Big Change, Small Steps: How To Switch Industries

On this episode of the repurpose your career podcast, host Mark Miller speaks with the executive recruiter for Egon Zender and host of the art of excellence podcast, Glenn Zweig, about the executive search process, the qualities required in the candidates who want to switch industries and what is it like to repurpose your career.

According to Glenn, a candidate’s creativity, skillset, and what the candidate offers to the new industry is much more relevant than which industry the candidate belonged to previously. He conveys that it is imperative for employers to look beyond the usual hiring practices and be open to hiring someone with the required skill set despite them being from different industries. And likewise, it is essential for the employees who are planning to switch industries to research about the hour of need or the current situation of an organization and reflect inwards to understand what skills or preparations they can bring to help provide the company with the transformation it needs. 

Glenn goes on to explain that projecting yourself in the right manner by maintaining consistent activity and proper networking on platforms like LinkedIn is crucial because recruiters frequently consider discovering new talents through LinkedIn despite having all sorts of internal networks. Throughout the podcast, they discuss multiple stimulating examples of companies hesitating to hire someone external to their industry, although standing in need of new talent and innovation. 

Further stressing upon the extensive transformation in the business world, they expressed that the companies need to consider bringing in new talent from outside the organization and rethink their business model and customer engagement plan to hold up and succeed in the era of continuous change. They also quote Albert Einstein to support their conversation that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.