A career shift is a big step for anyone and can be exciting and terrifying at the same time. You may want a career change for a number of reasons: your interests have changed, you’re not satisfied with the work you’re doing, or you’re looking for a better salary, to name a few.
Before we start talking about how to structure your resume to ensure your strengths are at the forefront, the first thing you need to do is to be 100% positive about your decision. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to make sure this change is best for you:
- What do I really want?
- Will the shift provide what I’m looking for?
- Do I have any transferrable skills?
- Will the new career be a good fit for me?
- Am I happy at the place I’m at right now?
- Will I be more satisfied with the new place?
Quick side note: If you’re having a hard time finding opportunities after a career change, make sure your resume isn’t doing you an injustice. Update your resume using my salary-doubling resume cheat sheet by inputting your information below:
After this comes the hard part: to portray yourself as an ideal candidate for the new position.
To guide you on how to do this successfully, I’ll share with you how I helped a client of mine transition from Head of Marketing to VP of Organizational Planning.
Here’s what he wrote to me:
Hey Fatemah,
I am the Head of Marketing at a fairly large corporation but want to transition into a more challenging position. There's a very attractive position that I'm looking at now as VP of Organizational Planning at a smaller organization. Finance is one of the departments I’ll be heading and I have a good understanding of everything I’ll be required to do. However, my previous job titles don’t establish my authority in this area.
The problem, then, is figuring out how I can get this job despite having a job title that's so far away from what my target is. I KNOW I can do this job. I just don't know how to market myself, which is ironic considering I'm supposed to be brilliant at marketing!
Please help.
Thanks, Fatemah.
-Victor
This is what I recommended doing:
Hey Victor!
Your predicament reminds me of my first job as the Editing Assistant at the Physics of Fluids, a scholarly journal. I was fresh out of UCLA's Environmental Science program and had no titles that qualified me for this position. I hadn't studied advanced physics. I didn't even have any professional editing experience. But I knew I would be a good fit because I studied the job requirements carefully and, just like you, knew I would excel:
- I just needed to be really good at English to conduct basic quality control of submissions.
- I needed to be able to communicate with scholars all over the world.
Because the position was so attractive to me, I set aside some time to really examine why this job had been posted. What sorts of problems was the Physics of Fluids facing that required them to post an advertisement for an Editing Assistant?
I saw from their website the Los Angeles branch had only those two personnel, and the Editor was also a full-time professor. This didn't really "match" with the fact that they published monthly journals containing an average of 50 submissions, and that they were the preeminent fluid dynamics journal in the United States.
They needed a primary gatekeeper to look through emails and papers and sort them into appropriate buckets. To show that I could help them, I re-wrote my resume so it focused primarily on the two skills I outlined above:
- My experience heading the debate team, where I assisted the coach in helping students edit their speeches.
- Including a "languages" section in which I described my ability to interact with scientists that needed ESL help.
I also understood that my resume would not rank well against other professionals who had the right keywords in their resume, like prior job positions and technical skills. So I decided to deliver the resume myself. By taking this step, I ensured that my resume would at least get looked at. I looked up the Physics of Fluids, found out they were in Engineering IV at UCLA, and simply requested to speak with the Assistant Editor. I gave her my resume and was hired on the spot.
I know this story is a little rudimentary, but the concepts also apply to senior-level personnel
The reason I'm talking about my very first job is that I want to simplify the modern self-marketing process:
-- Simply describe how you can solve the business problems your target company is facing. Everything else is irrelevant. --
As the Head of Marketing, you are a mini-CEO. You set strategic directions for the entire Marketing Department. This means you must also be actively involved in setting budgets and conducting in-depth profit-and-loss analyses for your marketing projects.
Focus on these two key skills in the visual center (top 1/3 of the first page) of your resume, and you'll be good to go. You can also sign up for a few finance courses at your local community college and list them in the education section of your resume. Even if you haven't completed them, put "In Progress" instead of the date. This will show that you're proactive and willing to close gaps in your personal development.
You can apply this to your resume as well. What key skills do you want to showcase? Talk about them at the very top of your resume. Doing so will engage the reader and encourage them to read the rest of your resume more carefully.
If you’re looking for a career change and don't feel confident in your resume upload it to the right or submit it here and I will let you know what it lacks and how it can be improved.
For more information on how to navigate career changes, check out these links:
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