Changing careers to a drastically different industry and job function is
totally doable and today in this video I want to share with you how I change my
career from being a project manager in banking to become a film producer in
case you're new here first of all welcome to my channel multiple careers I
talk about career change and other related topics that help you to shape
the kind of career that you want and that fits your life if you want to know
more about multiple careers then you might want to check out my other video
which I linked up here by the way what kind of career change are you pursuing
at the moment please let me know in the comments below in case right now you
still have doubts on whether or not you'll be able to make it I'm sure that
after watching this video you'll have a totally different view on this I started
my career working in project management and business strategy in banking and
after a very long and very challenging journey I finally managed to produce two
feature films and both of these films were screened at international film
festivals and now I know you might think that this is quite a big of a leap I
mean come on banking and the film industry there are totally different
industries that are not really connected right actually on the second thought
they are connected in a way but that's the story for another time but if you
ask me actually the leap wasn't that big at all and the reason for this is
because I found a way to get my foot in the door and the way I did that was by
using my transferable skills many people think that if you want to change careers
you always have to start from zero again and in some cases this is kind of true
if you are a teacher and you've studied English literature and now you want to
become a surgeon then yeah you have to go back to medical school there aren't
really that many credits that you would be able to get acknowledged from your
literature studies but then again there are so many other careers for which you
don't have to start from zero for example if you want to become an
accountant of course ideally you would have the traditional educational
background but that is not always the case in fact I know someone who was a
graphic designer and then changed careers to become an
accountant without getting an accounting degree there are many things that you
will need to change careers or perhaps also different ways how
can accomplish that but here are three things that can help your career change
process or be a significant part of it of course you can always go the
traditional path meaning that you start from zero you get the traditional
education that someone needs to work in that field and you start again in a
company as staff and work your way up through assistant manager manager and so
on the second thing is transferable skills which I will dig into deeper in
this video and the third thing is relationship relationships it's
something that is so underestimated in the process of job hunting but I will
talk about it more in another video when I first wanted to change my career from
banking to filmmaking I was asking myself now what do I do like how do I do
it how do I get in and the feeling is like having this big wall in front of
you and you want to get from this side where you currently are to the other
side but you don't really know how and you're asking yourself where is the
doors in which I can enter or maybe should I jump over the wall or should I
perhaps take a tunnel to get under the wall or what should I do
so the question that you need to ask yourself is how do I get my foot in the
door what is the most efficient entry point when I first wanted to get into
filmmaking I asked myself how in the world can I do that I didn't have any
script writing skills I didn't have directing skills I didn't have any
camera skills if I had wanted to enter the film industry by becoming a
cameraman then yeah that would technically be possible I would just
need to invest a lot of time into developing that skill and if my passion
where the camerawork itself then of course I would have no issue to go back
and learn everything from the ground up but at that time my goal was simply to
make a film I didn't have to be the one who directed the film or did the
cinematography what I wanted to accomplish was to make a film so at that
moment I asked myself what would the easiest entry point for me be and the
answer in my case was to produce films to become a film producer and the way I
achieved that was by using my transferable skills which were project
management skills in my job as project manager in banking I was
really used to working on large and complex projects so I was no stranger to
starting projects managing projects whipping up a business proposal and get
everything up and running so I started researching a lot and I got connected
with a bunch of very talented people who were already working in the film
industry I started writing a very professional business proposal I
produced the film teaser I presented my business proposal and finally got my
first two feature films made actually it was much more complicated than that but
that's a story for another time in case your career change goal is to become an
entrepreneur and you're wondering about how to get investors for your project or
business then you might want to check out my other video that I linked up here
and here are some of the transferrable skills that I applied project management
skills business proposal writing budgeting cash flow management
organizational skills and many others by the way if you like this video then
please give it a thumbs up and also if you don't want to miss out on any of my
future videos please hit the subscribe button and also the little alarm bell so
that YouTube will notify you when there are new videos from me my most valuable
skill here I would say is the ability to start a project and see it through to
the end I got my foot into the door by applying my project management skills to
become a film producer I didn't have a lot of knowledge about the film industry
and I didn't have any technical skills I did have some background in acting too
but I would say that this was not the crucial point
the crucial thing was that there was a quite big overlap in terms of what
skills of film producer needs and what skills a project manager needs to have
in general so what do you think is the most efficient entry point in your case
to get to the career that you want ask yourself what are the most important
skills that are required in your target career or in your target job function
and look at your current career our experiences and ask yourself are there
any transferable skills that you can apply in that new career if you look up
transferable skills on Google and what you would normally find our
communication skills leadership skills it's all pretty broad but what I think
is at the core of what transferable skills are really about is any kind of
skills that are not only important and flickable in one industry or job
function but there are also important and can be applied in another job
function or other industry so the skills here could also be related to for
example training campaigning fundraising building a website and so on the point
here is that you have to try to be a bit creative about it in a sense that if you
want your career change to happen faster than don't just think about taking the
traditional route but also think about other ways to get your foot into the
door if you found out what this one key transferable skill is or perhaps even a
set of transferable skills then this is really good news because this means that
you have an edge at least you know where to start of course this is not all there
is to it in the process there will be a lot of other things that you will need
to learn and there will be a lot of challenges but at least you have a
starting point and you have a strategy so if you want to change careers
remember that taking the traditional path is not the only way in many cases
your relationships and your transferable skills will be much more valuable let me
know in the comments what you think about this and whether or not this video
has given you any new and useful insights if you are really serious about
changing your career then you might also want to check out one of my other videos
where I talk about first steps to changing your career whether or not it
is ever too late to change your careers about the obstacles and so on as always
I thank you so much for watching I wish you all the best and I hope to catch you
again soon