At a particular time in the future, a candidate may want to turn around and decides to pursue a different career-related to recently developed interests and skills, or maybe because of a different field providing more benefits and exceptional opportunities than the previous one, or for a good work-personal life balance. Nevertheless, when you are going to change careers, your old resume is not going to be useful anymore. Then you should either have a new Resume writing for a change in career or restructure the old one.
A resume describes a career seeker’s qualifications, achievements, and expertise. A resume portrays the professionalism of the candidate. There are different reasons for the usage of a resume but is mainly utilized for job securing.
Things to keep in mind for career switching resume
Resume writing for a change in career is stressful, as the job seekers may be worried about what to include or whatnot, how to write a resume for career switching, how to make your experiences satisfactory, and how to what features will make the resume impressive. Following are the things to keep in mind for career switching resume.
Research
Do a thorough search related to your desired job before writing a career switching resume, find what type of skills, qualifications, and experience will be required for the job. Stay updated about the news and latest trends in that particular field as you are going to be compared with the applicants that have not changed the career or the experts in that discipline.
Identification of interchangeable (transferable) skills
Try to compare and contrast your new and old career paths to grasp what they have common between them though it is recommended to list those skills that are relevant to the field. But if you want to insert more skills then try to use the universal ones that can help to make your resume shine and are easily transferable, for instance, collaboration, coordination, leadership, perceptivity, decision making, customer service, interpersonal or communication skills, adaptability, and critical thinking. Highlighting these skills will let the hiring managers know that the candidate can easily adjust to the new career and position.
Resume format
There are three types of resume formats, chronological resume (list experience from recent to oldest) or functional resume (focus on expertise rather than where and when), and the last one is their combination i.e., hybrid format, select the format which suits you best. Ideally, the hybrid form is recommended to the career changers, which enables them to priorities skills over experience.
Resume objective
With a resume objective, highlight the skills that you have obtained from the previous career and what type of job you are hoping for as well. A resume objective enables the recruiters to have a glimpse of the connection of your prior experiences and future aims. This is an important key point in things to keep in mind for career switching resume.
Contact info
Include your details, for instance, name, address, cell phone, and email.
Update your education and employment
List your educational history. It will be beneficial if you revise this section and update it as you may have done a major that is more relevant to the first field. But have some diplomas for the new career or have studied as a minor. Please include all the mediums that you worked in concerning the new area even it is for a short time.