Showing a Career Change on Your Resume

Reflecting a career change on a resume can be tricky, but it is possible to present the switch in a positive way. The key is to write a resume that shows how your past experiences have helped you develop skills that make you suitable for your new career.

Never use your old resume to apply for jobs during a career change. You need to start from scratch, rather than simply tweaking your old resume to include your latest role. Write a resume that explains how your skills make you suitable for roles in your new career, selecting experiences to include based on how they relate to the role for which you are applying.

If you are trying to break into a new career, then the focus of your resume needs to be your transferable skills. For example, if you have always worked in sales but want to move into project management, then you could write about the communication skills you developed in your past roles, as well as any experiences of managing other people.

You need to make sure that your new resume uses the correct terminology for the industry into which you are moving. For example, if you are applying for a sales job, you need to refer to "clients" and "prospects." Technical jobs, in particular, have a lot of terminology that you need to get right if you want to be taken seriously. Do some research online, or ask people who currently work in your chosen field to give you some pointers.

If you're moving into an industry where staying up-to-date with the latest trends is important, then you may want to consider adding a link to your LinkedIn profile to your resume. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is updated to reflect your career change.

You should always include a cover letter with your resume. In your cover letter, you can explain in more detail the reasons for your career change and the skills you have that make you a good fit for the role. Like your resume, your cover letter should be unique to every job application. Cover letters should never be longer than a page, so you need to concisely explain how your experiences have prepared you for the advertised position. Focus on describing your most relevant skills and conveying your passion for the role, rather than attempting to tell your life story.

Making a career change is often challenging, but approaching it with the right amount of confidence and a positive attitude can increase your chance of getting the job you really want. By rewriting your resume so that it focuses on your new career, you can turn it into a powerful asset in your career change journey.

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