Jumpstarting from one career to another can be a real deal. It’s not as simple as it sounds. But again, it is not impossible. You need to ensure that once you make this decision, you must update your resume before applying for any job. Even if you lack relevant experience in your field, the employer is still searching for you and the only way to get into the job is to have a well-written resume. Considering a different career path may provide you with new exciting chances, skills, and even a good income. But before you make a move, make sure to do ample research for a good career change resume.
What is a career change resume?
A career change resume is one where the person who is looking out for jobs is changing his field from one to another. It emphasizes experiences that are useful to the new field and transferrable abilities for the upcoming positions. Similar to a standard resume, a career transition resume is geared to fit occupations that are distinct from the positions indicated in the resume. It is important to create a career change resume when looking for a different field because your resume must match the requirements of the respected field and job, this will ultimately increase your chances of getting the job as well. This will make sure that hiring managers can see from reading your resume that while you may not know a similar industry that is directly connected, you have relevant abilities, a variety of experiences, and the ability to succeed in the role.
How to write a career change resume?
Following are the steps that you should take to create a career change resume:
- Craft a combination resume format
A combination resume contains all the skills and accomplishments of the candidate with their previous work history. According to professional CV writers in Pakistan, doing a combination resume is the best way as it will highlight all the transferable skills with the relevant ones. This relates specifically to the major obstacle to shifting careers. To make a combination resume, make a skill section and place it above the work experience section. Under this heading, you can describe and focus on your abilities and skills. Your part on work experience will come after your section on skills. This part can be less detailed than your Skills section and shorter than a normal reverse-chronological resume, but it still has to include a timeframe. Employers will want to know how your career has developed even if you are switching industries.
- Resume Summary
Screening a resume is a very hectic job to do so, the employers going through the resume will hardly put seconds into each, therefore to highlight your resume you should be objective as it will summarize your experience with other details for a glance. Include only credentials and abilities that apply to the new job you intend to pursue in this area. In this section, be succinct yet precise when describing these talents. In the skills section, you will have the chance to review them in more depth later. To know what skills to mention in your resume you can always refer to the job description section by the employer. Pick out the keywords from there and insert them in your resume.
- Skills section
Your objective and summary section should be followed by the skills section. In the overview section, you should elaborate on the talents you briefly highlighted above. Skills can be hard skills like database management, SEO/SEM marketing, data mining, etc, or soft skills like teamwork, creativity, problem solver. Hard skills are a little more important than soft skills as they are mostly on the technical side. Hard skills are learned in a much more professional setting like training. The ATS system also prefers hard skills first. However soft skills can be acquired almost anywhere as they are mostly related to interpersonal skills. Soft skills play a crucial role in a person’s ability to succeed on a team, therefore it’s necessary to include a couple in the area of your talent. These also have a higher likelihood of becoming transferrable talents. Professional CV writing services in Pakistan suggest that these abilities are crucial in carrying out the job description, even if they are not expressly listed in the job description.
- Insert relevant certifications
Showcase any certifications or courses you have done to gain abilities necessary for your new employment prominently on your resume. Employers will see from this that although you might not have any practical experience in the area you’re seeking, you’ve made an effort to learn the fundamentals or obtain a certification. You might either consider mentioning them in your talents part or having a separate certificates or courses section.
- Update your professional experience
The ideal way to update your job section is to highlight relevant talents that are important for your career path through bullets. You will gain the most benefit from your employment section if you shift the emphasis from work tasks to abilities you have developed in your career. Make sure to double-check all the grammatical errors or any communication errors. The instructor might update CV to emphasize the communication skills necessary for teaching, especially strong writing and verbal communication, rather than the academic parts of the job.
- Mention projects
Employers can observe any practical application of the relevant job abilities you stated in your skills section by looking at any personal or professional projects you’ve worked on. Examples of projects to take into consideration include a project from a class you’re enrolled in or a side project from previous employment that required job-relevant abilities. For example:
- Project name, role, date
- Initiate a brief description of the project.
- Explain your experience, add skills, outcomes, and results, (more detail)
- Recap of skills you used
- Education section
Your education section might need some revision. Even if your college major and minor may be more closely related to your initial field, you may have taken several classes that weren’t related to either. You might include any of these lessons in this area that are pertinent to your new job. Three main skills to include are writing, research, and critical thinking. Write about the transferable skills you have developed after every educational listing.
Transitions in the workplace require planning and time. Even though it might be a laborious process at first, customizing your resume is one method to be smarter about moving forward and showing prospective employers that you are a strong, self-aware applicant. Make an impression on hiring managers from various sectors by using different templates and samples to help you go past the initial stages of the recruiting process.