Perhaps you’ve spent decades crafting your profession only to feel drawn toward a new challenge. Maybe you’ve only spent a few years in your job but realized it’s not everything you’d hoped for.
While the decision to pursue a new career can be thrilling, it comes with a challenge – convincing hiring managers to employ you. Whatever else, don’t let building your resume be a source of anxiety.
We’ve compiled nine career change resume examples and a free guide to help steer you toward your dream job in 2023.
Even if your new career isn’t in our samples, that’s okay! What’s essential in these samples is the how and why, so keep reading because we’re sure there’s something here for you!
Why this resume works
- A resume summary is one of the most valuable things you should include on your career change resume. Career summaries highlight any specializations or unique skills you’ve developed throughout your career.
- A summary merges your background with the opportunities you’re seeking. In other words, a summary demonstrates how your experience has prepared you for your new field. However, you should only use a summary if you’ve had at least 10 years of experience.
- As unfair as it may seem, employers often toss out visually unattractive resumes, so your resume must look aesthetically pleasing.
- Choosing a professional resume template and resume format can help make your resume look professional and cohesive without much effort.
Why this resume works
- When you’ve found yourself pursuing multiple career paths, it’s hard to convince employers that you’ll stay with them. That’s why it’s vital that you tailor your resume for the job application, starting with your resume’s skills section.
- The keywords you include will help tie your expertise together and prove that you have the right abilities for the job.
- Start by listing hard skills (aka technical, learned skills) listed in the job description. If you don’t have a lot, then simply use soft skills like “analytical” and collaboration.”
- Speaking of skills, make it a point to drive your abilities home within your work experience bullet points. Maybe every job you’ve ever worked has required customer service skills, or perhaps you’ve needed computer and software proficiency.
- Whatever jobs you’ve held, find a common thread between them and the new job, then sew that thread into every job experience. It’ll be a subtle but powerful tool to increase credibility despite multiple career changes.
Why this resume works
- Crafting your career change to accounting resume requires careful attention to detail. Not every business professional can make this move—you need to quickly establish that you have all the necessary qualifications to perform the job.
- If you’re applying to be an accountant but it wasn’t your most recent role, be sure to add a certifications section highlighting that you are a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).
Why this resume works
- Even a career change to a closely related role can benefit from a resume with a career objective. If you’re shifting from a project coordinator to an administrative assistant, you can leverage many of your existing organizational skills to succeed in the new position.
- Enhance your career change to administrative assistant resume with a short summary that shows recruiters where to draw parallels between your past experience and target title.
Why this resume works
- It may seem like a leap to go from teaching to software engineering, but you can bridge the gap using your work history bullet points.
- Look for ways to connect your previous duties to the responsibilities listed in the job description.
- Many skills indirectly transfer from one job to another. Consider your collaboration skills: your ability to work well with fellow teachers will help you work on team projects at your next job.
- Of course, if you have any skills, projects, or experience in your new field, include them.
- If you’ve already had a lengthy career, you may be struggling to keep your teacher career change resume to one page.
- Using a resume template is invaluable here, as you can easily scooch sections to the side, adjust your margins, and fix your font type to give you some extra wiggle room.
Why this resume works
- Few things will carry more weight in your marketing manager career change resume than the use of metrics. No matter how different your new career may be, an employer will be more likely to invest in you when they see measurable data from your experience.
- There are numbers everywhere; look for percentages relating to your skills, like how you boosted efficiency or increased sales from last quarter. The sky’s the limit!
- If you can’t find (or don’t have access to) percentages, then use plain numbers relating to how many team members you worked with, how many clients you took on, or how many referrals you gained.
- Another helpful tip to propel your resume forward is by noticing the details.
- Things like only using active verbs and avoiding personal pronouns might seem minor, but they make reading your resume easier, which is huge for recruiters and hiring managers.
- And speaking of details, always double-check your resume for proper grammar, punctuation, and overall flow.
Why this resume works
- What if you actually have experience in the job you’re pursuing (even though most of your resume is represented by a different career path)? In this case, make sure you allude to your past experience in your resume objective.
- An objective is only two to three sentences, so make sure each word packs a verbal punch by showing off your years of experience, skills, and desire for the role you’re seeking.
- Some jobs seem to be separated by a gulf of different abilities, but you can usually find similarities to highlight in your RN career change resume.
- For example, mentioning your adherence to HIPPA guidelines can demonstrate to hiring managers that you will stick to the rules. On the flip side, explaining how you used active listening to assist patients will show your compassion and customer service skills.
Why this resume works
- Ensure your software engineer career change resume applies to standard resume formatting rules before you submit your job application.
- Start by keeping your resume to a single page. Otherwise, you’ll overwhelm hiring managers (who will likely toss your resume into the recycling).
- It’s best to use reverse-chronological formatting on your resume to keep your most relevant job history at the top. While other formats are necessarily wrong, they aren’t standard, and they’re harder for hiring managers (and the ATS) to read.
- Although your content is essential, the most critical part of your resume is your contact information. Otherwise, how will hiring managers tell you you’re hired?
- In your contact header, include your email address (make sure it’s a professional email), your phone number, and your location.
- Consider adding a hyperlink to your LinkedIn profile if you have a LinkedIn account.
Why this resume works
- If you don’t carefully check your resume for typos, proper formatting, and sentence structure, the hiring manager will likely assume you’re not attentive to details.
- Consider asking a friend, relative, or even a career advisor from your alma mater to scan your resume for errors and discrepancies.
- Nothing tells a recruiter you’re not the right person for the job like saying you’re great at “time management.”
- Just because you’re in a technical field doesn’t mean you need to shy away from adding creative elements to your financial analyst career change resume.
- Put color in your section headers (or company titles) and your contact header. This will add visual interest without being overwhelming.
- If you’re applying to work at a conservative financial firm, you may want to stick to traditional colors rather than pastel pink or lavender.
