10 Ways To Find People Who Can Open Doors In Your Career Change

You’re in that awkward in-between stage.

You have a few ideas; career paths or industries that have piqued your interest, and you’re finding yourself coming back to them, over and over again.

You’ve done some reading about your interests online. You’ve put them into the ‘search’ fields on job sites and scrolled through the ads. You’ve pictured yourself in that career; imagined what it might be like; how wonderful it could be – or how much of a disaster.

But now you’ve stalled. 

You’ve got everything you could out of those approaches, and you’re stuck.

You don’t need any more online research. You don’t need more daydreaming.

What you actually need is to talk to people – people who are already doing the kind of work you’re curious about, who can tell you what it's really like, what routes into that industry actually exist, and whether it's as good as it looks from the outside.

The problem is, you don't know any of those people.

So how do you change that?

Here are 10 strategies you can start applying right away.

1. Ask the people you know who they know

One of the fastest and most effective ways to meet new people in industries that interest you is to tap into your network’s network – the connections of your connections.

Friends of friends, ex-colleagues of family members, your uncle’s next-door neighbour… you never know who the people you know, know – and a warm introduction is always easier than a cold start. 

To get started, there’s a simple two-part sentence you can use: 

“Who do you know who does something to do with <insert your interest here>? Would you introduce me to them?”

(Note: The magic of framing it in this way (“Who do you know who?” – not “Do you know anyone who?”) is that linguistically, it assumes the person does know someone – which makes them assume that they know someone, too – and makes them much more likely to come up with a name.)

And this approach can be used no matter how specific or vague your ideas and interests are:

• “Who do you know who… has a career in marketing?”
• “Who do you know who… works outdoors?”
• “Who do you know who’s… in the charity sector?”
• “Who do you know who has an introvert-friendly job?”

Even if you’re already shaking your head as you read this, certain that your friends / family / people at your running club / friendly woman you see on your dog walk, etc. definitely don’t know anyone who could help you… give it a try anyway. 

Open the door to the possibility of a pleasant surprise.

2. Seek out ‘watering holes’  

People with similar interests, whose lives are invested in similar things, tend to hang out in similar places.

So set yourself a mission to figure out: where do people in that industry go to hang out, learn, or have fun?

For example, if you’re interested in horticulture, are there allotments nearby? Seed swaps? Gardening clubs? 

If sustainability is your thing, which conferences, talks, seminars or festivals in your area bring that community together? 

Thinking of becoming a freelancer? Go and spend some time in your nearest co-working space, ideally on days when they’re running community events designed to help people meet one another.

Pepper your calendar with events and places to visit related to your interest. 

If you’re nervous about showing up alone, take your most sociable and naturally chatty friend as a wingperson, and ask them to help you get the ball rolling in talking to people. 

Watering holes can be relatively low effort, but high impact when it comes to meeting people who can help you – because you’ve got lots of people all in one place who share an interest, and who know one another, too. 

So if the first person you meet isn’t quite able to help, they can probably introduce you to someone ten feet away who can.

3. Look for training providers 

Whether you want to retrain as part of your career change or not, training providers by their very nature are phenomenally well-connected in the fields that they specialise in. 

Find out who teaches on relevant courses. Get in touch with the school or programme directly and speak to someone on the team. 

Ask not just about the course itself, but about the industry: who are the key people? What does the landscape look like? What should someone considering this line of work be aware of, that you might not think of? Who else should you be talking to?

If you’re not sure where to start, our Retraining Directory might provide some inspiration.

And never underestimate the power of a well-positioned receptionist or administrator; they know everything and everyone, and can often come up with ideas and connections you didn’t know to ask for.

4. Use LinkedIn strategically 

LinkedIn can get a bad rap, and some of it is deserved, but the fact remains that it can be an incredibly effective way to build a warm and supportive network.

Search by role/industry and look for people who you share a connection with – an introduction from a shared friend or colleague can make an out-of-the-blue message land in a more welcome way. 

And remember: never send a connection request without a note. These can be limited in number and character limit, so take a little time to craft genuine, heartfelt approaches that mention specific work that someone has done, and why you’re interested in being in touch.

You don’t need to share your life story or make a request for help right then and there – in your initial message, keep things warm and focused on them. The rest can emerge organically once you’re connected.  

5. Join online communities and forums  

Watering holes don’t have to be real-world; they’re increasingly online, too. 

There are Reddit communities, Slack groups, and Discord servers dedicated to almost every profession, niche, and career trajectory imaginable, where practitioners gather and discuss their work – and who tend to be surprisingly generous with their knowledge.

Search for communities related to your area of interest, join a few, and give yourself permission to just observe at first. Who seems most aligned with your interests? Who seems to be genuinely enjoying sharing their knowledge and expertise? What can you learn simply from reading the discussions between industry insiders?

When you do engage, lead with respectful curiosity – people respond well to genuine questions about their work.

6. Follow the content creators in that field 

People who blog, podcast, or post about their work are often surprisingly accessible, and already interested in sharing knowledge. 

Start filling your social media feeds with pages related to your interest, and look at who those people are following for inspiration, too. If you’d rather not skew your existing algorithm too much, set up a dummy account purely for finding people to connect with.

If you've been following someone's newsletter, podcast, or LinkedIn posts and found them genuinely useful, tell them so. Then ask a specific question, or express a specific interest. 

Responding warmly to something they put into the world creates a warm, two-way dialogue that can easily evolve into something that can help you.

7. Dig into alumni networks 

Sometimes, just a little bit of shared history can make a cold approach feel easier. 

Look through your university alumni networks, the post-course communities for training courses you've done, even old employers. Who’s doing something related to your interests?

This can be especially helpful if you’re nervous about cold approaches, because the people who are listed in these spaces aren’t there by accident. They’re there because they’re open to connecting with other people who had this shared experience – so you can feel a little less awkward about ‘bothering someone’. 

A message that opens with "we both studied at X" or "I came across you through the Y alumni network" carries more weight than you might think, even if your paths never crossed at the time.

8. Tap into professional associations and membership bodies  

Most industries have these, and they can be an absolute gold-mine for finding people who can guide you in your exploration. 

These organisations exist specifically to support people working in or entering a given field, and many even run mentoring schemes or networking events specifically for people new to the field. 

A membership – even a short-term one – can give you access to directories, events, and introductions that could otherwise take months to find your way to.

9. Volunteer or do pro bono work  

Getting into a sector by offering your existing skills for free puts you in a room with the right people naturally, without needing to make a first move out of nowhere. 

When you're actively working alongside people on something real, relationships form without anyone needing a reason to reach out. You're not a stranger asking for a favour; you've become a colleague. And colleagues introduce you to other colleagues.

10. Don't overlook where you already are

It's easy, when you're focused on getting out, to stop paying attention to what's around you. But your current job might have more useful connections in it than you think.

Are there colleagues in adjacent teams whose work touches on the direction you're heading? Internal projects that would give you exposure to a different part of the business – or a different industry altogether? Clients, suppliers, or collaborators whose world is closer to the one you want to be in?

You don't have to announce that you're planning to leave. But quietly building relationships across your organisation, volunteering for cross-functional work, or even just having honest conversations with people whose careers have taken interesting turns – all of this costs nothing, and can open doors you didn't know were there.

To hear how this worked out in an unexpected way for one career changer, check out Episode 5 of the Careershifters Podcast (Paul’s story) here.

Don’t just make lists of names – get them involved

When you start looking for people, it’s easy to turn the process into a research project. 

You find plenty of options, but they become lists of names on a sheet of paper, or an elaborate Excel spreadsheet, and don’t actually go anywhere.

The key to making this process effective is to start actively engaging – as soon as possible – with the people you find.

Here are two things worth doing deliberately with the names you uncover:

1. Have conversations with people doing the work

There's a name for the kind of conversation that's most useful at this stage: an informational interview.

These are informal, curiosity-driven conversations with someone who's doing work that interests you, with the sole purpose of finding out what it's really like.

What does a typical day actually look like? How did they get in? What do they wish they'd known earlier? What routes in exist that aren't obvious from the outside?

These conversations are extraordinarily useful, and most people are more willing to have them than you'd expect – particularly if you approach with genuine curiosity rather than a thinly veiled job application. 

2. Build your broader support team

Some of the people you discover along the way will be great sources of information for you as you explore a new career or industry.

But others will play a different kind of role – a longer one, not just as a one-off conversation, but as part of a support team. 

They might be a clear accountability partner, who checks in with you regularly and helps you stay in motion. Maybe they’re a fellow career changer who understands what you're going through. Perhaps someone you meet feels like a mentor – someone who's made a similar move themselves and can help you navigate.

Keep an eye out for people who might be a natural fit for one of these roles, and be ready to actively invite them into your process.

The people who navigate career change most successfully tend to share one habit: they talk to a lot of people. 

They know how surprising and helpful people can be.

Not all people, of course – but that’s precisely why the more people you can encounter, the better. 

Some will open up possibilities you hadn't considered. Some will challenge assumptions you didn't know you were making. Some will simply remind you, on the days when it all feels impossible, that it isn't.

The fact is, the gap between "I don't know anyone who can help" and "I know exactly the right people to talk to" is much smaller than it feels. 

Almost every person you need is already reachable – through a chat with someone you know, a community you could join tomorrow, a quick question over the phone to a friendly receptionist. 

Finding new people in fields that interest you is one of the most powerful things you can do for your career change, and you're closer to being able to do it than you think.

Which of these approaches are you going to take first? Let me know in the comments below.