How to Change Careers: A Step-by-Step Guide

Changing careers works best as a series of small, checkable steps rather than one big leap. In short:

1. Write down what you want to keep and what you want to leave behind.
2. List the transferable skills your current job has built.
3. Find careers that use those skills.
4. Compare real pay, not guesses.
5. Check the training or license each option needs.
6. Test the new field before you quit.
7. Rewrite your resume and LinkedIn for the new role.
8. Set a budget and a timeline.

This guide walks through each step with U.S. government data: skills from the O*NET 31.0 database and pay from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), May 2025.

You are not starting from zero

Career changes are normal. People born from 1957 to 1964 held an average of 12.7 jobs between ages 18 and 56, and nearly half of those jobs started before age 25, according to the BLS National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Age is rarely the barrier people fear: the median age of all U.S. workers was 42.1 in 2025 (BLS Current Population Survey). If you are weighing a move in mid-career, see career change at 40 for careers where many workers are 45 or older.

Your experience also counts for more than you might think. We compared every career that has full O*NET and BLS data (875 of them) with every other career on skills, knowledge, work activities and interests. Across those 875 jobs:

• The closest match for a typical job scores 86 out of 99, so most people already have a lot in common with at least one other career.
• 88.2% of the 25 best matches for each job usually need no more preparation than the job the person already has.
• Of the 732 jobs with their own BLS pay figure, 648 (88.5%) have at least one of their 25 best matches that pays at least 10% more at the median, needs no more preparation and is not a manager or supervisor role. See our better-paying careers study, with results by state.

Those numbers describe typical workers, not you, but they show why a career change rarely means starting over.

Step 1: Decide what to keep and what to leave

Before you look at job titles, write two short lists:

• Keep: the parts of your work you enjoy or are good at. Think of tasks, not titles: explaining things, fixing things, organizing, selling, caring for people, working with numbers.
• Leave: the parts that push you out. Common ones are night shifts, physical strain, low pay, constant conflict or a long commute.

This sounds simple, but it is the filter for every later step. A nurse who wants to leave bedside care and a nurse who wants to leave hospitals entirely will end up with different shortlists.

If you are unsure what you enjoy, take a free career test. Its first part is the official O*NET Interest Profiler, which scores your interest in six areas of work (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional). The Big Five personality test adds how you like to work.

Step 2: List your transferable skills

Transferable skills are the skills you build in one job that are useful in others, such as coordinating people, judgment and decision making, or instructing. O*NET rates how important each of 25 such skills is in every U.S. occupation on a scale from 1 to 5.

Use the Transferable Skills Finder to see your job's top skills. For example, O*NET rates instructing at 4.21 out of 5 for the teachers on our jobs for former teachers page, and social perceptiveness at 3.92. Those are the skills a hiring manager in another field needs to hear about. Our full list of transferable skills explains each one.

Step 3: Find careers that use those skills

Next, turn your skills into a shortlist. The Career Change Tool ranks every career by how closely it matches your current job and shows the pay change and any extra education. A few real examples from the data:

Aim for three to five options. Fewer leaves you stuck if one does not work out; more makes it hard to research each one properly.

Step 4: Compare real pay

Look up the median pay for each option and compare it with your own pay, not with a national average. The BLS median is the middle of the range: half of workers earn more and half earn less. Pay also varies a lot by state, so check the salary page for the state where you will work (every career profile links to one).

Two things to watch:

• Starting pay is usually below the median, especially if you enter at a junior level.
• Group wages: BLS does not publish pay for every O*NET occupation. When a career only has pay for a broader BLS group, our pages say so. Treat that number as a rough guide.

Step 5: Check the training each option needs

O*NET sorts careers into five Job Zones by how much preparation they usually need, from little or none (Job Zone 1) to a graduate degree (Job Zone 5). If your target is in a higher Job Zone than your current job, plan for extra school or training.

For each option, find out:

• the most common education level of people already in the job (shown on every career profile);
• whether a license or certification is required in your state;
• whether you can train part-time, online or on the job.

Some careers have a big hurdle that a Job Zone does not show. Becoming a commercial pilot, for example, requires FAA certificates and many hours of flight time. Our career change to pilot page sets out the official requirements.

Step 6: Test the move before you quit

A job can sound very different from how it feels day to day. Close that gap cheaply before you commit:

• Talk to people in the job. Ask three or four people what a normal week looks like, what they wish they had known, and how they got in.
• Do a small piece of the work. Volunteer, take a short project, freelance or shadow someone for a day.
• Take one short course before you sign up for a long program. If you dislike the first course, you have saved months.

Every career profile on this site lists the hard parts of the job from O*NET work context data, such as tight deadlines or exposure to disease. Read them before you commit.

Step 7: Rebuild your resume and LinkedIn

Hiring managers in a new field will not translate your experience for you. Rewrite your resume around the skills the new job needs, using its words. Our guides on the career change resume and the career change cover letter show how, with examples.

Update your LinkedIn headline to the role you are moving toward, not the one you are leaving, and add any course or certificate as soon as you finish it.

Step 8: Set a budget and a timeline

A career change usually costs money: training fees, possibly a lower starting salary, and time out of work if you study full-time. Before you resign:

• estimate the full cost of training, including books, exams and licenses;
• work out how many months you could live on savings if needed;
• check how you will keep health insurance during the switch;
• set a realistic date, then work backward to monthly steps.

Many people change careers in stages: they train while still employed, move to a bridge role that uses both old and new skills, then make the final switch.

Common questions

How do I know if I should change careers?

If the things on your "leave" list are about the work itself (the tasks, the field or the pace) rather than one employer or manager, a career change is worth exploring. If they are about one workplace, a new job in the same career may solve the problem faster.

Can I change careers without going back to school?

Often, yes. In our data, 88.2% of the 25 best matches for each job usually need no more preparation than the person already has. A short certificate or on-the-job training is often enough. See careers without a degree.

Is it too late to change careers at 40 or 50?

No. The median age of U.S. workers was 42.1 in 2025, and many careers have a large share of workers aged 45 or older. See career change at 40 and career change at 50.

Sources

• O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor (skills, Job Zones, education, work context).
• BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (pay).
• BLS Current Population Survey, 2025 annual averages (worker ages).
• BLS, "Baby boomers born from 1957 to 1964 held an average of 12.7 jobs from ages 18 to 56", The Economics Daily, January 2024.
• How we calculate matches: Methodology.