It’s never too early to start thinking about your next act. The longer time frame you have to plan, the better. Start working at age fifty on a career you might not get around to until age sixty.

If you have lots of time, you can try out some ideas and possibilities, role-play, and do a little bit of those things to see if that is the direction you want to go. Moonlight, apprentice or volunteer to see if you even like that kind of work once you see the underbelly, and every job has one.

Understand what’s behind your desire to make a change. Maybe you are starting to become disillusioned with your work. You’re bogged down. Perhaps you’re no longer on the way up. You’re not getting promoted as quickly as you were. Things are not happening fast enough anymore. This is the time to step back and begin to think about life more broadly. For some people, it takes some kind of crisis to realize they want to make a change.

Get your life in order. Take your time to do what you need to do before taking the leap. If your life is in order, your second act comes more easily. Get rid of clutter, or pay off your debts. Consider where a few changes may make a difference.

Money is the biggest stumbling block that stops most people from changing fields. Chances are, you will take a pay cut–at least initially. Have at least six months of living expenses set aside if need be, so you’re nimble enough to get through the initial stages.

If possible, pay off outstanding high-interest credit card debts, college loans, and auto loans. This can take some time, but starting a new venture with as clean a balance sheet as you can will make a difference.

And by all means, have your ego in check to. You aren’t really what you earn, are you?

Ask yourself: What do I have to do in order to get results? Identifying the immediate next step is an important part of your ultimate goal. Do one thing each day.

Retrofit your life. When you are physically fit, you have more energy and are mentally sharper to face the challenges ahead. Fitness is a huge issue. You have to be in good shape to start a new career later in life—it takes an incredible amount of strength and energy.

Be practical about the skills you will need. If you’d like to go to graduate school, maybe start by taking a night course. You don’t have to enroll in a full-course load. Take one class at a time and reevaluate at the end of the semester. Hold yourself accountable for what you can handle. You can add more classes as your direction and motivation become clear. Adding the necessary skills or degree to succeed in a new field before you leave your old employer is just smart planning.

Consider Kate Carmel, profiled in my Forbes Retirement Guide piece. The former museum curator studied part-time for two years to become a certified appraiser in retirement. Surprisingly, even with a graduate degree in art history and 35 years in the art world, including a stint as chief curator of the American Craft Museum (now the Museum of Arts & Design), Carmel needed more education to get certified. So at the urging of a co-worker (who was, fortuitously, president of the Appraisers Association of America, which issues a certification recognized by the IRS) she began taking courses at New York University well before she retired from the auction house. It took her two years of part-time study.

Get in touch with your inner self. A second career is often a spiritual quest. You want to make a contribution or be connected with your inner desires and goals. Consider reading some of Deepak Chopra’s books on spirituality and mind-body medicine.

Be sufficiently open to change in life. Don’t underestimate what your transition will bring. Career changers can go into mourning. All of a sudden, they realize how they miss their old career, and they are not really open to replacing those things.

Loss of your work identity can be especially hard. This is true for men, in particular. Their job tends to reflect who they are to the world. Women, not so much. Trust me on this.

Take the time to reflect on this psychological stop sign, be comfortable in your own skin and believe in yourself. It’s OK to make mistakes, to be a greenhorn again. You’re smart, and the ramping-up stage will go faster than you think… if you have laid the groundwork ahead of time.

Get a business card. Want to be an artist but still working as a lawyer? Get an artist’s card. As soon as you have a card, it makes the career real. You can get your second act card long before you finish your first act.Printing your new information on a card can be transformative.

Think through what it’s going to take to make a career move. What are the things that are important in your life? What things are actively giving you pleasure that you might have to give up? What things are starting to feel like a burden and are easier to let go of?

Look beyond your job. If you are thinking about a career change, it may be because you are missing something in your life. But your career may not be your whole life. Some people want a job that allows them to pursue their true passion—and that’s okay, too.

For more stories on pursuing your dream life, check out this new Forbes’ Special Report.

I’m the author of What’s Next? Follow Your Passion and Find Your Dream Job, available here www.kerryhannon.com. To learn about great jobs for retirees, check out my column on AARP. Follow me on Twitter, @KerryHannon

Last week  I visited Charlotte, NC  to speak at the Gaston Literacy Council luncheon about career transition and the importance of lifelong learning.

I’m truly inspired by the great work they’re doing to bolster education in North Carolina. Education was fundamental in my family. Grammy had little formal education, having come to this country from Ireland when she was sixteen. My father never had the opportunity to go to college. For him, seeing his four children graduate from college was a goal. He succeeded.

So having a chance to meet with a group that is making a difference by offering courses in reading and writing, among other subjects, was an honor.

A special treat for me–a chance to meet-up with Second-acters Deborah Langsam and her husband, Joal Fischer. The dynamic duo reside in the Dilworth area of Charlotte, where they operate Barking Dog Chocolatiers, an artisanal chocolate company. They  provided tantalizing take-home sweets for each attendee.

Langsam, a former associate professor of biology at the University of North Carolina and Fischer, a retired developmental pediatrician, stir up vats of silky chocolate and handcraft it into mouth-watering truffles, barks, ganaches, and pastries in a state-of-the-art home kitchen.

And they graciously allowed me to hold them up to the audience as living proof of how to change careers successfully, to keep working in retirement years, and to make a difference in this world. Here’s what they did and do right:

No rash moves. They started their new business in stages while downshifting their primary careers.

Trained ahead of time. Before retiring from science and medicine, the couple took a six-week pastry course at the École Ritz Escoffier in Paris, alongside professional chefs. It was in the basement of the tony Ritz hotel that they fell madly in love with the process of making chocolate. Not surprisingly, it was the science that intrigued them—the methodical experiments and technical precision needed to ensure a ganache that was smooth, not grainy.

They journeyed around the United States, Canada, and beyond to train with expert pastry chefs and chocolatiers, honing the techniques of framing, molding, and panning. Finally, they began designing their own chocolates. “It was obvious that we needed to do some kind of training, and the training was fun,” Deborah says. And they continue to take classes from the creme de la creme when they can fit it into their schedules.

Apprenticed. Do the job first is my mantra. You might find it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Through various connections, Joal was able to volunteer at Dean & Deluca, making chocolate. He happened to be there on the day they needed an extra hand, and he just stayed on. As Joal says, “you might like to make chocolate, but you gotta ask yourself, do I like to wash dishes.”

One step at a time. They started small. At the very beginning, they made chocolate for friends and relatives. Their tempting morsels were a resounding success with friends, who pushed the couple to make chocolates to sell.Then they sold it at the restaurant in Charlotte. Next, they started a Web site for launching retail sales. Now they offer their own classes and lectures on chocolate-making, too. The small business continues to evolve in its own time.

Frugal approach. They over-planned things financially, so they could afford to make the change. The planning allowed this to be an adventure that could take on a life of its own. Sensible spending suits the couple’s sweet new lifestyle—and they had always made do on modest salaries. They both drive fifteen-year-old Volvos and don’t splurge on designer clothes or fancy jewelry.

Give back. Annual candy sales fluctuate each year, but the sweet news is that net profits go to local charities.

The honest truth: Deciding to leave her faculty post, even with full retirement benefits, wasn’t easy. “I liked what I did very much,” Langsam says. “My identity was as a professor.” Yet an early health scare with cancer, when she was in her thirties, had taught her how short life can be.

Was it really worth working so hard to be named a full professor? “It was an ego thing for me,” Langsam admits.

“But the career change has allowed me to enjoy my work and the process of creating something. Every once in a while I’ll be on a deadline, and it reminds me of how much my life was once controlled by deadlines. Importantly, it reminds me of how much I get pleasure from what I am doing now.”

Even better: “Now we have second acts where we are able to work hard when we want—and then take a break,” Joal says.

For more stories on pursuing your dream life, check out this new Forbes’ Special Report.

I’m the author of What’s Next? Follow Your Passion and Find Your Dream Job, available here www.kerryhannon.com. To learn about great jobs for retirees, check out my column on AARP. Follow me on Twitter, @KerryHannon

For older workers, the wait to find a job keeps getting longer.

As part of its monthly analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report, AARP’s Public Policy Institute (PPI) reviews  – for older workers (55+) – the average duration of unemployment. That is the average number of weeks that older job-seekers are unemployed.

The April analysis by Sara Rix of AARP’s  PPI shows that the average duration of unemployment has skyrocketed to well over a year – 53.6 weeks.

That compares with 51.5 weeks in March.  And the new figure – unfortunately – is  well over double the 20.2 weeks at the beginning of the Great Recession in December, 2007.

Overall, the unemployment rate for persons aged 55 and over remained unchanged at 6.5 percent in April.  Other indicators of their employment situation (e.g., discouraged workers and involuntary part-time workers) also showed little change.

Average duration of unemployment

Less than 55                       39.4 weeks

55+                                         53.6 weeks

Long-term unemployed (27+ weeks)

Less than 55                       44.4%

55+                                         56.3%

Depressing details. Hold on, though, I do say, it’s the jobs report look at the aged 65-plus workforce that I find the most compelling, and oh so telling.

The labor force participation rate of persons aged 65 and over has increased markedly in recent years. In 2010, an average of 17.4 percent of persons aged 65 and over were in the labor force, up from 10.8 percent in 1985.

The number of labor force participants aged 65 and over has increased by 18.7 percent (or by 1.1 million workers and jobseekers) since December 2007. As of April 2011, 7.1 million members of the labor force (4.6 percent of the total) were at least 65 years old.

The labor force participation rate for persons aged 65 and over was 18.0 percent in April, a slight increase from March’s 17.8 percent. After rising in March, the unemployment rate for this age group fell to 5.8 percent from 6.4 percent, though still well above what it was in December 2007 when only 3.3 percent were unemployed.

This is right in line with my recent reporting about the working retired. (See my story in the Forbes Retirement Guide). Retirees are continuing to work both for the income and for the engagement.

It’s happening, and as the numbers show, it’s a genuine sea change in our society. One that has repercussions in the job market and more. This trend, in fact, is something I am seeing first-hand evidence by the influx of readers to my AARP Great Jobs for Retirees column.

But I digress, let’s get back to those “older workers over 55″  cooling their heels,  as they impatiently wait to find work. Bottom line: It’s a crummy situation, and perhaps you have your older compatriots, who are working away, to thank in part for your troubles, but there are some things you can do that might help.

In my mind, the over-55 set must think like a small business owner. You are the business. Go sign-up some clients.

• Rev up marketing 101 skills.

Never thought of yourself as a sales person? Not your style to shill your skills. Wake up. We all are salesmen and saleswomen these days. Never stops. It’s a little uncomfortable, but you’ll get used to it.

• One job at a time.

When you stop focusing on a full-time gig and concentrate on an immediate assignment or part-time assignment, the pressure lifts, and the air of desperation dissipates. Employers sense that, too. When you already have work, there’s the subtle message that you’re desired by an employer, that confidence works for you and gives potential employers a good vibe too. Psychology 101.

• Pursue short-term assignments via firms like Flexforce Professionals, a Washington, DC area staffing and recruiting service focused exclusively on part-time professionals. “Our mission  is to help place them in quality part-time jobs and to provide companies access to this largely untapped talent pool of highly-qualified professionals looking for part-time work,” one of the firm’s founders Gwenn Rosener told me.

• Get your name on the job boards at professional associations where you’re a member.

That’s what Cheryl Champagne did. Champagne was 60, with 25 years as a finance manager when she took an early retirement buyout package from a downsizing Hartford Life Insurance Co. in September 2009. With her retirement package came 18 weeks full pay and benefits. (See my story in the Forbes Retirement Guide). Champagne spent the first eight weeks processing the loss of her job.

Then she got back into the hunt for employment.  Her first job back was a direct result of networking through the Hartford chapter of the Certified Management Accountant Association, where she was a member.  She asked the coordinator for jobs there to put her on list and forward job leads. That’s how she heard about a 12-hour a week job opening, paying $20 an hour, for a director of finance at Middlesex County Community Foundation in Middletown, Conn, a 10-minute drive from her house.

She promptly applied, and was hired. It was her first non-profit job, and an opportunity to learn about nonprofit accounting, a different computer system, and you got it, expand her job skills. Small pay, but it started her on a new path into nonprofit work.

Today, Champagne is a full-time fiscal analyst at Key Human Services, Inc., a Hartford nonprofit offering community-based services to individuals with a range of mental disabilities.

Mission accomplished…in a little more than a year.

I’m the author of What’s Next? Follow Your Passion and Find Your Dream Job, available here www.kerryhannon.com. To learn about great jobs for retirees, check out my column on AARP. Follow me on Twitter, @KerryHannon

The cap and gown are ready to go. How about the career plan?

I’ve had well over a dozen e-mails from parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles the last few days asking me what advice I would give a new graduate facing the job world today.

They have someone in their life graduating college in the next week from such and such university with a degree in, you name it, say, business. Should they be applying for a job at Google? Facebook? Goldman Sachs? Or is it best to aim for a small company, a nonprofit, start their own?

They preface their request with the kind comment, “I’m giving  your book as a graduation gift.”

Flattered, of course, I write them back. While my book is geared to older workers in career transition, much of the advice holds true for both groups of workers.

Here is my general advice for new college graduates (Older workers keep reading. There’s help here for you, too. Just skip No.1):

• Be confident. You have a lot going for you. You’re nimble with the latest technology and adapt to new twists in a snap. Second nature. You’re more open to change than many older workers–employers love that kind of attitude. Plus, you can get your foot in the door at lower incomes– most of you aren’t burdened by financial obligations like a house and family. And you’re young and talented enough that your first job is just that-a building block. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but a launch pad.
• Be patient. The job market isn’t a day at the beach. Finding a job is, well, work. Use your alumni career center. These service teams have plenty to offer job seekers, and you don’t need to be on-campus for the help. They sponsor networking events, critique and fine-tune your resume writing, and host online mock interviews and career counseling gratis by phone. And there’s more, you can access online podcasts, or mini-video workshops lasting anywhere from five to 17-minutes on how to make the most of a job fair, techniques to help prepare for an interview, or instruction on writing an effective cover letter.
• Focus on fertile job fields. Social and viral marketing firms, the expanding health care arena and green jobs of all varieties are great places to look for jobs. The Occupational Outlook Handbook, published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, makes fine bedtime reading to help you get a sense of what’s hot and getting hotter.
• Think like a small-business owner. Your career is your company. You’re the boss. Your employer–the biggest client. It’s scary to be dependent on one source of income and a single employer in this tenuous economy. As we’ve learned in recent years, loyalty no longer counts for all that much. If possible, consider building out another potential income stream on the side. It can give you a little bit of financial security over time-and a possible new career to tap one day.
• Ask questions. Be willing to learn from more experienced workers. Soak up knowledge. Ask advice. Never stop being curious.
• Focus forward. Seek out mentors and continually add skills, moonlight, or take classes in areas that interest you. That way, when you change jobs – and you will – you’ll be prepared.
• Build your network. The core group of people I worked with in my 20′s are still close contacts today. We help each other out with job leads, recommendations, and more. We even employ one another from time- to-time. Read your alumni magazine. When a college pal  takes a new job, send a quick e-mail of congratulations, same with ex-colleagues. This good habit will pay great dividends later, both personally and professionally.
• Join a professional organization. Not only is this great for career development and networking, but if you’re out of work, or your employer doesn’t offer health benefits, you may be able sign up for a health plan at reduced group rates.
• Save for retirement. Start at once. And don’t raid it. I screwed this one up. Cashed out my first 401 (k) after five years, when I switched jobs. Imagining what that might be worth today, 21 years later, makes my heart sink. For some extra help getting started with your money life, pick-up a copy of Kimberly Palmer’s savvy new book, Generation Earn: The Young Professional’s Guide to Spending, Investing, and Giving Back, designed to help college grads bypass common missteps and take control of their financial lives.
• Check out incubator programs. If you have an entrepreneurial bent, search for incubator programs in universities and community colleges. They help with everything from writing a business plan. Your alma mater can be a big help here too. You might even find advisors among your school’s alumni, or even angel investors.
• Run with a positive crowd. Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions, in the words of Mark Twain.
• Find your passion and pursue it with all your heart. That’s your key to happiness…along with remembering to laugh a little every day.

I’m the author of What’s Next? Follow Your Passion and Find Your Dream Job, available here www.kerryhannon.com. To learn about great jobs for retirees, check out my column on AARP. Follow me on Twitter, @KerryHannon

Nonprofit jobs have a certain cachet with boomers looking for a career shift.

I hear it all the time from job seekers, and I get it. It’s a time in life where you’ve made the bucks, climbed the ladder, and so on.

If you’re fortunate, an early retirement, or nice severance package has given you the flexibility to unsnap the velvet handcuffs and get to work doing something that really brings meaning to your life–and those whose lives you touch. You can put your lifetime of skills and tools to work making the world a better place.

And it looks like there’s no time like the present to take action. Hiring freezes at many nonprofits have been lifted, and new jobs are opening up, according to the Nonprofit Employment Trends Survey, a national study of nonprofit employment practices released last week. One-third of nonprofit outfits plan to create new jobs this year and nearly as many said they “might.”  That’s promising.

The largest piece of that job growth is expected to be at mid-sized and large organizations and primarily in the area of direct services. In other words, jobs on the front lines that involve working directly with people who need assistance, such as counseling, tutoring and mentoring programs. Continued job growth in program management/support and fundraising/development is also expected.

The study of some 450 organizations, including Amnesty International USA, the Girl Scouts of America and United Services, was conducted by Nonprofit HR Solutions, a human-resources consulting firm in Washington, and the Caster Family Center for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Research at the University of San Diego.

My first reaction to the findings was, yes! Sweet. But as I dug through the data, I found a hint of the underbelly. Here are three things you should know.

1. It’s still who you know. Unless you’re looking for an entry-level job, you may have a hard time getting hired if you’re not currently working for a nonprofit, or know someone inside the organization. In truth, your best shot of stepping up to one of the new jobs is if you’re already working at the organization in some capacity, maybe on a volunteer-basis.

The overall trend, according to the report, suggests that most nonprofits will pull talent from other nonprofits to fill senior/executive positions, and people promoted from within typically fill mid-level vacancies.

In their defense, while nonprofits do have a reputation for their insular nature, most employers, not just nonprofits, prefer to hire people who get the pre-approved stamp from existing employees and those they know and respect. When budgets are tight, as they often are in a business that relies on donations in large measure, that mode of operation is even more obvious.

2. CraigsList trumps Careerbuilder. Once they step outside their informal networking with colleagues and friends and formal networking with their counterparts at other nonprofits, recruiters rank online editions of local newspapers and CraigsList as their top places to advertise job openings. Idealist.org, CareerBuilder.com and Monster.com, are their next three choices in descending order.

3. Diversity is an issue. Call me naïve, but this shocked me. In the “Race and Ethnicity” section of the report it clearly says that when respondents were asked to provide the approximate ethnic/racial composition of their staff, the composition of respondents’ staff was predominately white. The median percentage of white staff was a whopping 80 percent. “This demographic finding was consistent with the 2010 Nonprofit Employment Trends Survey, as well as national ethnic/racial composition data of nonprofit employees, and confirms the need for increased ethnic/racial diversity in nonprofit sector employees,” according to the report.

If you who fall in this category, this glaring dearth of diversity could be an opportunity–provided those hiring take the findings seriously.

Here are some steps to consider:

Find a nonprofit training program. There are a growing number of organizations in cities around the country designed to help experienced professionals do the nonprofit shuffle through a variety of training programs, fellowships and part-time assignments.

For my recent Forbes’ Retirement Guide story, for example, I interviewed Cheryl Champagne. Champagne was 60, with 25 years as a finance manager, when she took an early retirement buyout package from a downsizing Hartford Life Insurance Co. in September 2009.

Today, after completing a fellowship with Encore!Hartford, a crash-course in non-profit management and finance (44-hours of classroom learning at the University of Connecticut, two months in the field), Champagne is a full-time fiscal analyst at Key Human Services, Inc., a Hartford nonprofit offering community-based services to individuals with a range of mental disabilities. Her salary is roughly 25% less than at Hartford, but others rewards are greater, Champagne reports. “I feel I’ve lived my life with blinders on–never interacting or encountering the extreme need and poverty around me,’’ she says.

Encore!Hartford’s program, a partnership with Leadership Greater Hartford, other key Connecticut agencies and the University of Connecticut’s  Nonprofit Leadership Program in the Center for Continuing Studies, is aimed at unemployed midcareer and traditional retirement-aged corporate professionals with a do-gooder bent.

All classes are held in nonprofits of varying missions and sizes; from a food pantry and kitchen in the basement of church to a multimillion dollar science center. Executive directors of the hosting nonprofits meet with fellows after class to share their perspectives on leadership and managing in a nonprofit. The fellows job shadow with practitioners in the field. Key to their experience is their Encore Fellowship, in which the fellow works full-time for two months on a high-level project for an individual nonprofit.

To date, the Encore!Hartford has a 78 percent employment rate -including part-time- for its first class of twenty-three graduates. Not too shabby. The second class of twenty-four new Encore Fellows will graduate on June 16th.

The program’s success is due, in part, to its deep outreach into the state’s nonprofit and public sector ties. But the heart of it is this simple fact: “During all of this immersion in the nonprofit sector, networks and relations are formed—and that leads to jobs,” says director David Garvey.

Another program that’s gaining traction is ReServe, a 6-year-old nonprofit agency that connects  professionals over 55  with experience in marketing, accounting and other areas with more than 350 government agencies and nonprofit groups in New York City and surrounding areas on a part-time project at a modest stipend, say, $10 an hour. You might work 15 or 20 hours a week.

The group offers an online Opportunity Board, which lists openings. Over the next five years, plans call for expansion to include postings from affiliates across the country. First up, reportedly, Baltimore and Miami.

While there’s no guarantee that you’ll get hired by the nonprofit you lend a hand to, it will provide some training, boots on the ground experience and a networking opportunity that can make it well worth your time. For a nice profile of the group, click here to read, SecondAct.com’s story written by Michelle Rafter.

Check for board openings. Another good place to start is BoardnetUSA.org, a website for anyone looking for a nonprofit board. Once you’ve posted your information, you get a weekly e-mail with a list of organizations looking for people who fit your profile. And visit the resources on my nonprofit jobs hunter section of Second Verse.

Volunteer. If you’re on the outside looking it, perhaps the best and easiest way to get noticed is by volunteering your way in the door. In my book What’s Next? Follow Your Passion and Find Your Dream Job, for example, you meet Anne Nolan, who began as a volunteer at CrossRoads Rhode Island, the state’s largest homeless shelter, after she lost her corporate job. With her management skills, it wasn’t long before she was asked to join the board, and when the top position opened, she was tapped for a paid position as executive director.

It’s true that Nolan was in the right place at the right time. But you can never go wrong by stopping in at a local charity whose mission you believe in and offering your time a few hours or more a week. You never know where it will lead and who you might meet there who can help you in your job quest. Importantly, your pro bono work can make a difference. It’s good karma any way you look at it.

“For it is in giving that we receive.”

– St Francis of Assisi

For more stories on pursuing your dream life, check out this new Forbes’ Special Report.

I’m the author of What’s Next? Follow Your Passion and Find Your Dream Job, available here www.kerryhannon.com. To learn about great jobs for retirees, check out my column on AARP. Follow me on Twitter, @KerryHannon