As she danced to Kanye West’s Gone, Shifrin made it clear to her boss that she was done sacrificing her “relationships, time and energy for this job.”

The video went viral and now has 15 million views and counting. But it didn’t stop there.

Her former employer, Taiwanese animation company Next Media Animation, posted a spin-off video to announce they were hiring. A few days after she posted her original video, Shifrin made a guest appearance on The Queen Latifah Show — and received an on-air job offer.

In general, we recommend quitting your job gracefully without burning bridges. After all, you never know when you and your employee might cross paths in the future. But Shifrin received an overwhelming response for her video, and now that she’s in the job market, her resume will definitely stand out.

Her “take that!” message to her former boss may have been a good move for her. But does that mean we should follow her lead?

Have you dreamed about a dramatic resignation from your job? Do you think Shifrin’s move was a wise one, or will it come back to bite her later in her career? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Betsy Mikel has been reading and writing since she was a TV-deprived bookwormy kid. Visit her website and connect with her on Twitter.

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The post The Best Way to Quit Your Job? Or the Worst? appeared first on Brazen Life.

There’s just one problem. There are only about 10 jobs in the whole country in your field, and about 100,000,000 people are competing for them.

Actually, there are a few more problems. Those 10 jobs happen to be located in the middle of small-town Alaska, far, far away from friends and family. Also, they pay way below the cost of living, and there’s no guarantee those jobs will still exist a couple years from now.

In other words, even though you’re still motivated and driven to pursue the career you always knew was right for you, it’s just not a viable option anymore. The jobs simply aren’t there.

Think this is hypothetical?

I found myself in this situation when I graduated with a journalism degree just as the economy tanked. During my post-graduation summer internship with a major newspaper, I watched the publication go through two rounds of layoffs in 12 weeks. Meanwhile I saw former superstar classmates—the ones I was certain would become the next Woodward or Bernstein—lose their jobs left and right.

My passion for journalism was still strong, but the instability and uncertainty of the field made me realize I needed a new plan.

Five years later, I’ve found my niche as a Web copywriter. As a journalism student, I had never considered any other job. But due to the doom and gloom surrounding the “death of the industry,” my journalism-focused self had to find new focus.

You can transition to a new career, too, and you don’t have to go back to school to do it. Here’s how you can translate your skills and passion into a different job you may not have even known existed:

Focus on what you love so much about your career of choice

Maybe you’re one of those people whose job suddenly went “poof!” Or, all the jobs in your field seemed to evaporate while you were in school. Either way, the lack of jobs doesn’t change your passion for that job. There’s a reason you decided to pursue that particular degree and career.

Figure out what drove you in this direction. Then, start to brainstorm what other careers might require those same skills and passions.

In my case, I loved the way sentences could be put together to tell stories. I loved that words could make readers feel something or teach them something new. And I loved to geek out over proper comma placement and sentence structure.

I didn’t have to be a journalist to maintain my passion for all those things. As a copywriter, I still get to tell different kinds of stories. And I still get the satisfaction of agonizing over every single word and piece of punctuation to craft the perfect sentence.

Identify what you don’t love so much about your career of choice

You already know what you like about this career. That’s the easy part. But it also helps to identify what’s unattractive about the field. You may find it hard to accept its faults, but being realistic about the not-so-great qualities of your career path will help you understand and accept why it’s time to move on.

Maybe you love the good that nonprofits do, but you don’t love the stress and overwork that come along with the lack of funding. Remember, there are for-profit companies that do work you can feel good about and still help people.

Or, you’re a teacher who loves helping children grow and learn. But as you struggle to stay on top of Common Core Standards with the constant threat of layoffs, administrative meetings and paperwork, your motivation is draining. You could consider becoming a child care provider. As a nanny, for example, you’d still be instrumental to children’s learning and development, but without as many of the stressful, non-children-focused aspects of the job.

Of course, I didn’t love the instability of journalism as I was just getting started in the field. That was a big part of my decision to transition to something else.

But I also realized I wasn’t a die-hard journalist. Breaking the news wasn’t my thing. As a student, my concentration had been in magazine journalism and longer-form storytelling. If I had loved the thrill of breaking a story before anyone else did, I might have stuck with journalism and fought tooth-and-nail to find and maintain a job.

I didn’t leave, breathe and die journalism. I lived, breathed and died part of it: the writing and storytelling. Accepting that there were aspects of this field that were not “me” made it easier to leave it behind.

Creep on what your former classmates are doing

You’ve already decided that you need to transition to something else, and now you have a list of the skills and passions you want to take with you to a new role. The next step is to figure out in which direction, exactly, you want to head.

Remember you’re not the only one in this situation. Your classmates are likely going through the same path of exploration as they struggle to find a way to land on their feet without giving up doing what they love.

Now is the perfect time to reconnect and see what they’re up to (or simply creep on their Facebook and LinkedIn profiles to see where they’re working nowadays).

Some will be still trying (and hopefully succeeding) at the original career. Some will have gone back to grad school to start a completely new one. Some will have fallen back on working for their family’s business or might seem like they’re doing nothing much at all.

But there will always be a handful of people who are doing something creative. Use them as inspiration as you decide how to move forward. They may even offer you some connections to get your foot in the door to follow their path.

I saw a lot of classmates who were freelancing for all sorts of interesting publications. Few of them were able to make a full-time salary out of it, but it was a natural direction to put our journalism skills to good use and make a little bit of money while we figured things out.

So I started writing for online publications for low pay and even for free. I began to build a small portfolio of work that any hiring manager could find by Googling my name. My Web writing experience eventually led me to my first junior copywriting position for a digital public relations firm.

Do what you’ve always wanted to do as you figure it out

Not having a stable job is stressful, and it’s even more stressful if you don’t know what job you should even look for.

Try to use this limbo as an opportunity to focus on something you’ve always wanted to explore but never had time to do.

Look for an internship or start volunteering in a field you’ve always been interested in. When a friend was laid off from his job, he wasn’t quite sure what direction he wanted to head in. While he explored his options, he volunteered at a small local brewery because he loved craft beer and wanted to learn more about the industry.

That’s how he discovered his passion. He now works for a growing microbrewery as a brewer and helps with their marketing. He loves his job—much more than the one he was laid off from.

It can be disheartening when you feel like the world is against you and telling you that you picked the wrong career. But just because everything hasn’t gone according to plan doesn’t mean you have to turn your back to the job you love and go in a completely different direction. By following the above tips, you can just reroute your career GPS to arrive at a new, equally fulfilling destination.

Have you had to change the direction of your career due to forces out of your control? How did you do it?

Betsy Mikel has been reading and writing since she was a TV-deprived bookwormy kid. Visit her website and connect with her on Twitter.

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The post What to Do When You Realize You Chose the Wrong Career appeared first on Brazen Life.

Imagine yourself in that scenario. Where do you see yourself? Are you cuddling with homeless kittens? Bringing smiles to the faces of sick kids? Are you feeding hungry people in your community or helping improve their health or education? Do you see yourself on the scene of a natural disaster?

Now that you feel all warm and fuzzy thinking about the fulfillment you’d get from one of the above activities, go do one! If you have just a few hours a week, you have time to volunteer. You’ll do more than help accomplish the mission of a local non-profit, charity or organization; you’ll boost your own career, too.

Here are a few underrated ways volunteering can be good for your professional side:

1. Be the first to know when a job opens up

Even if no jobs are available when you hop on board as a volunteer, something could always change. Someone might leave for another job, the non-profit could receive extra funding to hire a new employee or temporary help might be needed when a new mother takes her maternity leave.

When these situations happen, people with the power to hire will likely want to interview someone who’s already familiar with internal processes and has demonstrated a passion for the organization’s mission—someone like a volunteer.

If this best-case scenario were to happen, the organization will choose from the best of the best volunteers. So even though you’re not getting paid, treat your job as a volunteer as if it’s a real job. Be punctual, work hard, don’t complain when tasked with seemingly unimportant duties and try your best to get along with other volunteers and staff.

If you’re a reliable and well-liked volunteer, you’ll be at the top of the list when a position opens up.

2. Show potential employers you’re not resting on your laurels between jobs

Maybe you graduated from college or were recently laid off. Your first instinct might be to throw yourself into scouring job boards, attending networking events and fine-tuning your cover letter. While you should do all those things, remember that the job hunting process can be long. And you could be doing more to beef up your resume besides moving bullet points around.

Several months of “professional job hunter” on your resume will impress absolutely no one. Several months as a volunteer as a tutor for a literacy organization, as a dog walker for an animal shelter or as a repacker for a food depository, however, will set you apart from other potential candidates who used their unemployed down time to feel sorry for themselves and eat cartons of Ben & Jerry’s.

3. Expand your network

If you’re on the hunt for a new job, you’ve probably already exhausted your network. You’ve already reached out to your past professors, your friends, your friends’ parents and your friends’ parents’ friends. And you’re still jobless.

So it’s time to expand your network.

One of the most attractive qualities about donating your time to any organization is the opportunity to meet other volunteers from all walks of life. You’ll meet people of all ages, from all different careers, all of whom who come with their own network that’s completely untapped by you.

Don’t treat this like a networking event where you hand out business cards to every new volunteer you meet. Though all these people may seem different than you, remember that you all have one thing in common: passion for the particular non-profit or charity where you chose to volunteer your time. Use that common interest as a talking point to get to know as many other volunteers as possible. You never know who might be able to open a door to a new job.

4. Add new expertise to your skill set

Non-profits, charities and other organizations that depend on volunteers to keep things running smoothly often have tight budgets. That’s why they need free help in the first place. They may not be able to afford a full-time marketing director, accountant or administrative assistant to the CEO. Or, these positions exist, but those employees are overworked because the organization can’t afford to hire a lower-level employee to help them out. They would be overjoyed to have an extra pair of hands on deck.

This atmosphere is the perfect opportunity for you to step up and offer to fill in those gaps, even if for things not considered “official” volunteer duties. Need more social media experience? Offer to manage the Twitter and Facebook accounts. Want to pursue a career in event management? Ask if you can help organize and plan an event. If you want to add management experience to your resume, then volunteer to help manage the volunteers.

Don’t look at this tactic as working for free. Instead, look at it as free career building. (Click to tweet this idea.) You can develop the experience you need to land a job.

So what are you waiting for? Think about the good you can do for yourself while you do good for others and find an opportunity to volunteer. Check for available opportunities on Volunteer Match or Idealist.org and find the do-gooder activity that’s right for you.

How have you used your volunteer experience to advance your career?

Betsy Mikel has been reading and writing since she was a TV-deprived bookwormy kid. She’s now a copywriter and dedicated volunteer. Visit her website and connect with her on LinkedIn.

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The post 4 Selfish Reasons to Volunteer During Your Job Hunt appeared first on Brazen Life.