Career Transitions: How to Prepare for Your Next Career Move
After 15 or 20 years in management, you may be considering a career change. Perhaps you want to move into another industry, take on a different function or leave corporate employment to start your own business. But how realistic are these options? And what would such a transition mean for your compensation, seniority and future career opportunities?
Before making a decision, it’s worth examining your motivations, assessing the feasibility of your preferred direction and understanding what the transition would involve.
What Is a Career Transition?
A career transition involves moving from one professional role, function, industry or career direction into another. Unlike a conventional job change, which usually follows an established path, a transition often requires you to apply your experience in a different context.
For example, a Finance Director moves into a COO role, an HR Manager transitions into ESG, or a corporate executive establishes an independent consulting practice.
Such moves may require additional competencies, a different approach to professional positioning or adjustments in compensation and seniority. You will need to demonstrate to potential employers how your previous experience is relevant to the new role.
However, not every manager who wants something different needs a complete career transition. Dissatisfaction may be related to current responsibilities, limited autonomy or organizational culture. Before considering alternative career paths, it’s worth identifying what is causing it.
Why Do Experienced Managers Consider Changing Careers?
A manager may have a successful career, a strong professional reputation and attractive compensation while becoming increasingly dissatisfied with their work. Responsibilities that were motivating ten years ago may no longer provide the same satisfaction. Professional priorities can also change as people gain experience and move through different stages of their lives.
At Career Angels, we use the research-based Decision Dynamics framework to help professionals understand these changes. It distinguishes between two dimensions of a career:
- Career Concepts: how we define professional success and the career paths we follow, also referred to as our outer career.
- Career Motives: what motivates us and provides professional satisfaction, also referred to as our inner career.
How Do Career Concepts and Career Motives Influence Your Decisions?
Decision Dynamics identifies four career orientations: Expert, Linear, Spiral and Transitory. These describe different career patterns and sources of motivation.
Expert is associated with specialization and professional mastery, Linear with progression and increasing responsibility, Spiral with learning and related career moves, and Transitory with variety, independence and change.
However, the career path someone follows doesn’t necessarily reflect what motivates them. Professional decisions may be influenced by external expectations, available opportunities or circumstances.
Think of a manager who has spent 20 years progressing through increasingly senior positions. Although their career follows a Linear path, their strongest motives may be Expert-oriented. They enjoy solving complex problems and developing specialist knowledge more than managing larger teams.
This mismatch between the manager’s outer and inner career may explain their declining professional satisfaction. It doesn’t necessarily mean they need to change professions, but understanding their motivations can help them identify alternative responsibilities or career directions worth exploring.
How Can You Identify What Needs to Change?
Before deciding on a new profession, examine your current responsibilities.
Ask yourself:
- Which responsibilities give me energy, and which consistently drain it?
- What types of problems do I enjoy solving?
- Which aspects of my current role would I like to retain?
- Am I dissatisfied with my profession, my responsibilities or the organizational environment?
- What would need to change for me to feel more engaged in my current role?
Within Decision Dynamics framework, we refer to these factors as engagement drivers and engagement killers.
An experienced Business Development Manager, for example, may discover that developing strategy and mentoring colleagues are more motivating than pursuing sales targets and traveling constantly. A more strategic role could therefore be a better option than leaving business development entirely.
Organizational culture is another factor worth considering. A manager who values autonomy and experimentation may struggle in a highly hierarchical organization, even when the responsibilities match their experience. In such cases, changing employers or the working environment may be more appropriate than changing professions.
How to Prepare for a Career Transition: 3 Steps
Having identified what you want to change, you need to assess which options are realistic and how to pursue them.
At Career Angels, we recommend three steps: research, transition planning and execution.
1. Research Your Options Before Making a Decision
One of the mistakes experienced professionals can make is choosing a new career direction without fully understanding what the work involves.
We once worked with a manager who had completed postgraduate studies in luxury brand management and wanted to transition into that field. Before committing to what could have been a 12-month transition, we recommended gaining practical experience through a short internship.
The client discovered that the role involved considerable reporting, spreadsheet work and internal coordination, precisely the activities they didn’t enjoy. Ultimately, the manager decided against changing professions and instead applied selected elements of the newly acquired knowledge in the current role.
Before pursuing a new direction, we recommend assessing three elements:
- Personal fit: does the actual work correspond to your motivations and expectations? Speak with professionals in the target role and, where possible, test your assumptions through a short assignment, project or internship.
- Competency fit: which of your existing competencies are relevant? What additional experience, qualifications or knowledge would you need?
- Market feasibility: are employers willing to consider candidates with your background? What compensation, seniority and working conditions could you realistically expect?
2. Develop a Realistic Career Transition Strategy
Having confirmed that your preferred direction is worth pursuing, you need to understand how your experience matches the requirements of the target market.
For example, a Finance Director pursuing a COO role may have experience in operational transformation, process optimisation and cross-functional leadership. However, employers recruiting a COO may also expect direct operational responsibility and industry-specific experience.
Your transition strategy should therefore address four questions:
- Positioning: which achievements and transferable competencies demonstrate your suitability for the target role, considering employers’ actual requirements?
- Development: do you need additional qualifications, upskilling, reskilling or practical experience?
- Expectations: are you prepared to accept changes in compensation, seniority or responsibilities?
- Market access: which employers, decision-makers and job search channels should you target?
A successful transition may also require adjusting your expectations and addressing potential concerns from employers. We once supported a telecom director who successfully moved into a technical engineering role. Beyond demonstrating the necessary competencies, the client had to show that the decision was deliberate and that they were prepared to accept a salary reduction of approx. 60%. Equally important was convincing the employer that someone with a senior management background would remain committed to a technical position.
Once you have defined your positioning and expectations, the next challenge is accessing the right opportunities. This can be particularly difficult when entering a new industry or function, where you may not yet have an established professional network. Building relationships with relevant decision-makers can help you better understand market expectations, demonstrate your value and identify opportunities that may not be publicly advertised.
3. Choose How to Execute Your Career Transition
Depending on your circumstances, you may decide to approach the external job market, change functions internally or gradually develop a new professional activity alongside your current role.
One of our clients had spent approximately 15 years in marketing before deciding to pursue a career in HR. After resigning and searching unsuccessfully for a year, they approached us for support. We recommended temporarily suspending the job search to gain practical exposure to HR and speak with people working in the profession.
The research revealed that entering HR externally would probably require starting at specialist level and accepting a salary reduction of approx. 50%. Neither option was acceptable.
The client returned to a Marketing Manager role and eventually transitioned into HR internally, without losing salary or seniority. An existing employer already knows your performance and competencies, which may make moving into another function more achievable than entering it through the external job market.
Your execution strategy should reflect the route you choose. An external transition will most probably require identifying target companies, approaching decision makers and will definitely require demonstrating transferable competencies. An internal move may involve building relationships across functions, participating in cross-functional projects or volunteering to support initiatives in other departments to gain relevant experience.
There are also alternatives to a complete career change. For example, an executive considering a move into the NGO sector may discover that volunteering, mentoring or board work provides the sense of purpose they’re looking for without requiring them to leave their current profession. Others may gradually develop advisory activities alongside their current employment.
When Should You Start Planning a Career Transition?
Career transitions can take considerably longer than conventional job changes, particularly when they involve moving into another function. You may need time to develop competencies, establish relationships in the target market and identify organizations willing to consider your experience.
Starting only when you’re exhausted or under pressure to leave your current position can limit your options. At Career Angels, we sometimes describe this as finding a job out of the job: accepting another position primarily to leave the current one, without addressing the underlying problem. As a result, you may encounter similar dissatisfaction in your new role.
Exploring your options while you’re still employed gives you more time to research, prepare and make an informed decision.
Is a Career Transition the Right Next Step for You?
If you’re considering a career transition but are unsure which direction to pursue or how realistic your options are, an external perspective can help you assess your situation before making a decision.
Over the past five years, Career Angels has advised 4,897 experienced managers and executives on their careers. More than 80% of our clients come to us through recommendations.
If you are a manager or executive with at least 10 years of experience and would like to discuss your career options, email Contact@CareerAngels.eu with “Career Consultation / Blog” in the subject line and attach your CV to arrange a free, confidential online Career Consultation.
