How to Change Careers: A Step-by-Step Roadmap

Mei, an illustrative case, has run a busy restaurant for six years and wants to move into project coordination. She has read job ads, watched videos about the field and priced a certificate. What she lacks is an order to do things in, so every few weeks she starts again from the beginning.

How to change careers, once you have decided to, comes down to a sequence of small, checkable steps. In order:

1. Pick one target role
2. Test the work for a day first
3. Measure the skill gap
4. Choose a training route that fits your week
5. Build proof people can see
6. Rewrite your resume and your story
7. Network into the field
8. Plan your money through the switch

Not sure yet that you want out of your field? Weighing whether a career change is right for you comes first; the steps below assume that choice is made. Expect the middle to take longest. A 2018 meta-analysis of public job programs across many countries, by economists David Card, Jochen Kluve and Andrea Weber, found that training tended to pay off slowly, with small effects on employment at first and larger ones later, among mostly unemployed participants.¹

Prefer to watch? The video covers the same ground as this article.

VideoHow to Change Careers: An 8‑Step RoadmapWiserHours

How to change careers by aiming at one role

The first practical step in changing careers is to name one specific target role, because the skills you learn, the proof you build and the people you contact all depend on it. The US Department of Labor’s CareerOneStop guide to switching careers puts generating ideas, learning about the job market and choosing a career ahead of training, resumes and networking.²

A vague aim cannot be tested or trained for. “Something more strategic” gives Mei nothing to search for, while “project coordinator at a hospitality or events company” points to real job ads, real courses and real people she can ask. Job boards, training catalogs and professional groups are organized by role, so a named role is what lets you use them.

Official occupation databases describe what each role involves. In the US, O*NET, run for the Department of Labor, also sorts occupations into Job Zones by the education, experience and training they need.³ Across the EU, the European Commission’s ESCO classification describes occupations and the skills linked to them, free of charge.⁴ If you are torn between two or three fields, your Holland code can show which of them matches your interests, and if you worry the target role itself will shrink, read how to judge AI exposure research before you invest in it.

1. Pick one target role

Write the role title, the kind of employer that hires for it and the three tasks that fill most of its week. If you cannot name the tasks yet, finding them out comes before anything else.

2. Test the work for a day first

A test answers one question about the work before you spend money on training. England’s National Careers Service describes work shadowing as watching someone do a job for a day or a few days, and says work experience at any age can help you try out career ideas and rule some out.⁵ Part-time work, helping with someone’s business and volunteering count too.

The value lies in what reading cannot show you: the pace, the people, the dull parts. Mei spends a Saturday shadowing a friend’s event coordinator and learns that the job is mostly spreadsheets and supplier calls, which she enjoys, and that the pay starts below her current salary, which she needs to plan for.

Find the gap and pick training that fits your week

The skill gap is the difference between what a target role asks for and what you can already show, and training should cover that gap rather than the whole job description. England’s National Careers Service suggests checking job descriptions and job profiles and talking to people you know about their jobs to learn which skills a role needs.⁶

Most switchers already hold part of what a new role needs. Mei runs budgets, schedules staff and handles suppliers every week; what she lacks is the vocabulary and tools of formal project management. A targeted course can fill that hole in months, where a general business degree would re-teach what she already does.

Myth

Changing careers means quitting and retraining full time.

Fact

England's National Careers Service says a course need not be full time, and lists short courses, evening classes and online learning.

3. Measure the skill gap

Take three recent job ads for your target role and list every requirement in one column. In a second column, write the evidence you already have for each; the empty rows are your gap. Our guide to finding your transferable skills shows how to spot what carries over.

4. Choose a training route that fits your week

The best route is the one you can keep up while life goes on. In the EU’s 2022 Adult Education Survey, adults aged 25 to 64 who wanted more training than they got most often named scheduling conflicts as the reason, about 4 in 10 of them, with cost second.⁷ England’s National Careers Service also names apprenticeships and learning on the job as routes, and notes that some learners can get help with funding or childcare while on a course.⁶ Funded retraining schemes, recognized qualifications and licensing rules differ widely by country, so ask your national careers or public employment service what applies to you. Caring duties, a disability or a tight budget can narrow the choice, and the same services can say what support exists.

The study

Limited evidence

Training programs start slow and gain ground years later

David Card, Jochen Kluve and Andrea Weber pooled estimates from over 200 recent evaluations of active labor market programs, from training courses to job-search help. On average, effects on employment were close to zero in the short run and became more positive 2 to 3 years after a program ended, a rise driven mainly by training programs. Randomized and non-randomized studies gave similar average results.¹

The authors describe a lock-in effect behind the slow start: people in training often suspend their job search to study, so they fall behind at first and catch up later if what they learned is valuable.¹ The participants were mostly unemployed people in government programs and the results varied widely, so read this as a pattern, not a forecast. For your own switch, judge a course over years rather than months, and avoid planning your finances around a new job the week you finish it.

Show the work: projects, volunteering and bridge roles

Proof is finished, visible work for the new field that someone else can judge, and it matters because an employer hiring a career changer is betting on skills you have not yet used for pay.

5. Build proof people can see

England’s National Careers Service says volunteering can show you what a job involves, build new skills and widen your contacts; it suggests, for example, doing communications for a local charity if you are aiming for a media career.⁸ Mei turns the restaurant’s kitchen refit into a documented project with a plan, a budget and a finish date, then volunteers to coordinate a charity’s annual fundraiser.

A bridge role can do the same job with less risk: work that draws on your present occupation while edging you toward the new one, such as operations at an events company for Mei. The trade-offs are set out in our guide to changing careers at 30, and they apply at any age.

Rewrite your story and reach the people who hire

A resume for a new field has to lead with the new field’s work, and the contacts most likely to open doors are often acquaintances rather than close friends.

6. Rewrite your resume and your story

England’s National Careers Service advises tailoring a CV to each job, working from the advert’s description and essential criteria, and using job profiles when no description exists.⁹ For a switcher, that means putting the target role’s tasks and your proof first, and translating old job titles into the new field’s words. Mei’s restaurant job now leads with the kitchen refit she coordinated, not the covers she served.

Your spoken story needs three short parts: why this field, what you have done to prepare and what you bring from before. We found no study that tests the best format for a career changer’s resume, so treat this as practitioner advice.

7. Network into the field

A large randomized test of job contacts favors weak tiesweak ties: Relationships with little shared time, emotion, confiding or exchange of favors, such as a former colleague. Because acquaintances move in other circles, they are more likely than close friends to pass on news you have not already heard, including about jobs.Full entry in the glossary. In a 2022 study in Science, researchers analyzed randomized experiments with LinkedIn’s “People You May Know” feature and found that moderately weak ties, measured by contacts in common, created the most job mobility.¹⁰ Two of the five authors worked at LinkedIn, and the effect varied by industry, as our guide to why acquaintances help in a job search explains.

The usual explanation, from the weak-ties theory the study tested, is reach: close friends mostly know the people and openings you already know, while an acquaintance in the target field hears about different ones. In practice, write to a contact of a former coworker or someone you met once at a trade event, and ask one specific question about the work rather than for a job. Mei asks an events manager she met at a supplier’s launch which software coordinators use, and the reply tells her which tool to practice next.

Keep the money steady through the switch

A career change often involves a stretch of training, a possible gap between jobs and a lower starting salary, so planning the money before you resign is part of the roadmap.

8. Plan your money through the switch

No savings target fits everyone: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a US regulator, ties the size of an emergency fundemergency fund: Money kept in an account you can reach quickly, to cover unexpected costs or a drop in income without borrowing. How much to hold depends on your circumstances, and official guidance differs by country.Full entry in the glossary to each household’s circumstances and names lost income as one of the shocks such a fund exists to absorb.¹¹ Total your essential monthly spending, the training fees and the pay you might forgo between jobs, and set that sum against your savings. For Mei, the sum includes the certificate and the lower starting pay she learned about while shadowing. Where you can, keeping your current income while you train avoids stacking a pay gap on training’s slow start.

If debts, a home loan or pension choices are tied up in the plan, a regulated, fee-only financial adviser (paid by you, not by commission on products) can test your own numbers. In the UK, free and impartial guidance on debt, money and pensions comes from the Money and Pensions Service, which is sponsored by the government.¹² Elsewhere, your country’s financial regulator or a free public or non-profit advice service can point you to regulated help.

How long changing careers takes, realistically

We found no official source that measures how long a typical career change takes, but the preparation your target role demands sets the floor. In the US, O*NET’s Job Zones range from a few days to a year of on-the-job training at one end to graduate school at the other.³

In the middle band, Job Zone 3, workers usually need one or two years of training that mixes on-the-job experience with learning from experienced colleagues; most Job Zone 4 roles call for a bachelor’s degree.³ A change within reach of a short course and a few projects might take the better part of a year alongside a job; a change that needs a new degree or a license takes years. Mei’s target sits in between: a course, two projects and some months of applications.

What happens after the switch is less studied than it should be. A longitudinal study by Sally Carless and Jessica Arnup, published in 2011, found that one year after changing careers, people reported higher job satisfaction, improved job security and fewer hours worked.¹³ The abstract is all we could access and it is silent on pay; one study cannot tell you how your own change will go.

Use the Job Zone of your target role to set a rough horizon, then put two or three checkpoints in your calendar, such as the end of a course or your first finished project. At each one, measure progress against that horizon.

Your career change roadmap

• One target role named, with its three core tasks
• At least one cheap test done: shadowing, volunteering or a conversation
• Skill gap listed from three real job ads
• A training route chosen that fits my week
• One piece of visible proof for each core task
• Resume and three-part story rewritten for the new field
• Five acquaintances in the field contacted with one question each
• Essential costs, training fees and a possible pay gap compared with savings

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The bottom line

Retraining tends to pay off slowly, so name one target role, test the work cheaply and plan your money before you resign. Judge the switch over a span of years.