成功转行6大策略

    重返校园：学习相关课程不仅能够获得目标领域的相关知识，结识新朋友，而且“可以把这项经历作为相关经验写入简历，因为这是学习此领域知识的证明，”马克•多里奥说。马克•多里奥是一位有着丰富咨询经验的人事管理专家，著有《完美傻瓜指南之求职》（The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting the Job You Want）等多部求职类书籍。

    多里奥在这方面颇有经验：起初，作为天主教神父的多里奥同时兼任天主教一所高中的主管。后来，他重返校园，攻读组织行为及工业心理学硕士学位。这些资历以及他掌握的团队组织及咨询等通用技能让他成功地进入一家咨询公司工作。如今，多里奥开办了自己的指导和咨询公司，拥有众多客户，其中不乏《财富》（Fortune）500强企业，如默克公司（Merck ）及强生公司（Johnson & Johnson）等。

    人脉，人脉，还是人脉：史黛丝•希尔顿回忆说，一到罗利，“我就开始给人打电话，尽管我们从未谋面。从公关公司到警察局媒体关系团队，包括某些没有任何招聘计划的公司，无一例外。不管怎么说，只有这样才有机会见到负责招聘的人，亲手递交求职简历。我希望当这些公司出现空缺职位时，他们能想起我。”

    这种做法确实聪明。但同时还有一点不容忽视——也许在你的身边就蕴藏着大量机会。史蒂芬•凯默若还是西雅图华盛顿大学（University of Washington）的实习生时，就以网站开发者的身份开始了自己的职业生涯；然后，在此领域全职工作了三年时间；直到大约一年前，他终于意识到这份工作并不适合自己。“整天坐在电脑前并不符合我的性格。我更喜欢与人打交道。”

    于是，他开始考虑跨行从事销售工作。当时，凯默若的家乡帕洛阿尔托对办公场地的市场需求正在迅速扩大，而他的几位家人和朋友就在当地的房地产行业工作。一位亲戚的朋友了解到全球房地产公司仲量联行（Jones Lang Lasalle）在当地办事处有一租赁专员的空缺，就立即通知凯默若前去面试。

    最终他获得了这份工作，并且乐在其中。“我当时所做的只是向周围的人打听了一下有没有相关招聘信息，”他说，“有时候，求职完全取决于你所认识的人以及你们之间的熟悉程度。”

    不选大的，只选对的。卡洛琳•休斯指出，大公司里准备跳槽的员工往往会忽视小企业的价值，如初创企业等，这种做法是错误的。她说：“大公司的招聘条件往往更加严格。员工规模在100至300人的公司是首选，这样规模的公司能够提供足够多的机会，同时员工个体角色的定位相对来说也更加宽泛、多变且灵活。”

    马克•多里奥对此表示赞同，并补充道：“企业老板的想法五花八门。一些老板希望员工具有某特定领域的背景及相关经验；而另一些可能对职位的定义更具创造性，对求职者如何展开工作更感兴趣。”多里奥曾指导过一位财务分析师，现在就职于一家市场研究公司。他之所以能获得这份工作，是因为“他具有较高的财务敏感度，而且有意将之运用到市场研究领域。这种思路拓展了市场调研的维度。”

    事实上，还存在着这样一类雇佣者，他们更青睐于缺乏经验的求职者，因为这类求职者显然还未沾染上业内的某些坏习惯及陈腐思想。“是否具备行业经验并不是我们关注的重点，”肯尼斯•维斯尼夫斯基说。“我们会把他们培养成为我们需要的员工类型。”肯尼斯•维斯尼夫斯基在美国新泽西州月桂山市创办了自己的搜索引擎优化公司WebiMax，并担任CEO一职。

    勇于不断尝试。“不要畏惧，要勇敢地主动上门，，告诉雇主你对他们的价值所在”史黛丝•希尔顿建议。“我的老板告诉我，正是我当时的坚持最终征服了她。记得当时，我每周都会打电话向她确认他们是否在招聘新人——当然也不能做得太过火，否则就该被当成是骚扰了。”

    译者：李淑玉/汪皓

    Go back to school.Taking courses in your chosen field not only teaches you the business and introduces you to new people, but "the classes count as experience on your resume, since you're learning the business," says Marc Dorio, author of several career books including The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting the Job You Want.

    Dorio knows a thing or two firsthand about changing careers: He started out as a Roman Catholic priest and superintendent of Catholic high schools, before returning to college for graduate degrees in organizational behavior and industrial psychology. Those credentials -- plus his transferable experience in team-building and counseling -- led to his being hired by a consulting firm. He now runs his own coaching and consulting company, with Fortune 500 clients like Merck (MRK) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).

    Network, network, network. When she first moved to Raleigh, Stacey Hilton recalls, "I started cold calling anyone and everyone, from PR firms to police department media relations teams, even if I knew they weren't hiring. It was a chance to meet people, hand off my resume, and hope they would remember my face if an opening came up."

    Smart. But don't forget to look close to home as well. Steffan Kammerer launched a career as a web developer while still an intern at the University of Washington in Seattle, then worked full-time in the field for three years before deciding about a year ago that it just wasn't for him. "I have the wrong personality for sitting in front of a computer all day. I like human interaction," he says.

    So he started thinking about a sales job. Several family members and their friends were in commercial real estate in Kammerer's hometown of Palo Alto, where the market for office space is booming. A friend of a relative knew of an opening for a leasing associate at the local office of global real estate firm Jones Lang Lasalle (JLL) and referred Kammerer for an interview.

    He got the job, and loves it. "All I did was ask around to see if anyone knew of anything," he says. "Sometimes it really is who you know, and how well you know them."

    Look for the right match. Big-company denizens looking to change careers often overlook smaller firms, including startups, notes Carolyn Hughes. That's a mistake. "Big companies usually have more rigid job descriptions," she says. "Your best bet might be companies with between 100 and 300 employees, which are big enough to have opportunities but small enough that individual roles are more broad, fluid, and flexible."

    Marc Dorio agrees: "Employers are not all the same. Some want a specific background and set of experiences, but others define jobs more creatively and are interested in how you present your own approach to the work." Dorio coached one former financial analyst who was hired by a market research firm because "they liked the way he proposed to apply his financial acumen to the role. It added a different dimension."

    Some employers actually prefer people who, lacking industry experience, are also free of the bad habits and stale thinking that experience can engender. "We don't pay much attention to industry-specific experience," says Kenneth Wisnefski, founder and CEO of WebiMax, a search-optimization company in Mount Laurel, N.J. "We train them to become the type of employees we want." WebiMax has more than doubled its headcount so far in 2011, from 70 to 150.

    Keep trying. "Don't be afraid to knock on doors and tell people why you would be valuable in their company," Stacey Hilton says. "My boss tells me that what finally won her over was my persistence. I would call her every week to see if they were hiring yet -- but without crossing the line into being annoying."