Deciding to go off and explore new career options is like being a genie out of the bottle. You don't want to get stuffed back in until you've had a good look around. I lost out on one job, and am now waiting to hear back about another. This one, at a nonprofit, would be a great opportunity to take my editing...

I lost out on a job last week because I was told I don't have the right experience, or enough of it. I probably don't have all of the right skills, either, but that's not the problem. You can learn new skills in a day, but being experienced at something takes time. There's nothing I can do about my lack of...

It's one thing to sell yourself on paper, and another to do it in person. As a freelance journalist, I interview people all the time. But that doesn't make it any easier to be an interviewee -- particularly when a job is at stake. The last interview I had before starting down the career reinvention path was a...

Last week I wrote about needing to get out of my own little world and connect with people. I haven't done much about that, but I have gotten an energy boost --mostly from exerting more energy. An insane burst of freelance work had me working 14-hour days, juggling six projects at once. And somehow, the...

Only six weeks after Justin Constantine left his job as a lawyer and arrived in Iraq, the Marine reservist was shot in the face. It was a sniper attack. Stopping to inspect an Iraqi police station that had been shot out the night before, he cautiously exited a vehicle and a bullet entered behind his left ear,...

Here's my revelation for the week: I need to step out of my plastic bubble more often and be around people who are doing interesting things. Staying holed up at home, even if I'm busy with freelance work, means missing opportunities to network, get inspired, and recharge my batteries, which are practically on...

I know a few people in their 40s and 50s who reinvented themselves the old-fashioned way: They went back to school. One became a high school teacher. Another became a psychologist. And a third went through an extensive wine certification program and became the marketing director for a wine retailer. School is...

Something happened last week that has made me call off the hunt for right now: I am flooded with freelance work. I'm up to my eyeballs, which is great -- not only from an income standpoint, but also because it's given me some perspective. After the sobering barrage of comments to my last post about contingency...

Now that I'm job hunting, I've been wondering: At what age do you become that 'older worker" who has hit the brick wall? Based on what I've seen and heard from other mid-careerists, the magic number seems to be 55. Last week, a CNNMoney story, "Workers Over 50 Are The New Unemployables," suggested the even more...