Midlife Career Change: Testing Out Your Chosen Career Before Taking the Plunge

Life is too short to spend in an unsatisfying job. However by middle age, career transitions are risky and expensive. The last thing you want to do is to go through a gut wrenching experience moving into a new career only to find that it wasn't what you expected. But how do you know what a new career will be like before you actually do it? Brian Kurth, the founder of VocationVacations thinks that you can "test drive" a career before making a commitment to it and has written a "how to" book about it.

VocationVacations offers short-term pay for mentoring opportunities in various occupations. While the book is in part an advertisement for Kurth's company, it also shows how you can explore new careers on your own.

The book chronicles Kurth's own transformation from unhappy phone company employee to the entrepreneur he is today as well as the stories of others who have tried his VocationVacations. The example careers are diverse as are the results--not everyone who "tries out" a career ends up liking it.

Topics include:

Getting over the fear of making a career change.
Help in picking a new career if you know you want to change but not sure to what.
How to research possible careers.
Finding a "mentor" to educate you about your new career.
Questions to ask your mentor and things to accomplish on your "test drive".
What to do when things go wrong.

People contemplating midlife career changes know how difficult they can be. No single book will be able to mitigate all of the risks that career transitioners will face, however "Test-Drive You Dream Job" does a good job of kicking off the process. It is is a particularly worthy read for those unsatisfied with their current career but unsure what to do next. Such people would also benefit from reading Marci Alboher's "One Person Multiple Careers". The message of both Kurth and Alboher is clear, being middle age is no excuse for spending the rest of your working life in an unsatisfying job. It just means that you might have to be a little more creative in how you go about managing the transition process.

Test-Drive Your Dream Job: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding and Creating the Work You Love