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"Heidi Waterfield, 44, of San Francisco, knew something had to change last fall, when her hours were reduced at first one and then another of the three part-time office jobs she juggles so that she and her professor husband can make ends meet. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve already cut back on expenses and skipped vacations; I&amp;#039;m not sure how much tighter things can get,&amp;quot; says Waterfield, who left a full-time teaching job when her daughter was born nine years ago. &amp;quot;I knew I had to change gears and reach my full income potential again \u2014 but how?&amp;quot;  With 6.5 million jobs lost since December 2007 (as of press time), Waterfield isn&amp;#039;t the only one feeling as if shifting career paths might make sense. &amp;quot;If you thought you&amp;#039;d stay in your current job until retirement, think again,&amp;quot; says Pamela Mitchell, founder of The Reinvention Institute, a company that offers coaching and courses to those looking for new career paths. &amp;quot;Your ability to change directions is your new job security. Even if you haven&amp;#039;t felt the recession&amp;#039;s impact yet, the more proactive you are, the better protected you&amp;#039;ll be if the other shoe drops.&amp;quot;  Choosing a new path won&amp;#039;t be easy. Whether you&amp;#039;re hoping to transfer to a new field, want to start your own business, or are just contemplating what move you might make in the future, know that &amp;quot;any major change usually takes one to three years to complete, and may require a step backward financially, at least initially,&amp;quot; says Laura Berman Fortgang, a life coach and author of Now What? 90 Days to a New Life Direction. To help you make the great leap and land softly, we talked to experts and women who have &amp;quot;been there, done that.&amp;quot; Here, your game plan: Step 1: Nail Down Your Dream Julie Walker, 52, of Pismo Beach, CA, had worked in real estate for over 18 years when she lost her job in 2007. &amp;quot;I spent four months job hunting in my industry and didn&amp;#039;t get a single call,&amp;quot; recalls Walker. &amp;quot;I felt like I was spinning with no direction at all.&amp;quot;  So when she read about Mitchell&amp;#039;s company in an article, she thought it would help her identify what to do next; the $550 price tag for a six-week-long class, however, concerned her. Luckily, her sister swept in and signed Walker up as a birthday gift. In the class, Walker took a serious look at what strengths she could offer prospective employers or clients. After evaluating her professional skills (&amp;quot;people person, detail-oriented, creative&amp;quot;) and identifying the most enjoyable parts of her previous jobs, Walker realized that she&amp;#039;d always loved putting together work events, &amp;quot;from parties for clients to planning weddings for my bosses&amp;#039; children,&amp;quot; she explains. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t even know how much I loved it until my classmates said, &amp;#039;Julie, when you talk about event planning, we can hear the smile in your voice.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; This process helped Walker zero in on her next career path \u2014 one that had been hiding in plain sight. Tactics to Try   Name your big-picture goal, however unformed (e.g., &amp;quot;working with kids&amp;quot;), if your thinking about your next job feels vague. Then drill down: Kids of what age? Do you want to care for them, teach them, or offer another service? Also ask yourself, What everyday activity or work task do I most look forward to? Then visit humanmetrics.com and take the Jung Typology Test and click on the Jung Career Indicator on your results page, or take the Small Business Entrepreneur Profiler test to find out what kinds of careers best suit your personality, suggests Kathryn Sollmann, managing partner and cofounder of the Women@Work Network (womenatworknetwork.com), a networking and recruiting firm. Start a file of job descriptions that sound interesting so you can gain insight onto different positions, suggests Sollmann. Check it regularly as you add to it. See how stable the field is financially. Once you&amp;#039;ve identified an area you&amp;#039;re interested in exploring further, Google the industry&amp;#039;s name plus &amp;quot;association&amp;quot; to find trade groups and other online hubs where you can learn more about its employment outlook. Career counseling services (often available at your alma mater) can also help.  Consider whether you could be paid for what you are now doing for free. Heidi Waterfield, the former teacher looking to return to the workplace, knew that education was her passion, but was stymied for a while by not knowing how to turn that into a profitable business idea, since she wasn&amp;#039;t ready to return to full-time teaching. She knew firsthand that parents in her area struggled to have their children placed in the right public or private schools, because San Francisco uses a highly competitive lottery system. &amp;quot;When I was going through the process with my daughter, I realized that when I walk into a school, thanks to my professional background, I&amp;#039;m able to evaluate it in a way most people can&amp;#039;t, and I didn&amp;#039;t want that knowledge to go to waste,&amp;quot; Waterfield explains. She started offering advice to friends, &amp;quot;just informally, while we were chatting at our kids&amp;#039; gymnastics class \u2014 and pretty soon someone said, &amp;#039;You know, people would pay for this kind of expertise.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; The idea for an educational consulting business \u2014 offering a full range of school-placement, curriculum-consulting, and tutoring services \u2014 was born. &amp;quot;If moms at your kid&amp;#039;s school are willing to pay you to do something, chances are other moms will, too,&amp;quot; says Nell Merlino, CEO of the nonprofit Count Me In for Women&amp;#039;s Economic Independence. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s called identifying a problem and finding a marketable solution.&amp;quot; Waterfield&amp;#039;s business is growing steadily, providing a great model of putting what one already knows to good use.  Step 2: Prep Your Plan Sherie Phillips, 47, of Irvine, CA, had worked in the mortgage business for almost 20 years, rising to vice president of underwriting at a subprime lender that closed its doors in September 2007. The divorced mom joined tens of thousands of laid-off mortgage workers, struggling to make ends meet on unemployment checks and downsizing her lifestyle from when she had been earning a six-figure income. &amp;quot;The prospects for ongoing high-level work in my industry didn&amp;#039;t look good, so I thought about what field would offer more stability,&amp;quot; she says. Phillips considered what skills she could carry over from the mortgage business and realized she had a good working knowledge of legal contracts. &amp;quot;Moving into a legal job felt like a natural transition for my skill set, and it seemed like it would offer good job security, too,&amp;quot; she explains. &amp;quot;But I didn&amp;#039;t want to invest the time and money in going to law school, so I focused on becoming a paralegal instead. I asked everyone I knew, &amp;#039;Do you know a lawyer? Could he or she put me in touch with a paralegal?&amp;#039; I met many people this way who answered my questions and gave me the info I needed to figure out the best schools to apply to, how long training would take, and what salary I could expect afterward [about $35,000].&amp;quot; Tactics to Try   Collect contacts online. Once you&amp;#039;ve reached out to your friends and acquaintances for contacts, go a step further. For details on women&amp;#039;s networking programs at major corporations in many industries, click Power Contacts at womenworking.com. Or visit womenatworknetwork.com or 85broads.com to connect with women in many different fields who are willing to share their insights. Ask for info the right way. Try out Sollmann&amp;#039;s e-mail approach \u2014 it&amp;#039;s less intrusive than a phone call: Briefly say who you are, the skills you have to offer, and the kind of work you&amp;#039;re seeking. Then ask if you can meet for a quick cup of coffee (you pick up the tab, BTW) or arrange a short phone appointment to discuss something specific. &amp;quot;For example, say, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;d like to talk about opportunities for marketing work at financial services firms in the metro area,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; advises Sollmann. &amp;quot;This gives your meeting a framework, and lets your contacts know exactly how they can help you.&amp;quot; Take notes at all your meetings, and then analyze them to uncover the three key steps involved in making your transition as smooth as possible.  Work backward. Another way to get a game plan: &amp;quot;Maybe you&amp;#039;d like to be a licensed social worker in three years; use the info from your interviews to map things out,&amp;quot; advises Fortgang. &amp;quot;To reach your goal, you&amp;#039;d need to have found a practice that would take you on. For that to happen, you would have to have completed your supervised training. And to do that, you&amp;#039;d need to complete the two-year certificate program, and so forth. By working backward, you can get to a bite-sized piece of the process that you can start today.&amp;quot;  Step 3: Figure Out the Finances Next, take a hard look at your family&amp;#039;s current budget and consider how your new career will impact your finances. Sherie Phillips invested almost $10,000 of her savings in her paralegal training and downsized her lifestyle. &amp;quot;I traded my house for a more affordable condo and liquidated my retirement account; I also applied for the California Training Benefits program, which allowed me to collect unemployment,&amp;quot; says Phillips, who is working part-time in a mortgage lending office while she interviews for paralegal positions. &amp;quot;With today&amp;#039;s economy, it may take a while, but I&amp;#039;m confident I&amp;#039;ll get the job I want,&amp;quot; she says.  Tactics to Try  Determine the cash cushion you need. Once you&amp;#039;ve done your homework, add your monthly living expenses to your monthly career-transition costs. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s how much you need to have in a savings account or income stream,&amp;quot; says Mitchell. If the number is higher than what you&amp;#039;ve currently got coming in or sitting in a savings account, take a deep breath. This doesn&amp;#039;t mean giving up on your dream. It does mean extending your time frame \u2014 to allow for the fact that you may need to take a &amp;quot;Plan B job,&amp;quot; or hang on to the job you currently have, to pay the bills while you&amp;#039;re transitioning careers. Pursue internships (working for free), but only if your network tells you that it&amp;#039;s the essential way to break into your new field. &amp;quot;In many industries, there aren&amp;#039;t enough internships geared toward working adults to make this a strong career strategy,&amp;quot; Sollmann explains. Get a loan. If you need financing to start your own business, go to your local bank and apply for a U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) loan; the SBA has several programs, including micro-loans for very small amounts, geared toward start-ups, says Merlino, who leads Count Me In&amp;#039;s Make Mine a Million $ Business program (go to makemineamillion.org for help writing a business plan). Visit sba.gov/services/financialassistance/index.html for loan details, or click on Start-Up Funding at womanowned.com for financing options geared toward small-business owners. Keep it cash-only. If money&amp;#039;s really tight or you are just risk-averse, wait till you can pay for your fresh start with cash. When her husband, a plumber, was unable to work due to an injury, Pam Redman, 45, of Grand Ledge, MI, decided to take a table at a local crafts fair and sell her homemade dip mixes, which her family and friends always raved about. &amp;quot;Since we had huge monthly bills, I could only come up with maybe $100 to buy supplies, so I went with just a few little packages,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I made enough in one afternoon for that month&amp;#039;s house payment.&amp;quot;   Five years in, Pam&amp;#039;s Pantry now sells a full line of seasoning mixes for dips, dressings, and other goodies, and will bring in approximately $300,000 in sales this year from crafts shows, retail outlets, and Internet orders (pamspantry.net), but Redman has yet to get a credit card or a loan. &amp;quot;If we can&amp;#039;t afford to do something, it goes on hold until we get enough revenue in to pay for it,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;It can be frustrating to grow so slowly, but I think it enabled me to learn as I went and make better decisions. And I have the peace of mind that if I had to hang up my hat tomorrow, we wouldn&amp;#039;t have any debt \u2014 just a lot of dip ingredients in the pantry!&amp;quot; In the meantime, she&amp;#039;s making enough to pay the bills. Step 4: Land Your Next Job Knowing how to market yourself for your new career is crucial. &amp;quot;You have to figure out what previous experience will give you credibility in your new market or industry, and then go acquire the necessary experience and skills you don&amp;#039;t already have,&amp;quot; says Mitchell. A case in point from Julie Walker, the aspiring event planner: &amp;quot;Since I had coordinated tons of events for my bosses and clients, I realized that I already was an event planner \u2014 I just had to own it. I gathered photos of events I&amp;#039;d done and put them on my laptop to show prospective clients.&amp;quot;  Soon after Walker let former colleagues know about her new business, she got a call asking for help planning a wedding for 225. &amp;quot;I coordinated the decor, flowers, and logistics,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;There was no better way to figure out, Yes, this is what I&amp;#039;m meant to be doing.&amp;quot; Now, Walker works as an administrative assistant to bring in a base salary, while coordinating at least one event weekly. Tactics to Try  Put unpaid but applicable experience on your r\u00E9sum\u00E9 and mention it in job interviews. If you&amp;#039;re looking for a job raising money for a nonprofit and you headed up a PTA committee that raised record-breaking funds, share that. Cite the tangible results you got. Know how to explain your career shift to prospective employers. Prep an answer to the question, &amp;quot;Why do you want to pay your dues again in a junior position?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Try saying something like, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m excited to learn your business from the ground up,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; suggests Sollman. Translate your past experience into useful skills in the new field. &amp;quot;Too many people expect employers to connect the dots between industries, and they generally won&amp;#039;t,&amp;quot; Sollman says. &amp;quot;If you&amp;#039;re a customer service rep in the investment field and you want to move into the medical-claims area because there are more jobs there, ask your industry contacts for the nitty-gritty on their work. Then you can tell potential employers that the technology you used in your old job was similar to what they&amp;#039;re using. Point out specific parallels between the skills and experience you have and what&amp;#039;s required for the position you&amp;#039;re pursuing.&amp;quot;  Talk yourself up. If an interviewer hammers away at your lack of experience, &amp;quot;say, &amp;#039;We both know I&amp;#039;m newly minted in this field, but the experience I bring from my previous position will be put to good use here,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; advises Fortgang. &amp;quot;Then give specifics like, &amp;#039;I saved my last company X dollars when I found an accounting mistake, and I&amp;#039;ll bring that same eye for detail to your firm,&amp;#039; or &amp;#039;I was responsible for several crews at my last post and very popular with the workers. I can build loyalty here, too.&amp;#039;&amp;quot;  Keep going. Experts agree that the biggest mistake first-time career changers make is overthinking the prospect and getting stuck in the research phase. Their advice: Take a small step each week. Volunteer at an industry conference where you can network like crazy, or ask a friend to connect you to someone who might want to utilize your services.  Where the Jobs Are With layoffs happening everywhere you look, you want to be sure that you are pursuing a new career that won&amp;#039;t wind up being a dead end as the economy continues to evolve. With that in mind, we sought advice from Laurence Shatkin, Ph.D., a career-information expert and author of 150 Best Recession-Proof Jobs, about which fields are most likely to be hiring now and in the future. Here he offers up his top five picks for easy-to-get, easy-to-keep positions:   Dental assistant (for more info on training, go to dentalassistant.org)  Emergency dispatcher (apco911.org)  Court reporter (ncraonline.org) Surgical technologist (ast.org)  Nutritionist or dietetic technician (eatright.org)   You can also look up your dream job in the Bureau of Labor Statistics&amp;#039; Occupational Outlook Handbook at bls.gov/oco for a complete description of the training required and nature of the work, some pay information, and the job outlook for the next 10 years. And if you&amp;#039;re curious about how much you&amp;#039;ll be earning once you&amp;#039;re off on your new career, visit a salary-survey Website such as about.salary.com. If you are wondering which specific companies are particularly stable in a volatile economy, consider these eight, which as of press time had never had a layoff:   Nugget Market (California-based supermarket chain) Aflac (supplemental insurance company) QuikTrip (convenience stores) The Container Store (retailer of storage and organization products) NuStar Energy (Texas-based pipeline and storage company) Stew Leonard&amp;#039;s (New England-based grocery store chain) Scottrade (online investment firm) Publix Super Markets (supermarket chain)  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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