Introduction
In the modern world, there are more and more workers, who start to mind shifting careers. According to surveys, they come from a diversity of age groups, which shows the tendency in its vast scales. The reasoning behind that decision may be very diverse, starting from a common goal of obtaining a higher salary, transferring from military service, or just as a long-dreamt heart desire. Whatever it is, the jobseeker will again return to the old problem of creating an eye-catching resume, but with some specific differences. Unlike applying to a job, changing careers often involves transferring your skills and experiences to a completely different career while stating your professional value at the same time. That’s why we gathered some fairly useful tips, that should ease the whole process of compiling a decent career-change resume, and show that changing careers is not something to be feared of.
Resume Writing Tips for Changing Career
The Formalization of Style and Structure For a Career-Change Resume
As a matter of fact, resumes for switching careers can be divided into two major categories – chronological and functional. While writing a resume for a new career, it’s necessary to show not only the best achieved by your experience but also to indicate your capabilities as an employee. That’s why, the best choice for a career transition resume is a combination style, which should highlight the advantages of choosing you for this particular position.
Though the writing style is essential, the value of your resume for switching careers can greatly decrease without decent structuring. The proper formalization of a resume for a new career aims not only to show your professionalism as an employee but also helps to compose your resume in a way, where your lack of experience can be easily covered with many of your benefits. We can recommend the following composition:
- Contact information
- Resume objective / summary
- Skills section
- Certifications section (optional)
- Work experience section
- Education section
Although it may not be the most important part of the resume, the beginning has to be formalized and eye-catching, as it simply indicates your name. It’s a common practice to put the name right on the top of your resume or cover letter with either centering it or shifting to the left. Most importantly, the name has to be highlighted in a larger print and bold font.
Compiling the Professional Summary For a Career Transition Resume
Writing an appealing summary is a task of significant importance because it is a perfect space to make your career-change resume stand out from thousands of others. Due to that fact, it’s only natural that this section has some standards and writing patterns, which can either make your resume shine or just make it inferior.
To create a decent summary in your resume for a new career, it’s extremely important to determine your qualities, qualifications, and certifications that can apply to the new industry. If possible, the best way to do that is to look for keywords in the job description that indicate the desired qualities for a sought employee. The summary itself should be brief and definite, yet highlighting those skills that can be relevant in the new field. It’s also quite important to notice that the applicant will always have a possibility to specify and expand the information about skills in the following section. Another advantage of this method is that decorating your resume for a new career with some industry-specific keywords can be pretty beneficial while passing the assessment by ATS.
At the same time, though it’s quite obvious that grammatical mistakes are impermissible, it can be a discovery for many, that using personal pronouns, such as I or me can also result in a typical resume error. That’s why, it’s necessary to avoid them, as well as control the usage of adjectives. To compose a remarkable summary, it’s much better to make it authentic and original, complementing it with only those adjectives that characterize exactly you, and not every other applicant.
How to Determine Necessary Skills For a Resume When Changing Careers
While writing a resume when changing careers, providing a decent list of skills can become a very efficient means of standing out. In order to get the best use of your previous working experience, the skill section pursues the aim of highlighting your qualifications that are related to the targeted industry and can be transferred to the new workplace.
First of all, it would be proper to determine soft and hard skills and find the most important of them for the industry you aim at. The soft skills are pretty convenient, as they can be easily transferred across various industries or companies, while the hard skills show your professional knowledge and your value as an employee. To raise the chances of getting an offer, it’s recommended to highlight hard skills over soft ones, especially those that are relevant to the desired industry. However, even if these hard skills fully show your professional value, it’s always necessary to decorate your career transition resume with a couple of significant soft skills, such as leadership or team-building.
Also, if the applicant finished courses or got certifications that can be useful in the new industry, it would be a shame to not include them. Because that is a perfect opportunity to show that you are indeed interested in the targeted field, as well as ready for future improvement. Usually, employees either create a separate section for their certification list or just place it into the skills section.
The Section Of Work Experience In a Career Change Resume
It’s essential to understand that your main aim in this section is maximal functionality, which will be the best to show off all the incredible skills, experience, and achievements you can offer to the future employer. The best choice is to tell only about the most significant of your accomplishments or those that can be useful in the new industry. Most importantly, in your career transition resume, it’s vital to focus on functional abilities that aren’t limited only to the experience from the previous career, but all possible kinds of experience and knowledge one gained from studying, attending courses, solving particular problems, etc. Of course, the problem of being original is still applicable, thus it’s recommended to abstain from worn-out phrases and concentrate on active verbs, showing your excitement to start working.
Another valid problem is writing a resume for returning to the workforce, which slightly differs because there emerges a necessity to describe the gaps in the working experience. That is especially the case when the gaps are very long. In such situations, it’s essential to describe that time, focusing on new, relevant abilities and knowledge you gained during that time. If the applicant really has useful skills, a resume for returning to the workforce shouldn’t be that difficult.
How to Write a Resume For a Career Change
Compiling a resume when changing careers is indeed a tough challenge, but it’s definitely not something impossible to accomplish. In this article, you can find some useful tips, but there is still much information that demands thorough examination, which will become the first step to significantly increase your chances of obtaining the targeted position. If you ever face any problems with creating a resume when changing careers, you can always count on a helping hand from ResumeEdge.
