TL;DR
- A career transition in finance can be stressful, so it is important to maintain balance and focus on your health and wellbeing.
- Some common challenges during a career transition in finance include adjusting to a new company culture, dealing with uncertainty, and feeling pressure to succeed.
- It is important to assess your skills and define your career goals before transitioning to a new finance role.
- Techniques for managing stress during a career transition include practicing mindfulness, eating well, exercising, and seeking therapy if needed.
- To maintain work-life balance during a transition, you should create a clear boundary between work and home, engage in hobbies, and stay active.
- If you are searching for a job, stay productive and positive by engaging with the finance community, reading job search tips, and creating to-do lists.
- If you were made redundant, focus on new opportunities and use the time to acquire new skills and qualifications.
introduction.
The finance industry is a high-pressure, high-stress industry. With demanding clients getting even more demanding during the current cost-of-living crisis, it’s no wonder the industry has one of the highest staff turnover rates.
However, a career transition in finance can be just as stressful as sticking with the same job and dealing with all those demands. It’s important to maintain balance and focus on your health and wellbeing, but that’s often easier said than done.
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common challenges in a finance career transition.
A career change in finance can present several challenges, including:
- adjusting to a new company culture
- dealing with uncertainty
- feeling pressured to succeed
- working with new systems and methods
- forming relationships with new colleagues
There’s a lot to think about and a lot to deal with, and you still have contracts to complete and deadlines to meet while dealing with all of this. It might be stressful but it’s perfectly manageable. Check out these tips to help with managing a career change in finance:
- maintain a good work-life balance: You want to please your new employers and impress your colleagues. You also don’t want to miss deadlines. But that doesn’t mean you should start accepting more work than you can handle. Maintaining a good work-life balance during a career change is essential if you want to keep hitting those deadlines and justifying your paycheque.
- take it one step at a time: One client, one job, one account, one report—do everything one small step at a time. There’s a proverb that asks, “How do you eat an elephant?”. The answer is “one bite at a time”. You don’t need to think about the massive to-do list looming over you like a five-ton beast. Just take things a little bit at a time.
- don’t be a people pleaser: It’s tough to find a career balance in finance at the best of times, but it can feel like an impossibility when you’re new and eager to impress. Remember, they hired a human, not an automaton; there’s a limit to what you can do, and you shouldn’t feel like you have to exceed expectations at every turn.
- managing stress in finance career transitions: Stress will be high, and while it’s easy to try and brush it aside and assume you’ll deal with it when things “settle down”, that rarely happens. It just gets worse. As you complete a career transition in finance, don’t lose sight of your health and mental wellbeing.
- get help: You might be new, but there are still colleagues who can help you, as well as a wealth of resources to provide finance career advice. Don’t be ashamed to use it.
assess your skills for a successful transition and define your career goals.
What are your finance career goals? Did you conduct any career planning in finance before you made a decision? The stress of transitioning to a new finance role could make you think twice about your choices. Before you know it, you’re doubting your decisions, justifying your doubt, and looking for greener pastures.
So, before considering a career transition in finance, assess your skills, evaluate your opportunities, and set clearly defined goals for yourself. That way, if you’re faced with a new possibility, you can see if it aligns with your skills and goals and make the right choice.
If you have a mentor, ask them for some finance career transition tips. They’ve been there, done that, and have a closet full of t-shirts. They can tell you what you want to know while taking your experience and needs into account.
techniques for managing stress during career transitions.
Good mental health for finance professionals is at the top of the agenda for many employers. Companies understand how damaging stress can be for their employees and their bottom line, so they are usually willing to assist employees new and old. Emphasise self-care during a career transition and keep those stress levels low.
Stress management in finance careers is similar to other high-stress careers and includes:
- practice mindfulness
- eat well and limit alcohol consumption
- exercise more
- seek therapy if required
- take regular breaks to de-stress
maintain work-life balance during the transition.
With a new employer and a list of clients constantly demanding your time, it’s hard to maintain a healthy work-life balance in finance.
If you’ve yet to transition and are spending your time searching and applying for jobs at home, it’s just as taxing—managing career transitions without stress seems impossible when those transitions are the epitome of stress.
There are solutions, though:
- create a clear boundary: there should be a clear line between your work and home life. Whether you’re still searching, have been promoted, or have a new job, you should never lose sight of this line. It’s hard to achieve a good career balance in finance at the best of times, but a transition is the perfect opportunity to create healthy habits.
- don’t neglect your hobbies: keep job-change stress to a minimum by devoting more time to your hobbies. It doesn’t matter what they are, as long as they don’t involve work and help to take your mind off things.
- stay active: this applies to both mental and physical activities. It’s easy to lose track of your personal wellbeing during a career change, but once the deadlines hit your desk or email, it’ll just get worse. Start off on a strong footing by staying mentally and physically strong. Exercise. Practice yoga and mindfulness. And don’t neglect sleep!
stay productive and positive during the job search.
As you prepare for a career transition in finance, you’ll want to avoid slipping into bad habits. Stay positive, and don’t let the rejections get you down. It happens, and it’s not personal. Career transitions take time.
Rather than spending your days despairing over ignored messages and failed applications, use it to better yourself and prepare for the future. Engage with members of the finance community. Read some job search tips for finance professionals, as well as general finance career transition tips.
If you’re worried about productivity in a finance career transition, start creating to-do lists and structure your days to include hobbies, social time, job searches, and training (webinars, courses, etc.) Acting like you’re already employed will prepare you when that new job appears, and it’s also a great way for staying positive during a career change.
leverage new opportunities for growth and learning.
For many people, finance job change stress is not the result of job searches or new employers, but the result of dealing with being made redundant. You go from stressing over deadlines to worrying that you won’t have enough to cover the rent or mortgage payments.
It’s hard, but it’s important to focus on the many new opportunities in finance careers and the fact that you could learn new skills, meet new people, and challenge yourself in new ways, all while making more money.
Although stressful, the potential for career growth in finance is immense. Try to use this downtime to consider the following:
- alternative roles outside of traditional finance
- opportunities to acquire new skills or qualifications
- a role or responsibility change
- the chance to switch to remote/hybrid working or move to a new city
tips for a successful career transition in finance.
Check out the following finance career transition tips to maximise your chances of securing a high-paying and fulfilling career transition in finance:
- find a mentor
- assess your skills and transferable knowledge
- use your free time to acquire relevant certifications
- learn commonly used software
- use sites like LinkedIn to network with fellow finance professionals
- practice your interview techniques
- look for internships/work experience
conclusion: preparing for a career transition in finance.
There is clearly a lot to consider when it comes to managing finance job change success, but keeping all of these finance career transition tips in mind will ensure a successful change that sets you up for the long term.
Remember to stay positive, maintain a good work-life balance, never neglect your mental health, and don’t feel that you have to push yourself too hard or too much when you finally find your ideal role.
The finance sector can be stressful. It can make you feel pressured into succeeding, and there may be times when you question your decisions and even your abilities. But that’s true for all industries, and if you do it right, this could be a highly rewarding job, one that delivers great job satisfaction, offers opportunities to climb the career ladder, and pays incredibly well.
Keep learning and improving by reading more finance career advice, using job-search tools, and joining wellness programmes. And, of course, join the Randstad F&A Community for helpful resources and gain a competitive edge in this rapidly evolving landscape.
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