Career Management: Considering Your Retirement Options

​Information is power in this phase of your life, as always. 
Assessment, information-gathering, and planning are keys for satisfaction in retirement.

What does retirement mean to you?
You may shift priorities for a new combination of life roles:
  • Enjoying more time with family and friends
  • Spending a majority of time at leisure (perhaps including travel)
  • Dedicating more time to avocations and/or volunteer roles
  • Moving to part-time status at your current position, or finding a new part-time position
  • Reinventing yourself in a new career

In what ways will these components bring you to a new sense of meaning?
What other life milestones are coming up that may have an impact on your retirement plans?
How should you get started?
How much reinvention do you want to do?

Self-Assessment
  • What are your dreams? Now is the time to make them a high priority.
  • What do you enjoy doing now and want to continue doing?
  • Who are the people you want to spend time with, and in what types of activities?
  • What are your interests and hobbies, and what are your goals, if any, for those activities?
  • What is your financial situation?
  • How is your health? What are your plans for maintaining or improving your health and well-being?
  • What other family and personal responsibilities do you have?
  • How important is the role of work to you?
  • What kind of contribution do you want to make through work?
  • What kind of responsibility do you want at work?
  • What rewards will be meaningful for you?
If you are already retired:
What elements (if any) of the work environment do you miss? (For example: relationships, structure, productivity, recognition, contributing to a larger cause, pay, pace, or status)

Whether you're planning for your retirement lifestyle or already retired, as you think about what you gained from work and its surroundings, and you look at the answers to your self-assessment questions, maximize the balance of contribution, values and rewards that are most important to you

Ideas for next steps:
  • "Listen to the whispers"; if particular interests and new ideas for exploration are repeatedly exciting you, follow through.
  • Recognize and apply the resourcefulness and resilience you've used throughout your career to your goals for a satisfying retirement lifestyle.
  • Keep your networking current, to stay abreast of any hiring trends that may be advantageous to you, to let professional colleagues know of your general plans and any availability you may have for part-time or consulting work, and to expand your circle of contacts.
  • Supplement your networking with reading and online research in your areas of interest, in the business press for emerging practices and trends in staffing and flexibility in the workplace, and to identify new options for leisure or professional pursuits.
  • Try out a new role by volunteering - you'll make a contribution to an organization at the same time and will build confidence in your ability to reinvent yourself.
  • Consider a phased retirement, possibly an informal arrangement with your current employer. 
  • A search for work, especially in a new field, may take some time, but gives you the chance for additional professional fulfillment.
If you are going to look for work:
  • What are your specialty skills?
  • What are your areas of knowledge expertise?
  • What are your functional/transferable skills?
  • What is your computer literacy? Do you need some hands-on practice, a self-paced tutorial, or a class to increase your skills in this essential skill area?
  • What fields/industries are you most interested in, and are there emerging fields (e.g., sustainability, technology) in which you would like to make a practical or academic learning investment to expand your opportunities?
  • List options that best match your current high-priority interests and skills and build on your areas of expertise. Brainstorm with family and friends about possibilities.

There are creative and flexible possibilities for retirement. You do have choices...create them and make the most of them
Book Recommendations
  • "Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life" by Marc Freedman
  • "Invent Your Retirement: Resources for the Good Life" by Art Koff
  • "Reinventing Retirement" by Miriam Goodman
  • "Transitions" by William Bridges
  • "What Color is Your Parachute in Retirement" by Richard Bolles

Website Resources
Adapted from material that originally appeared in the University of Illinois Alumni Association's Virtual Career Center
© 2020, Julie L Bartimus Consulting, Naperville, Illinois​