The career change awkwardness

Table of Contents
    Add a header to begin generating the table of contents

    If you’re considering making a career change, be prepared to go through some awkward moments as you transition into this new chapter of your life. It can be uncomfortable, fast-paced, constantly changing, nerve-racking, and a bit exciting too.

    Let’s cut to the most awkward one. You’re probably going to take a pay cut. Let’s face it, you’ve worked in another industry for 5, 10, 15+ years, and you’re looking to start somewhere utterly fresh with minimal experience in that industry – this means you’re likely dropping a significant amount of pay due to lack of experience. However, if the new career gives you the passion you’ve been lacking, then we say do it.

    Next up, you’re probably going to be older than your peers who are at the same level, or more senior than you. Don’t stress – stay humble and an open-minded to learn and soak up as much knowledge as you can from these young guns.

    Speaking of humble, accept that you have a large learning curve ahead. Confidence is allowed, but that goes hand in hand with acknowledging when you don’t know something. No one likes a “know-it-all”.

    Lastly, you’re going to have different habits and approaches than your colleagues. You’ve been around the block a little longer, and you’ve worked in a completely different industry with specific terminology and ways of doing business. Your go-to techniques may be completely different than your peers. That’s okay – sometimes a fresh approach will bring great energy to your new team.

    We are often inspired by those who decide to make a career change. As cliché, as it sounds, getting out of your comfort zone, will allow you to grow in your personal and professional journey. Once you break through the awkwardness, the good stuff is just around the corner.

    FROM OUR PULSE NEWS, EMPLOYER AND JOB SEEKER HUBS

    Featured Articles

    GTM Tech Sales Hiring Forecast: What to Expect in Late 2026

    Every quarter, GTM leaders across ANZ ask some version of the same question: are we building the right team for what’s coming, or the team that made sense eighteen months ago? Heading into the back half of 2026, the honest answer for most companies is the latter. Team structures built during the growth-at-all-costs years are…

    How to Handle Objections Without Sounding Scripted

    Most objection-handling training teaches reps a set of pre-written responses to the most common pushback: price, timing, “we’re happy with our current vendor,” “I need to check with my team.” The problem isn’t that these responses are wrong, it’s that buyers can tell when they’re hearing a rehearsed line rather than a genuine response to…

    How AI Is Actually Changing the Sales Cycle

    Every sales conference session, every vendor pitch, and a fair share of LinkedIn posts over the past two years have made some version of the claim that AI is transforming sales. Most of these claims are either significantly overstated or so vague they’re impossible to actually evaluate. The real picture is more specific and, in…

    Sales Forecasting: Why Most Forecasts Are Wrong

    Forecast accuracy is one of the most consistently poor metrics across tech sales organisations, and it’s rarely because the underlying methodology is complicated. Most CRM forecasting tools can handle weighted pipeline, stage-based probability, and historical trend analysis without much difficulty. The problem almost never sits with the tooling. It sits with the inputs, the incentives…

    Why Discovery Calls Are Getting Shorter, and What That Means for Reps

    Five years ago, a standard enterprise discovery call ran forty-five minutes to an hour. Today, plenty of buyers across ANZ are pushing back on anything longer than twenty, and some are declining a discovery call altogether in favour of a written brief or a short async video. This shift has crept up on a lot…

    How AI Has Changed Selling: What Top Sales Reps Do Differently

    Ask a candidate in a sales interview whether they use AI and almost everyone says yes. That answer tells a hiring manager nothing. Every rep has ChatGPT open in a browser tab. Every rep has tried a call recording tool that summarises next steps. Using AI is no longer a differentiator. It’s table stakes. What…

    GTM Tech Sales Hiring Forecast: What to Expect Through Late 2026

    GTM hiring is not collapsing. It is sorting itself into two very different markets, and most people are still planning as if only one of them exists. Overall GTM job postings across US digital native companies fell 15% in Q1 2026 compared to the same period last year, and that pullback continued into April. At…

    How to Write Cold Emails That Get Responses

    Most cold emails fail before the reader gets to the second sentence. Not because the product is weak. Not because the timing is wrong. They fail because the email was written to explain the sender’s company instead of starting a conversation with the reader. Open almost any inbox and the pattern repeats itself. A paragraph…

    How to Scale a GTM Sales Team: A Complete Guide to Building a High-Performing Revenue Engine

    Every high-growth company reaches a point where its early sales strategy stops working. In the beginning, founders often handle sales themselves. They build relationships, close the first customers, and refine the product based on direct customer feedback. This founder-led approach is essential for achieving product-market fit, but it isn’t designed to scale. As demand grows,…

    How to Optimize Your Sales GTM Funnel

    Every GTM team has a funnel. Very few teams actually know where theirs is leaking. Leadership looks at top of funnel volume and bottom of funnel revenue, sees a gap between the two, and calls it conversion rate. That number tells you almost nothing about what to actually fix. Optimizing a GTM funnel is not…