Career crossroads can happen at any point for people. They sometimes happen because your circumstances change, and sometimes you feel a fundamental change within yourself. The COVID-19 crisis has uprooted the status quo for many of us. I've spoken with so many friends about how time away from the office itself has given them the opportunity to reflect on the career they have now and if it's what they really want to do. According to research by Richard Nelson LLP, there was a 194% increase in 'I want a new job' searches from January '20 - May '20. Not surprising when so many people have had time to reflect, come out of the commuter bubble, and get a little space.

Circumstances dependent, I really feel it's never too late to switch it up and try something else. I am a big believer in transferable skills, and if you market yourself in the right way a career change is totally possible. Why do I care about this? Well, it happened to me. I left teaching 6 years ago and took the plunge to change career and join corporate HR. Naturally, people find this change interesting. I get questions about it all the time: why did you leave? Did you not love it? What drew you to the world of HR? (Come to think of it, can anyone answer the last one?)

The answer is I DID love teaching. Kids are great! I got into teaching for so many reasons, but the reason I left is that it just didn't feel right as a career for me anymore. I needed something more. So why L&D? It seems a natural progression from teaching, right? Well that's what I thought, but wow did I have a hard time getting my foot in the door. The main distinction to remember here, is that adult learning and teaching children are two very different things. Yes they are rooted in the same principles, but it's not as simple as walking from the classroom to the boardroom and that being that. I had to reconsider how I portrayed myself to the world. Parents and carers became stakeholders, and CPD for TA's became managing professional development programmes. I took the stats and figures from my children's development and progression and I marketed these like you would % increases in profit. It seems totally crass to do, but I needed to switch the way I pitched myself and the language I used to describe my experience.

So where to begin? If you have 30 minutes, I really recommend the podcast episode 'Dear HBR- Career Crossroads' The key questions you should ask yourself when thinking about career changes are explored in detail with Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, Alison Beard and Dan McGinn. Namely they are:

• What are your transferable skills?

• Are you going to like the job?

• What does it take to be great at this role?

My advice? Really, really think about it. Grab opportunities within your current job to reflect the role you want. It may be that what you really want to do already exists within your organisation. When I decided I wanted to work in L&D as opposed to being a teacher, I started to identify what I could get involved in at work that would help me gain experience in adult learning. That took the form of teaching parents and carers how to read with their kids, organising training for staff, and coaching and mentoring by being a tutor for teacher training. Gain voluntary experience, think about additional courses and programmes you can sign up for to gain knowledge and insight into the career you want to transition to. Remember that if there are elements of your job you really do love, it may just be a change of scenery you need.

Top tips:

• Market yourself properly, spending time reflecting on what you really want to do

• Know your transferable skills inside and out

• Read job specs and check out the LinkedIn profiles of people doing the job you want

• Be prepared to take a pay cut. This is the real tea, especially if you need to gain experience in a new industry

• Reach out to people, even going direct to organisations. I spent a day at Learning Technologies in 2016 talking to people and getting to know the industry. That's how I landed my first L&D job

Be confident in your skill set and why you want to make the switch. People ask me if I ever regret my decision to leave teaching, and honestly the answer is no. I adore what I do, and I'm challenged and driven in a way I never have been before. I look back on my time in teaching with great fondness, but I know the switch I made was 100% the right thing to do for me. You just need to figure out what's right for you.