Do you need a new job? According to the U.S. Department of Labor, people change careers an average of six to seven times during the course of a lifetime. Finding a new job or career can be a daunting task, but there are some steps you can take to ease the stress of changing jobs. If you need a new job, consider taking the following steps to make the transitions easier.

1. Prepare for Change

Before transitioning into a new job it is important to prepare yourself for a major change. Factors you should consider include your savings, health insurance, retirement benefits, and monthly expenses. A common mistake many people make is leaving one job without being truly prepared for a new job. If you plan on being without employment for a period of time, you will first need to ensure that you have the financial reserves to take such as step. Plan out your monthly budget needs and determine if you have enough money saved to cover these expenses. Experts also warn that job searches often take considerably longer than expected, so you should consider remaining at your current job until you find a new one.

2. Conduct a Career Assessment

Before you move on, you need to take the time to consider exactly why you need a new job. Is it due to factors specific to your current employer? Or is it because you have realized that you are unhappy or unsatisfied with your career? If your reason for change comes from within, conducting a career assessment can help ensure that your next job will be an ideal match for your personality, interests, talents, and skills.

3. Utilize Your Networking Contacts

Networking is often the single most important means of learning about new job opportunities. When you need a new job, contact individuals in your network to discuss potential job opportunities or to ask for suggestions about your job search. Your networking contacts can often provide details on job openings that you might not have access to through other means, so be sure to utilize this important resource.

4. Sell Yourself

Once you have located a potential new job, it is important to demonstrate that you have the credentials, skills, and experience that make you uniquely qualified for the job. Improve your resume to ensure that it is current and well written. It is important to modify your resume to make it specific for each individual job that you apply for. Other important steps include preparing yourself for an interview, dressing appropriately when meeting potential employers, and sending thank you notes after each interview.

5. Make the Change

Your work is done once you have been hired for a new position, right? Well, not exactly. Making the transition into a new job can take several weeks and can lead to significant amount of stress. During this time, you may experience feelings of regret for leaving your old job, especially now that you have been forced out of your comfort zone and might be experience insecurity about succeeding at your new job. One way of easing this initial stress is to find a mentor who can guide you through the learning curve in your new role. Talk to co-workers and start to build relationships and contacts with those around you. These interactions can help ease the transition into your new job.

Summary: If you need a new job, it is important to take steps that will make your job search easier. Preparing for change, assessing your career needs, networking, and self-promotion can help pave the path towards a successful and satisfying new job.

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You don’t have to be a seasoned professional to have a great list of contacts. In fact, if you think about it, you probably already have a number of contacts that you made without really thinking about it. All of your classmates and professors are contacts. That is a pretty good start. Also, everyone that you have ever worked for or interned for is a contact. Not only can these people all offer great job hunting advice, but they can also lead you directly to the source- a great company that is looking to hire. Here are some great tips for networking and job hunting:

- Job hunt with friends. Did you have a study group while you were in school? If so, get together a similar group for job hunting. Even if you had exactly the same major as your classmates, it is likely that you will all have different feelings about what kind of jobs you want to have. Therefore, get these trusted friends together, talk about what you want out of a job, and then get to hunting. Of course, look for jobs for yourself. While you are doing this however, note any jobs that might be perfect for one of your friends. In so doing you can help each other find great opportunities.

- Get in touch with previous employers. When you are getting close to graduation, be sure to get in touch with previous bosses and supervisors to learn about what is going on in the industry. Perhaps they know someone who is hiring and can give you a good recommendation. Also, make sure that you get in touch with any companies that you interned for. If you would like to work for them full time, be sure that they know this and ask for them to think of you if they have any openings.

- Talk with professors. If you had a particularly good relationship with one of your professors, be sure to ask him or her if he or she knows about any great job openings. It is likely that your professor will be able to help you with some leads. If not, he or she might be able to help you brainstorm about networking ideas that would work particularly well in your industry.

- Play the home field. If you went to college away from home, be sure to consider the contacts that you have in your home town. Perhaps there is a job for you back home.

- Go to job fairs. Many school host or sponsor job fairs. Be sure to attend them and speak with representatives from every company that you would like to work for.

- Post your resume on web communities for your industry.

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When searching for the things that set you apart from others in your field, it is important to remember that your skills, talents, and experience make you one of a kind. As many human resources managers can attest, people often share similar educational background and qualifications, but each individual is very different. Your personality, motivations, and talents what will set you apart from similar job applicants and provide you with a career edge. The key is to discover the things that make you unique and then build on these strengths.

How can you learn more about your own unique strengths? The following are some helpful methods that can reveal your special talents, interests, and motivations. Try out several different methods in order to find out more about yourself.

1. Think about some of your past experiences. Have there been any significant events that helped shape you into who you are now? How did you deal with these experiences? The way you cope with different life events can reveal a great deal about your unique strengths. Write down how you reacted to each experience and then list the skills and abilities that you relied on. These methods of dealing with each experience are talents that form an important part of your personality and self-image.

2. Think about your past accomplishments. How did you achieve these things? Write down the steps you took to pull off each accomplishment. Your ability to set goals, your motivation to accomplish these goals, and your continued resolve to complete future goals are an important component of your unique self. Also consider why these goals were so important to you.

3. Challenge yourself to try new things. Sometimes it’s easy to fall into a pattern where we only try the things we are comfortable with. Testing yourself to try new things can reveal a great deal about your unique strengths and abilities. Even if you completely successful, you will learn a great deal about how you deal with the unknown and how you respond to a challenge.

4. Take a career assessment to learn more about your unique abilities. Career assessments are a great way to get to the heart of your unique strengths, interests, and experiences. A career assessment involves taking stock of your career satisfaction, your individual passions, and your personality. A career assessment often involves taking personality and aptitude tests or filling out an interest inventory. These career-planning tools can provide excellent feedback on your unique talents and strengths.

5. Allow others to see your unique talents. Take advantage of opportunities to shine in your career. If you have a knack for public speaking, volunteer to give a presentation to clients. Any chance you have to use your unique abilities is a chance for others to notice and give credit to your strengths. Building on your one of a kind talent, interests, and experiences is the surest path to career success.

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Getting a part time job while still in college can help plan for the future. Often college students are required to get a part time job as part of a work-study financial aid package. The student will work on or off campus and begin paying off student loans. This can be difficult to add to the normal college workload, but it looks great on a resume.

Employers like candidates who have worked in the past—especially those who have managed to both work and study at the same time. Even if you aren’t required to work your way through college, it is not a bad idea to get an outside part time job on or off campus. You should think about building up your resume very early on.

The problem with hiring students right out of college is that they may have limited work experience. Certainly, working towards completing a major takes an intensive amount of work, but this is not the same as true work experience. If an employer is looking at a resume of someone with hands-on work experience and one without, the first candidate has a much better chance.

While getting a part time job in a restaurant isn’t quite as impressive as an office job, it still exhibits a degree or diligence and resourcefulness. Ideally, you will find a job that has a direct correlation with your major. Some college programs will even have internships for academic credit.

Remember also that it’s not all about getting hired after you get out of college—though of course that’s a major consideration. It’s also about learning what it is you want to do. At an office job you’ll learn the ins and outs of a particular industry. You’ll get a sense of what a job entails day in, day out. While we all want to have something great to put on our resumes, part time work is also an important educational experience.

The idea is not just to get a job, but do it well. A part time job is like a second education. Once you have real office experience, you can then bring this knowledge into your job interviews at offices or job fairs. It looks very impressive if you can reference some real life experience, rather than books you read in Business 101.

While it’s still possible to get a job without part-time work experience, it is highly recommended. Keep in mind that you may have to apply for these jobs through the college, rather than through the traditional route of online job listings or classified ads. If you apply for a job and say that you can only work so many hours a week, due to classes, you might not get the job. When applying for part time work in college, you must find a job with a flexible schedule—one that can fit your normal college work schedule.

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Generally, the best person to do your job search is you. No one understands your criteria and skills better than you do. Furthermore, it is always best to use your own contacts to land a job. However, there are times when it is beneficial to use a job recruiter. A job recruiter has many contacts in numerous professional industries and can help you to match your skills to an employer’s needs. If, for some reason or another, you feel that you may benefit from this kind of service, then perhaps you should consider using a job recruiter.

Many people who are in the middle of their careers decide to get a new job through a recruiter. Perhaps they are simply too busy with their current work to conduct a thorough and proper job search. Alternatively, they may feel that doing their job search on their own might raise suspicion at work and compromise their current positions. If you find yourself in one of these situations, or feel as though it would be best to find a new position through a job recruiter for any other reason, then the following tips should help you out.

- Be sure to use a reputable recruiter. If you have been in the industry for a little while, you will probably already know which recruiters are the best. If you are new to the industry, then do a little research and see if you can’t find which recruiter is the best in your area.

- Be sure to use a recruiter who specializes in your industry. Many job recruiters specialize in specific industries. Some job recruiters focus on the fashion industry. Others work mainly in the sciences. Be sure to use someone who has a good track record of placing people in your industry.

- Make sure that your job recruiter fully understands your experience, your credentials, and your professional trajectory. If your job recruiter does not fully understand your capabilities, then he or she will not be able to do well at finding a good position for you. Furthermore, he or she will not be able to appropriately represent you.

- Make sure that your job recruiter knows exactly what you are looking for in a new job. If your job recruiter does not fully understand the next step that you want to take, then you will wind up going on interviews for jobs that you don’t really want.

A job recruiter can be incredibly helpful if you use him or her in the right ways and at the right time in your career. Before you engage the services of a job recruiter, be sure that you really need that kind of help. It is always best to use your own connections.

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