Mortgage pros ponder next career move

If you want to start anew, Robertson offers the following tips:

• What are your signature talents? Consider what you've been doing to be successful in your most recent positions? What themes keep coming up? Read the book "Now, Discover Your Strengths" and take the quick, free assessment offered at the related Web site.
• Seek input from others who know you. What do they say are your talents?
• Think about what you love to do. Consider what industry you would like to work in. What are your interests, passions?
• When you are looking for jobs and find ones that resonate with you, seek to articulate your talents in terms of what that employer will value.
• Do your homework and find out how you can connect your proven talents with the needs, products, services, mission of the company you want to interview with.

As for the almighty resume, get ready for an overhaul.

Your resume should start out with a one-paragraph summary explaining what you’re all about. Coming up with the right summary will require you to sit down and reassess what you did or do every day. What are your major accomplishments? How did you effect change?

Don’t specifically mention your mortgage background in the summary. Include a description of yourself that conveys you’re a go-getter, someone who finishes projects before deadlines. You also want to play up here that you have a record of getting sales and growing the business, if that’s applicable; or that you had a strong reputation for bringing in clients, or implementing new methods to make day-to-day functions smoother.

Robertson suggests also adding a list of bullets at the top of the resume, before the chronological jobs section, that includes your talents and accomplishments. Any proficiency in technology can also go here.

It’s critical to take the career bull by the horns ASAP.

If you see the handwriting on the wall at your firm, it’s a good time to start looking into other opportunities in other industries or pursuing your dream job because it’s always harder to find a job without a job.

That’s just what Lon Cohen did.

Cohen, who lives on New York's Long Island, adopted a unique strategy. In April, he decided to demote himself from manager to loan officer even though it meant a big cut in pay. “As a loan officer I balanced my desire to pursue my budding writing career and still derive some income from selling loans,” he explains.

In August, he closed his last loan, and “now I am writing full-time, getting some business by writing articles about the mortgage industry, especially with this implosion in the subprime market.”

As for Betty, the last e-mail I received from her made it seem her days in the mortgage business were numbered:

“Well, another underwriter friend of mine got laid off on Friday. That leaves only three of us still employed out of my group. About my future — if you find a crystal ball lying around, send it to me, OK?”

MORE FROM CAREERS

Careers Section Front

Workers may jump ship as economy improves Teacher shortage has given way to teacher glut How to handle criticism from the boss Your Career: Working with your spouse Your Career: Turning dreams into reality Swine flu poses a costly decision for millions Supreme Court to hear labor board case The key to dealing with lousy boss: negotiation Can being laid off really make you better off? Worker: I was fired for wearing ‘God’ button Careers Section Front   Add Careers headlines to your news reader: