Will 2016 be the year that you make your career change?

Last month, Career Pivot sent out a survey asking what your career plans are for 2016. We wanted to know if you are looking for a career change or staying the course.

Well, the results are in! The data shows that people want to make changes, but they have many concerns. Let’s look at the numbers:

What changes are you making?

Are you part of the group of respondents that wants to:

30% – move to a new job in a different industry
22% – move to a new job in the same industry
14% – embark on the entrepreneurial path and open their own business or consulting firm

We also received some interesting responses from the “Other (please specify)” response for our first question. 13% of the respondents stated that they would:

Relocate to different area to find job
Like to stay with same company, but have heard a significant re-organization and subsequent layoffs will occur before the end of 1Q2016
Resume school to retrain for another role
Die (yes this was an answer on our survey!)
Try new things and see where it takes me!
Play more music and travel more
Stay where I am, but be open to opportunities

Tools for the career change

For our second question, we asked what tools people would use to make this 2016 career change.

An overwhelming number of respondents said they were going to use social media and online job boards in their efforts to make a job change:

78% – use social media, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook during their search
60% – use online job boards

The respondents also said that they would use traditional methods such as:

55% – attend networking events
43% – ask family, friends, former co-workers, vendors, etc. for any job openings at their companies
41% – consulting with recruiters

Only 23% of the respondents said that they would use mobile job board applications during their career change. It is very common for the online job boards to have a corresponding mobile application.

Wouldn’t it make sense to use the mobile application, too, during your job search? You can search for jobs and possibly apply for them all on your phone, all while you are waiting for someone or during your lunch hour!

You may want to add that new tool to your job search tool box to help increase your chances of getting a new job.

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Biggest Fears

Finally, we asked what your biggest fear was related to your job.

The economy (37%) and personal health (24%) were the top responses to this question.

When we looked deeper into the “Other (please specify)” response, we found some typical answers from Baby Boomers regarding their struggle to find a jobs. Here are some of the responses we received:

Age discrimination, lack of skills
Not finding a suitable, satisfying job
Since I was already laid off 6 months ago and I’ve managed to survive and often thrive, my fears are minimal
Cash flow
Work related stress
No room for growth
Continuing Income while building business
That graduating with my MBA won’t help me
That I’ll still be working at the same company for another year
Need health insurance
In career transition phase
Finances — I need work

The fears expressed above are all too real for many Baby Boomers, and some of us have experienced them first hand.

However, the overall results of the survey are encouraging since people want to make some sort of change this year. The survey indicates that they will be relying on a variety of tools such as social media, online job boards, and many traditional ways of looking for work.

Despite having the desire and tools to make these career changes happen, there will still be some challenges along the way.

Recently, Career Pivot announced their 2016 Community Initiatives. One of the primary initiatives is to create an online community; one in which Baby Boomers will be helped and want to participate.

The results from this survey are a good starting point for potential topics that can be discussed in this online community. This would be a great way to find support, advice, and ideas from others who are working towards the same goal as you – making that career change in 2016.

Join us and let’s make 2016 the year of change!

This post was written by Elizabeth Rabaey, a Baby Boomer herself, is a creative with a love for details. She has spent over 20 plus years working for environmental engineering and consulting companies providing project management and technical assistance on many innovative engineering projects. She has applied creative, literary and scientific skills to these projects to help the client maintain a profitable business operation and protect humans, health and the environment. Connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.