Thinking of switching careers for whatever reason? Well, it certainly feels like taking a blind leap of faith and jumping into the unknown – this alone takes a lot of focus and courage. The feeling of becoming a recent graduate again can be overwhelming – but dont let it hold you back.
I am not gonna lie, it’s pretty scary to jump on an even field and compete with the big guns who have been effectively doing it for years – but here’s a thing. With the right guidance along with a strong resume in your hands, nothing can hold you back from achieving your goals. This whole career transition thing can be as smooth as a piece of cake if you carefully read this complete article.
Importance of a Writing a Great Resume for Career Changers
According to iHire’s 2020 Talent Retention Survey Report, a Whooping 66% of respondents have considered changing careers. The survey report also revealed that not knowing how to craft a career change resume was the most common roadblock for people who wanted to switch careers.
If you are unable to create one of the best career change resumes then your application can be overshadowed by other more-experienced candidates. Thus shattering your dreams of switching careers once and for all. Showcasing your existing skills and experience in a way that appeals to the hiring managers to call you for an interview is vital to making or breaking your job search in the new field.
With guidance from resume writing professionals along with career experts from Resume That Works, you can effectively convey why you can be a great fit for the job role even if you dont have the desired work experience the hiring manager is looking for. Here’s how to create the best career change resume in 7 simple steps:
Brief Overview of Tips and Strategies to Create a Career Change Resume
- Choose The Best Career Change Resume Format.
- Create an Impressive Career Change Resume Objective or Summary.
- Identify and Emphasize Your Transferable Skills.
- Showcase Relevant Work Experience.
- Highlight Notable Projects and Accomplishments.
- Effectively Address Employment Gaps.
- Career Change Resume Example.
In-Depth Explanation of How to Write the Resume for a Career Change
-
Choose The Best Career Change Resume Format
You have to structure and format your resume in a way that effectively showcases your transferable skills and relevant experience to the employer. Therefore when it comes to switching careers our experts recommend a combination resume format.
It’s because the combination resume format places the same emphasis on your work experience and skills. This format enables you to show the right industry skills even if you did not have an actual job in that field. Moreover, this format is ideal for job seekers who have employment gaps, have diverse skills and experiences, and are looking to apply for both traditional and creative roles.
-
Create an Impressive Career Change Resume Objective or Summary
Once you have chosen and selected your resume format, it’s time to give HRM a reason to keep reading your resume even if you dont have any experience. The best way to do that is by using the Resume Objective/Summary section.
The resume objective appears on the topmost section of the resume and it marks your first impression to a potential employer. Both of these resume sections explain why you are the most suitable candidate for this job.
Related : Pay For Resume
However, our experts recommend that you go for a resume objective instead of writing a resume summary when creating a career change resume. Here is an example of a resume objective for a career change resume:
Career Change Resume Objective Example 1:
(Customer Support Agent Trying to Switch Career to Become a Sales Agent)
“A customer support supervisor with more than 6 years of relevant experience in providing technical support to customers with an average rating of 4.7/5 looking to leverage my persuasive skills along with communications experience to become a sales agent at your company”
Career Change Resume Objective Example 2:
(Graphic Designer Trying to Switch Career to Become a Digital Marketer)
“A hard-working and highly-organized graphic designer with 5 years of experience creating infographics and image-marketing strategies for websites, blogs, and social media campaigns looking to leverage my skills photoshop skills and persuasive copywriting skills to become a marketing assistant at your company”
-
Identify and Emphasize Your Transferable Skills
In simple words, transferable skills are those skills that you always take with you from one job to another. The ability to communicate ideas, solve complex problems, or work as an integral part of a team are some examples of transferable skills.
While switching careers the transferable skills are your assets as these are the only skills that you will be taking with you. While technical skills help you to complete specific tasks like writing a website code in Html language transferable skills ensure that you do your job well no matter what you are doing.
Here are the 6 most important transferable skills that you should mention on your resume if you have them:
-
Critical Thinking Skill
Critical thinking refers to the ability to synthesize and evaluate information in a way that helps to produce an original/authentic insight into the matter.
Examples of critical thinking include an employee questioning the popular opinion in meetings so that the company decisions are effective.
-
Ability to Solve Complex Problems
Problem-solving refers to the ability of a person to find the underlying reasons for issues that are rather difficult to solve.
Examples of problem-solving include an accountant who effectively creates a more optimized filing system for quick access.
-
The Ability to Adapt to Change
Being one of the most important transferable skills of the 21st century, adaptability refers to a person who is not afraid of finding solutions to new problems using new technologies or methods.
An example of an adaptable person includes a software engineer who is not afraid to explore new coding languages to develop new applications.
-
Team Work
Teamwork is the ability to work well in a team environment while supporting and motivating other team members.
-
Management Skills
Management skills refer to a person’s ability to manage deadlines, people, and processes.
-
Attention to Detail
Attention to detail refers to a person’s ability to note down details that others may overlook. A person with more attention to detail is more likely to focus on the details of each piece rather than just observing the big picture.
-
Showcase Relevant Work Experience
Another important thing you could use while switching your career is your work experience that is still relevant to the new career that you are applying for. Remember that you only need to focus on your abilities that are relevant to the new job role that you are applying for.
For instance, if you were a graphic designer then you must have had some experience running social media marketing campaigns and writing persuasive content in your images to generate conversions. Therefore if you ever decide to switch from graphic designing to becoming a creative writer or marketer then that relevant experience can be added to your career change resume.
Here is How to Showcase Relevant Experience on a Career Change Resume:
(Graphic Designer Trying to Switch Career to Become a Digital Marketer)
“A highly-organized graphic designer with 5 years of experience creating infographics and image-marketing strategies for websites, blogs, and social media campaigns looking to leverage my skills photoshop skills and persuasive copywriting skills to become a marketing assistant at your company”
-
Highlight Notable Projects and Accomplishments
Your most notable accomplishments and achievements that are relevant to the new career role you are applying for must be added to your career change CV. If you do not have relevant work experience then these accomplishments can prove to be very valuable for your resume.
Tips for Highlighting Your Accomplishments in a Career Change Resume:
- Personal accomplishments include your projects, volunteer achievements, and your career highlights while you served industry-related clubs.
- If you list your project accomplishments then you must make sure that these accomplishments tie back to the transferable skills and required skills that are needed for your new job role.
-
Effectively Address Employment Gaps
Addressing employment gaps (if any) is very important when creating a career change resume. This shows that you were not chilling on your couch rather you were busy doing something important or circumstances forced you not to work.
Here are Three Effective Ways to Address Employment Gaps:
-
Honesty is the Best Policy
Remember that your resume is your first impression infront of your employer. Lying about your employment gap just to get caught in your interview will certainly do more harm than good. Therefore our experts from ResumeThatWorks recommend that you never lie on your resume.
-
Remove it if it’s Outdated
Our career experts recommend that you remove an employment gap from your resume if it’s from 7 to 10 years ago. You want your resume to be as much relevant as it can be and omitting these unnecessary details is certainly in your best interest.
-
Explain the Reason for Your Absence
It’s better to add a small note on why you have this big employment gap rather than leaving it empty and making the employer think that you were chilling on your couch. You can do it like this
Example: “07/2018 – 01/2020 (employment gap time)
“I planned a trip to Europe since I was very young and I took this time to travel to all the European Countries.”
Career Change Resume Example
Here is a plain text sample of a career change resume example that has been created by experts from Resume That Wroks.
______________________________________________________________
Will Smith
Customer Support Expert
Will Smith | New York | 000-0000-000 | [email protected]
Social: linkedin.com/will.smith
Career Change Objective Example
“A customer support supervisor with more than 6 years of relevant experience in providing technical support to customers with an average rating of 4.7/5 looking to leverage my persuasive skills along with communications experience to become a sales agent at your company”
Career Change Professional Skills Example
Problem-Solving
- Developed solutions for unhappy customers at We Work BPO and Accelerate Call Center
- Lead brainstorming sessions with team members to streamline customer operations
Organizational Skills
- Used Excel to organize and track customer service metrics so that complex information can be stored in the intelligent system.
Career Change Resume Skills Example
-
- Microsoft Word
- Excel
- GSuite
- Customer Support
- Customer Complain Handling
- Hubstaff (for remote work)
- Grammarly
- Zendesk
- Zoom
- Google Meet
- Slack
Career Change Resume WORK EXPERIENCE Example
Senior Customer Support Assistant
We Work | Aug 2020– Present
- Resolved over 100 customer complaints per week. Communicated with customers via phone and email
- Tracked KPIs for each ticket and delivered weekly customer ratings and reviews to management.
Junior Customer Service Representative
Atlantis BPO | JuNE 2017 – July 2020
- Responded to 50+ in-bound calls per day. Answered questions from customers and redirected them to relevant departments.
- Revamped customer service phone scripts that resulted in a 20% increase in customer satisfaction.
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Computer Arts |The University of Toronto | Jun 2016
- 3.75 GPA
- Worked on customer support projects on part-time.
- Search Console to measure the performance of website content
______________________________________________________________
Get a Professional Career Change Resume – Resume That Works
Dont understand how to create an awesome career change resume for yourself? Dont have the time, skill, or experience to do it all on your own? Worry not because expert resume creators from Resume That Works have got you covered. Our experts have been helping job seekers with their career change resumes for more than a decade. Our career experts understand what abilities are candidate should highligh on their resume to be called for the job interview.
According to career experts any investment that is made to progress in your career is worth every penny. Therefore choose wisely and invest in getting a professional career change resume for yourself for just $52.25.
