682: How to Change Careers When Your Job Is Highly Specialized (Without Starting Over)

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:00: I'm Scott Anthony Barlow, and this is Happen To Your Career. The podcast that brings you real people, real transformations, and the courage to do work that truly fits. If you haven't already subscribed, click follow right now so you don't miss any new episodes.

Today is a little bit different. We're answering a question that so many people, especially folks in highly specialized fields, have wrestled with at one point in time or another. And honestly, it's one of the most common fears that we hear. And this particular question comes from Greg, who sent us a thoughtful message that went something like this.

"How do I change from super-specific jobs? Is it possible? I'm a chiropractor. My degree is pretty much useless outside of the chiropractic profession. How do I get around my useless degree and lack of experience doing anything else when I want to change careers outside of healthcare completely?"

Okay. Greg, first off, thanks for asking the question that thousands of people have been too afraid to ask out loud.

Let's break this down because the answer affects way more people than just chiropractors, whether you are a teacher, an attorney, a pharmacist, a military officer, accountant, a physical therapist, pastor, or yes, a chiropractor, whatever it is.

People get stuck because they believe their profession is too specific to change, and they can't really see how it could translate outside of that. They don't even know where to begin.

So let's dig into this a little bit here. You said, "My degree is useless outside the chiropractic profession." The truth is, and I want to say this in a very kind but direct way, your degree is not useless, and it's also not the thing that is going to get you your next job. It's not the degree.

Most mid-size to large organizations don't really care what your degree is in. The thing that they do care about is that you can learn quickly, you can solve problems, you can work with people incredibly well, you can lead, communicate, deliver results, and essentially get done what you need to do.

Okay. So there's lots of skill sets that transfer over, but that's it. And by the way, depending on which research you look at, as many as 82% of people work in jobs that are different from their degree or their education and background.

That includes engineers who ended up in sales. Teachers who became project managers. Pharmacists who became analysts. Salespeople who made a transfer over into consulting or operations. And yes, of course, you know, people coming from healthcare or medical professionals that moved into tech or HR or consulting or whatever. And by the way, all those examples come from real people on the Happen To Your Career podcast.

People that we've had the opportunity to help, they've been willing to share their story. So dig back into the archives, you'll see all of those stories and plenty more.

I think it's safe to say that the degree is not useless. The key though, is you can't lead with your degree.

You have to lead with what your value is, and particularly your experiences, in a way that becomes useful for other people. We'll talk about that in a minute.

But first, this is what I call the specialized profession trap. It goes something like this, "Because my job is specialized, because my certification is specific, because my title was narrow, then the rest of the opportunities must also be narrow." Not true.

Your job title was narrow. Your skills were not. Your experiences were not. Outcomes, of course, we're not. Think about it like this. A chiropractor is typically not just a chiropractor. A chiropractor is often also a business owner, a communicator, a patient advocate and educator, problem solver, diagnostic thinker, patient experience specialist, operations manager, an outcomes focused provider, someone who builds trust quickly.

Okay. We're just using the... your example of chiropractor, but the same thing happens for literally every single profession. None of this is exclusive to healthcare. In fact, most of those experiences become highly transferable, but you have to know how to talk about them. Of course.

So I want to give you a little bit of extra context for, if you're thinking about making this type of shift, I want you to stop describing what you've done and start describing what you caused.

Companies hire based on results. Not responsibilities. They also, by the way, hire based on whether or not they believe that you'll fit and whether or not they like you, but that's a different podcast episode. You can find those in the archives.

So let me show you how this works. Instead of, "I worked in healthcare. I treated patients. I did adjustments. I ran a clinic." Those are responsibilities. You need outcomes. What that might sound like, "I worked directly with 149 people and managed their care plans. I improved patient adherence and increased monthly patient visit revenue by $4,000 or $40,000" whatever it is. " I reduced appointments no-shows by 23% through patient education and improved communication. I created systems to streamline scheduling, patient follow-up and workflow."

Okay. Suddenly, your experience is no longer chiropractic specific. It's business, it's operations, it's leadership, it's customer experience, it's analytics, it's communication, sales, and problem solving. Many organizations are looking for those very marketable skill sets and experiences every single day.

Okay. Let me give you some of those additional concrete examples from real people that we've worked with because this is where the fear can start to step in and say, "Oh, this is not true in my situation." But you'll find literally hundreds of episodes in the backlogs and archives.

For example, a physical therapist transitioned into corporate training, a nurse who became a customer success manager in tech, a pharmacist who became a business analyst and moved into sales, teacher who moved into program management, dentist who actually went into operations leadership, veterinarian who went into employee experience.

We'll link up several of those episodes, by the way, in the show notes so that you can just click on them. And guess what, by the way, none of them, zero of them, went and got new degrees. They didn't go back to college.

What they did instead was get clarity. And specifically clarity on their strengths, on their values, on the type of work that aligns with who they are. And spoiler alert, it's actually not about the occupation. It's more about what actually is going to fit those other softer elements and the type of situation that allows you to be more of who you are.

So this is also clarity on how to communicate their experiences in a transferable, or what I tend to refer to as a useful way, for the other parties. Once that clarity is there, confidence tends to follow. And once that confidence follows, opportunities tend to show up more frequently.

That sounds very vague, though. Let's get a a little bit more practical. Here's some of the actual steps.

So step one would be, identify your transferable experiences and results. We're not talking about skills. We're talking about those experiences and results. These often include things like relationship building, simplifying complex information, influencing behavior, diagnosing problems, teaching, leading patients through change, building trust fast, and often these borderline on strengths.

Part of the reason that they might be easier for you is your unique set of talents and experiences overall. In any case, you likely have much more transferable value than what you realize.

So step two is translate those into business language. This is the part most people skip. Instead of, "I had 20 patients a day", translate that to, "I managed 20 individual client relationships daily, each with unique needs and plans." It's different and we can adapt it to the situation. We'll talk about that in a minute. But instead of "I ran a practice", translate that to, "I oversaw operations, scheduling, revenue growth, client satisfaction, compliance, and even daily workflow."

This, by the way, is gold for hiring managers because those skill sets and experiences are badly needed.

Step three. Match your experiences to other potential paths outside of healthcare. Okay, so this is an imperfect science. This is more detective work and exploratory. But based on what chiropractors are naturally strong in and often the experiences that they get by being in chiropractic, some common fits include things like learning and development, organizational development, customer success, operations management. Sometimes, other areas of HR or people development.

It could be coaching or consulting in certain aspects. Health tech companies could also be a fit. Leadership roles in small to mid-size businesses, program management, sometimes even sales and solutions consulting, or consultative sales.

Okay. In all of those cases, those are just examples. They're not clear fits at this point in any way whatsoever. They're just places to start investigating, start that detective work, but no new degree required on any of them. Just translation.

Step four. Start having exploratory type of conversations. This is where the detective work starts to really begin here.

It's often what we call either test driving in certain cases, or we call it designing career experiments so that you can find out what you need to find out about these particular different paths that you might be interested in. We're not just talking about job applications. That isn't always the best way to go when you're making a career pivot, career change. It can be, but not usually.

Instead, we're talking about conversations with people doing the roles that you're curious about, or work that sparks your interest, or even work in industries or organizations that you might wanna join.

This is where clarity starts to skyrocket because you're starting to get real-world feedback, and you're starting to notice some of the patterns so that you can make assessments for yourself about what could be a fit.

And it's usually not gonna be specifically about the occupation because different occupations shift drastically from different organizations. So it's going to be the nuanced pieces underneath it. That's why the investigation or experimentation is important.

Most importantly, though, you're not pitching yourself. You're not going in and looking for a job. At this point, you're learning. However, during that learning, it can certainly build relationships and certainly much of the information that you need in order to allow those relationships to turn into actual opportunities.

We've had so many people that have gone and had 8 to 12, you know, 20 plus conversations, and then, from that series of conversations, eventually they get one or multiple offers just from the beginnings of those relationship in that investigation. Okay. Don't anticipate that that will happen that way. That's not the purpose of this, though. The purpose is exploratory.

But let's cover part five here. The real hidden advantage of a specialized background. And this is the part that doesn't get talked about enough. People like Greg or other specialized people, you know, lawyers, accountants, teachers, nurses, all the ones that we've talked about here.

People in deeply human-centered, service-based, often high-stakes roles, they have an advantage. They're used to listening. They're used to adapting. They're used to problem solving. They're used to sometimes even like calming people or you know, used to stressful situation. They're used to actually delivering outcomes through those situations.

They may not even recognize it. You know, thinking under pressure, often managing or collaborating with a team or a business or others. So influencing type behavior. In all cases, I know we said it before, but this really does translate everywhere.

Your next employer doesn't have to see a chiropractor escaping healthcare. They can instead see someone who knows how to work with humans, handle complexity, solve problems, and show up consistently. And that is rare. And that is valuable.

Okay. Let's cover part six. Is it possible? Let's answer Greg's actual question. "How do I career change from specific jobs? Is it possible?" Yes. Short answer. It is absolutely possible, and not only possible, it's likely, but only if you approach it in the right way.

Your degree is not the limiter. Your occupation is not the limiter. Your experience is also not the limiter. The only limiter is believing the story that you're stuck. You're not stuck.

You simply need clarity and the confidence that can come from a very unique way to investigate and determine what could be a fit, which translates eventually to how to talk about the value that you already have.

By the way, if you found this Q and A helpful and you have a question you want to answer it on the podcast, send me an email, Scott@happentoyourcareer.com put ‘Career Question’ in the subject line, and we might feature your question next.