Get Your Hands Dirty to Find Out if Your Career Change Idea is Truly Right for You.

Several years ago, I got a bit burned out on my job. I started daydreaming that what I’d really rather do is get a PhD and train other career counselors about how to be successful. I mentioned this idea to a mentor and professor at the university where I’d gotten my master’s degree, and he said, “Perfect timing! I’m going on sabbatical and you can teach my graduate class in career counseling.”

Whoopee! I thought. The Universe was aligning to support me! And it was, but in a way different from what I’d expected. I dove in and taught the semester-long course, and by the end was ready to run screaming from the classroom. I’d discovered that while I like to train adults, I don’t like grading them.

That career experiment allowed me to get my hands dirty, and to discover, firsthand, that graduate teaching wasn’t my bag. Rather than investing $1000’s and years to complete a PhD, I’d learned that pursuing it wasn’t right for me.

Career experiments are short term, low-risk activities that allow you to get your hands dirty by experiencing what a new career area would be like. And—bonus!!—they also give you exposure to something that you’re thinking about, to build your experience base if you decide to move in that direction. These are career experiment activities that can help you gather more info to inform your career decision making:

• Field trips: A number of organizations, especially if they’re into cool things will provide tours of their businesses and that gives you a behind the scenes look at it. As an example, I live in Fort Collins, Colorado and we have some cool businesses here, including breweries who will give you an insider’s perspective. My daughter and I were at a local dairy recently where they offered tours of their operation. So if there’s a certain industry that appeals to you, see if there are some field trip opportunities that you could engage in.
• Job shadows: I find these are most effective after you’ve done a career research interview with someone, are interested in their specialty, and would benefit from being a fly on the wall and to observe how they work. Sometimes there are restrictions around that, such as confidentiality policies. It doesn’t work for everybody, but it’s something worth exploring to see if you can set it up.
• Online tutorials: Nowadays there are so many ways to learn, from the comfort of your compute! For example, on LinkedIn, there’s an option called LinkedIn Learning where they have so many interesting e-courese. I was doing some work with a client who wanted to find work in Poland, so I found a tutorial on Linkedin, that webinar that helped me gain some experience around that. Worked great! So whatever you might be thinking about, there’s likely some tutorials out there.
• Classes: online or in-person. I had a client years ago who wanted to get into project management in the healthcare industry. She had been a project manager in tech, and she signed up for a healthcare project management class, got her hands dirty doing that, confirmed that she liked that kind of work. And that turned into a networking opportunity, which turned into a job. So that can have some more avenues beyond what you’re learning might be.
• Practice project: This could be assigned to you by someone in the specialty where you have interest, or could be something that you come up with on your own. As an example, I had a client who wanted to get into interior decorating. She did a practice project, creating design boards for a friend’s business. It was a way for her to get her hands dirty. After she said, “I realized this is something I like to do on the side and maybe not for full-time work.”
• Volunteering: Another career experiment avenue is to volunteer, such as with a nonprofit, or an organization where volunteers are part of their natural line of doing business. A warning here about volunteering, volunteering can be a time sink, meaning if you commit to volunteer and you want to be a good supporter and follow through make sure it’s something that you truly are interested in gaining experience for.

  Most nonprofits hire from their volunteer pool, so that can be a good way to get your foot in the door. I’d recommend volunteering after you’ve checked out some of these other exploration activities, such as career research interviews and job shadows.

As you go through your career experiment process, ask yourself, “Did this increase or decrease my interest in this particular area?” The goal would be of course that you just want to do more and more. And after getting your hands dirty with some experiments, what are some other niche areas you might want to learn more about? That’s another advantage to getting your hands dirty, as you can go further than from an outsider’s perspective.

Career experiments not only help you clarify your focus and help you build a bridge of experience into a new area.