Job driving you insane? Retrain for a career change!

Are you bored with your current career? Has the current economical climate left you without a job, or stuck in a job that you no longer enjoy due to longer working hours and less employees? If you are fed up with your current working situation, you should consider a career change.

The majority of people, even those that are currently in positions that they do not find rewarding or enjoyable, do not consider making a career change. This is mainly due to a lack of proper information about options available to them. People assume that in order to make a career change, which they will have to completely retrain and begin again from the bottom of the working pool. While this could be the case for some specialized careers, more often than not career change retraining can be offered to help adapt your current skills and specialization to something more enjoyable and rewarding to you.

Before you decide on career change retraining, you need to first consider which type of field you would like to move into. You should do plenty of research not only into the field in which you are considering changing, but into the different types of roles available within that field. The last thing you should do is go through career change retraining only to be left in a similar unhappy situation.

Research conducted on behalf of the Learning and Skills Council in July 2008, showed that we waste an average of 40 days per year - just think what you could achieve if you chose to put some of this time towards learning a new skill! With today's hectic lifestyles, you may feel there just isn't the time to re-train or learn new skills. But the good news is that modern learning comes in all shapes and sizes and there is something to suit everyone, with a wide range of flexible courses on offer including online, part-time, evening and weekend courses - so you can fit learning around even the busiest lifestyle.

Career retraining or learning a completely new skill such that one can change one's career is brought on by different circumstances in different people. Many a time this option is not so much a choice as a necessity.

Such a requirement often develops after a job loss. Individuals who have worked for many years suddenly realize that their skill sets are inadequate for them to find a similar job in another company. Learning a new skill then is the only option.The need for career retraining is also brought about by a change in personal family situation. One may no longer be willing to travel frequently. If travel is a necessary part of one's present job, then career retraining might become necessary.

Another situation when one voluntarily opts to learn a new skill is when newer job opportunities open up which were not available when one started off with one's career.

People sometimes also opt for career retraining when some years after choosing one career they decide that they never really wanted to do what they are currently doing. Some degree of career retraining also happens on a broader scale to balance the supply and demand of specific skill sets. If there is a shortage of labour with a specific skill set, some people who were working in different jobs might quit for retraining in this one. Growing industries and technologies witness a large number of people either learning the required skills or leaving their earlier professions to retrain themselves.

Let us assume that your choice to retrain is a voluntary one. You must first research well before you opt for a retraining program. You should assess whether any of your existing skills will be of use to you post your retraining. You must also be aware of the fact that in the new career with a new set of skills, your past experience holds no value. You will therefore have to compete for the same job with people significantly younger than you.

You will need to join a course which teaches the skills required for the new trade you wish to adopt. Retraining to enter the Construction Trades industry as a fully qualified electrician, plumber or builder will require that you are already interested and have some DIY hands-on experience in working with the materials of your chosen trade.

Despite the current economic climate, employment opportunities have been greater, and earnings potential now very lucrative indeed, especially with the increased urgent emphasis on implementing 'green energy' training for power and heating installations.If you are considering a change of direction, AbleSkills will help you to on the career retraining path!