunities for job seekers looking to use their language skills.” 

 CareerBuilder operates in 21 markets outside the U.S. and, through partnerships, has a presence in more than 60 markets worldwide.

 About Top Language Jobs

Top Language Jobs is Europe’s No. 1 specialist language recruitment job portal.  They operate the largest global network of Job Boards dedicated multilingual job seekers looking for work internationally.  Top Language Jobs works with the world’s top employers offering them a platform to advertise their vacancies in 23 European Countries, United States, and Canada.  Their Career Fair Division also operates the largest specialist multilingual career fairs in 10 locations across Europe.  They have over 300,000 unique visitors, 8,000 job opportunities listed, and 345,000 registered users.

To see all Google jobs on CareerBuilder, click here.

But that’s not their intention. Some questions aim to establish how well you cope under pressure, others will be to reveal your personality or to see what your career aspirations are. Just remember that there is no need to draw a blank or clam up if you have done your research and preparation beforehand.

If you want to avoid an interview disaster, here are some of the toughest interview questions and their suggested responses.

Q: “Tell me about yourself”

This is perhaps the most open-ended question of them all and is typically used by interviewers as a warm-up question to give you the opportunity to shine. But resist the temptation to start talking about your life history. What your interviewer is looking for is a quick two or three minute snapshot of who you are and why you are the best candidate for the job. So keep your response relevant to the position you are applying for. For example:

A: I started my media sales career five years ago as a telesales representative, rising through the ranks before gaining promotion to sales manager three years later. I am now responsible for training and developing a team of 15 sales consultants that are currently the company’s best performing sales team.

Q: “What are your salary expectations?”

You should have done some research into the average salary and remuneration that this type of position will pay. Try to deflect the question by turning it around and asking the interviewer about the salary on offer. Typically, they will start with a lower figure than they are prepared to offer because they want to keep their costs down. So if you are pressed to give a number, its best to give a range to avoid pricing yourself out of contention. For example:

A: I’m sure whatever salary you’re paying is consistent with the rest of the market average of £23,000 to £25,000.

Q: “Why should we hire you”

This can be a killer question and can make or break your chances of winning the job. And how you answer will depend on how well you have probed your interviewer about their requirements and expectations. So what the interviewer is really asking you is, What can you do for my business? Your response needs to answer that question. For example:

A: As I understand your needs, you are first and foremost looking for someone who can increase your advertising sales and has experience of managing a sales team. I have a proven track record in successfully managing and developing my territory within this sector, having increased my sales from £150,000 to £210,000 over the last two years alone.

Q: “If you were a car … tree … animal what would you be?”

Baffling though it may seem, some interviewers still insist on asking silly questions, such as If you were a car, what type of car would you be and why? There are no right or wrong answers. The interviewer is simply testing your reactions under pressure to see how you will cope with the unexpected in an attempt to gain an insight into your personality and how you view yourself. Don’t get hung up on the implications of what type of car you say you would be, just be mindful that you will be expected to explain your choice. For example:

A: I would probably be a 1962 Alpha Romeo Spider — classy, stylish, driven and fast off the mark

Q: “Why did you leave your last job?”

You know this question will be asked at some stage, so have your answer ready in advance. The rule of thumb is to always remain positive about your current and previous employers because you never know when your paths may cross again. Besides, who are you going to turn to for a reference? For example:

A: I learned a lot from my previous employer and enjoyed my time there. However, promotional opportunities were few and far between and I am keen to advance my career sooner rather than later.

Q: “What are your weaknesses?”

Career manuals abound with ways to tackle this question. And most of them seem to suggest that you should take one of your strengths and portray it as a weakness. For instance, I work too much. But this will actually work against rather than work for you because it may imply that you do not organise your workload effectively, or that you have poor time management skills. Instead, opt for a genuine weakness. For example:

A: I used to struggle to plan and prioritorise my workload. However, I have taken steps to resolve this and now I have started using a planning tool and diary system on my laptop. 

Q: “What motivates you?”

Short of telling your interviewer that you are motivated by the prospect of earning a footballer’s salary, driving a Bentley or having a holiday home in St Tropez, try and give a constructive answer that will excite your interviewer into understanding what benefit you will bring to his business. For example:

A: I get a real kick out of seeing my team exceed their sales targets and completing the project on time and within budget.

Q: “How would your former colleagues describe you?”

This is a sure sign that the interviewer likes you and is already thinking about contacting your previous employer for a reference. And this is the time when you realise how important it is to choose your referees carefully. So answer this question in the way that you would like to think your employer would respond. For example:

A: I have an excellent working relationship with my manager and we have mutual respect for each other. He considers me to be hard working, dedicated, reliable and able to work well using my own initiative.

Tragus Group
Formed in 2002, Tragus is one of the UK’s largest independently owned restaurant operators with over 285 sites across the country serving over 21 million meals a year. The portfolio of leading brands are operated as four divisions — Café Rouge, Strada, Bella Italia, and the Brasseries — with offerings ranging from pizza and pasta to French classics.
Available positions: Tragus is hiring Head Chefs, Sous Chefs, Assistant Managers and Managers for their four divisions across the UK.

H&M
H&M today operates in 38 countries and sells clothes and cosmetics in around 2,200 stores around the world. About 76,000 employees worldwide work for the Swedish company.
Available positions: H&M is hiring store and floor managers, visual merchandisers and sales advisors across various locations in the UK.

Bupa Care Homes
Bupa Care Homes is part of Bupa, a leading international healthcare group. Bupa has over 300 care homes in the UK, offering expert residential, respite and nursing care, and specialist homes in dementia and other conditions.
Available positions: Bupa offers jobs for managers, carers, nurses and support workers in different care homes throughout the UK.

Rackspace
Rackspace Hosting is the World’s leader in Hosting and Cloud Computing.  Since 2001 Rackspace has been hosting and supporting mission critical websites, internet applications, email servers, security and storage services for 6,000 customers.
Available positions: Rackspace is hiring mostly in London in the areas of IT, Sales, HR, Finance or Tech Support.

Betfair
The Betfair group of companies (‘Betfair’) offers a global portfolio of gambling products and services. This includes the world’s leading betting exchange (a concept pioneered by Betfair), which is provided in the UK.
Available positions: Betfair is hiring in the areas corporate, marketing, products and services, technology and they seek talented graduates for their graduate programme.

Oracle
Oracle provides business software and hardware systems to more than 370,000 customers — including 100 of the Fortune 100 — in more than 145 countries around the globe. Oracle’s 110,000 global employees, including 30,000 developers working full-time on Oracle products, are critical to that success.
Available positions: Oracle recruiters are always searching for employees with an entrepreneurial spirit as well as top university graduates, bringing ideas and motivation to the business.

You probably spend a few days (at least) wringing your hands over whether or not you’ll ever find a job. No matter who you are and what industry you’re in, anxiety is just part of the process. But everyone has a different breaking point, and after sending in so many CVs, you’re bound to start asking, “I’ve sent out hundreds of applications – what else can I do?”

Here’s a checklist for you to review so you can either put your mind at ease (“It’s not me; it’s them”) or revamp your searching technique (“Well, it might be me”). Maybe the factors slowing down your job hunt are not under your control. But it doesn’t hurt to double-check.

1. Location
Before you start blaming yourself for not getting any leads, take a look at your surrounding area. Not all cities have the same job market. There are some places that offer more of what you like and offer better career prospects than others. Whether or not you want to or can relocate for your job is a personal matter, but you should consider the unemployment rate of your region when assessing how your hunt is going.

2. Which jobs
When you look at how many applications you’ve sent out and how many you’ve heard back from, you might want to divide the list into two columns: jobs you expected to get and jobs you applied for on a whim. CareerBuilder has implemented a new feature titled Job Feeds. It allows you to compare who you has also applied and how many applications the job has received. You do need to register with us to take advantage of this service.
Many job seekers decide to send out applications for jobs they know they’re not qualified for, whether they just want a paycheque or they think it would be fun to try a completely unrelated field — even though they know the odds of getting a call are slim. These passes are perfectly acceptable, but don’t consider their failures to be, well, failures. The jobs that align with your experience, education and skills are the ones that should be the gauge of your success.

3. The CV
Here’s where a lot of things go wrong. That one piece of paper, digital or hard copy, causes a lot of problems. Here’s a quick rundown of what you should check:
- Is your contact information (including your name) listed so the employer can call or e-mail you?
- Did you target the content to the job posting? Use the same phrasing, list experience that correlates to the requirements and give specific examples of achievements that will intrigue the employer.
- Did you attach your CV as a document in an e-mail? For security reasons, many employers won’t open attachments, so your CV might go unread. In addition to the attachment, paste it in the body of the e-mail to be safe.
- Was there a cover letter attached to it? If there is no cover letter, this can mean some hiring managers won’t take it into consideration.

4. The interview
If you’ve been called in for interviews already, then you’re doing something right. Not getting a job after interviewing doesn’t mean you blew it — it means you made the shortlist, but someone else might have been a better fit. But it never hurts to review your performance.

An interview is often a chance for the employer to see if you fit into the company culture. Are you too rigid for a casual environment? Are your verbal communication skills good enough for your position? Hiring managers also use this opportunity to learn about you in a way they can’t through a CV. They want you to elaborate on your experience and answer any questions they still have.

To make a good impression, preparation is key. You don’t want to sound rehearsed, but practicing your answers to questions, your handshake, how you’ll sit in the chair and anything else you’re likely to encounter will help you. If you can avoid being the deer in the headlights, you’ll be able to focus on the quality of your answers.

5. Appearance
Not to be superficial, but presentation means a lot. From the layout of your CV to the wrinkles in your interview attire, your professionalism is being judged. How are you presenting yourself to employers?

Don’t start your cover letter with something like “Hey!” and don’t end it with a smiley-face emoticon. Your CV shouldn’t be full of ClipArt butterflies and smiley faces. And you should leave some white space between sections so that the entire page isn’t a single paragraph of text. The hiring manager needs to see a job candidate who takes the job seriously, even before you’re called in for an interview.

During an interview, you should dress appropriately. That doesn’t mean trying too hard — say, a tuxedo for an administrative assistant’s job — but it does mean dress for the environment and look like you spent time preparing. If you’re told the environment is business casual, then you don’t need a suit, but you still need to iron your trousers.

Activity Feeds will update you in three distinct ways:

• Post Apply – After you apply to a job, a real-time feed is created informing the you on the number of applicants you are competing against

• Weekly Update – 7 days after applying, the feed is updated with the new number of total applications that the job has received

• Job Expiration – When an applied job expires, a new feed is created that notifies you and gives the final application count

You can check out the new feature here. Note, you must be a registered user to use this feature.

In this state of economic uncertainty we know that knowledge is power therefore our new feature will help you become a more educated jobseeker with the ability to see how you fare against your competition. Please be aware, you do have to be a registered user of CB to use this service. What other information would you like to see included in the future? Let us know in the comments.