If you look hard enough, you can find a silver lining in this economy for job seekers. Many people have been trudging along in careers that didn’t suit them, but leaving seemed impossible and risky.

Taking advantage of a layoff and turning a difficult situation into an opportunity is not always easy, and it may not be the first thing that comes to mind when making plans for the future. Let’s face it, if you have always done a certain type of work, it is easy to think that your “next” thing needs to be that same thing. If your field does not seem to have much of a future (or even a present!), making a change is obvious and necessary, but I hope my new series of posts will remind ALL job seekers that this may be a good time to take a different path!

I recently reviewed Alexandra Levit’s new book, New Job, New You – A Guide to Reinventing Yourself in a Bright New Career,where she highlights stories of people who have made career changes for a variety of reasons, including:

• Family requirements
• Need for independence
• Desire to pursue additional learning
• Financial aspirations
• Pursuit of a passion
• Personal or health setbacks
• Honing a talent or skill

There is no doubt that layoffs can lead to a second career. (Take a look at this piece from NBC Nightly News that highlights people who made big jumps.) It is no surprise that Marci Alboher commented in this story. An authority on career changers, Marci is a senior fellow at Civic Ventures, the author of One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success and creator of the popular Shifting Careers blog and column for The New York Times. I’ve had a chance to talk to Marci about her work for Civic Ventures and the resources they offer via Encore.org. (Learn more about Civic Ventures and Encore.org HERE.)

My discussions with Marci and reading Alexandra’s book inspired me to create a new, ongoing feature here on my blog. I’m going to highlight stories of people who have made big career changes. To start off, I will share information and resources for and from those who have shifted to not-for-profit careers. I will call this feature “Altruistic Tuesdays” and highlight resources, many from the Encore.org site, aimed at smoothing the transition.

If you have a story to share, please contact me! In the meantime, think about how you can use your skills in a different setting…What have you always wanted to do, but never thought it was possible? You can translate your skills (maybe along with some new training) into a whole new career.

photo by pranav singh