Are you considering changing careers?
Career changes can be brought about for many reasons. There are times when you reach a plateau and need to change your career path if you are to achieve your dreams. For some people, a change is brought about when a family is started.
Regardless of the reasons involved, make sure the change is well thought out. Taking your work-life in a new direction has its own pros and cons. Be sure you know what all is involved.
If it’s truly time to switch career tracks, the ideas below offer some excellent advice for updating your resume to reflect the new direction your career will be taking.
As you know, your resume has to be outstanding. When changing careers, your skills and achievements may not perfectly fit into your new position, so you have to pay especially close attention to the format you use and the words you choose to define yourself.
First, select a resume format that best highlights your skills, accomplishments and abilities. Most likely, this will be a functional format. The reason is that it is far better for career-changers. Why? You have the ability to place more emphasis on the work you have done and the accomplishments you have achieved rather who you worked for or when you worked there.
It does make a difference. Be sure to list your achievements near the top of the page. Let the hiring manager see what you have to offer instead of what your job title was or where you worked. List your skills below that. There are many places where you can see what a Functional Resume Format looks like, including the site listed below.
While important on some level, who you worked for is not of as much value (unless is it a major corporation) for the simple reason that you are changing from that field or industry to another one. What you did while you were an employee there is only valuable if it relates to the new position you are seeking.
Here is an example:
Let’s say you worked for Safe Pest Control as a graphics designer for their product labels and now you want to re-focus your career in a new direction. Now, you want to be a graphic artist for a craft magazine. While the two involve artistic abilities, many of the tasks and responsibilities will not be the same.
Placing those skills and aptitudes where the prospective employer can see them first is vital, especially when you remember that your resume gets scanned, not read. You have to grab the reader’s attention right away or you won’t grab it at all.
When considering the skills you should put in your resume, remember that there are a many transferable skills that employers seek regardless of where you work. They transfer from position to position.
Consider this list and how each one might apply to you:
- communication skills (written and oral)
- organization skills
- negotiation skills
- ability to prioritize projects
- problem-solving problems
- work well under pressure
These are just a few examples.
In your cover letter, you can specify the reasons for your decision to change career paths so that the resume is given a good spin before it gets read. Just be sure to write your cover letter in a positive light, emphasizing your excitement and desire to succeed rather than any negatives related to your previous work.
Changing careers is not for everyone. It does require patience, creativity and more work than it would take finding a position in an identical field. Sometimes, it is just the thing you need to find what you are looking for in a career, though.
Best wishes!
For more information about Changing Careers, follow this link to: Career Planning. You’ll find a host of wonderful resources to help you make the most of your career.
Carla Vaughan
Carla is the owner of Professional-Resume-Example.com devoted to assisting candidates in the job-search process. She holds a B.S. in Business from Southern Illinois University and has authored several books.
Additional resources for the Job Search can be found here:
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