Your resume and changing careers, what to do?

Comment by Janet White on September 15, 2008 at 4:05pm

Your resume is not important right now. The most important thing is for you to decide what you want to do next because until you make that decision, nothing else will matter.

Once you decide what you want to do, map about a game plan about the steps you need to take and the resources you'll need. Then commit yourself to holding a positive mental attitude with the conviction that what you desire is already yours -- even if you can't yet see it, even if you haven't a clue how it will come about and even if it now seems impossible.

When you decide what you want, hold the vision of having it and continue to think, speak and act as if you already have it, you'll find that you'll be in your new profession before you know it.

If your career change is anything like mine (I went from being a commercial real estate writer and publicist to selling medical equipment), your resume may be entirely irrelevant.

Janet White, Author
Secrets of the Hidden Job Market: Change Your Thinking to Get the Job of Your Dreams
www.jobmarketsecrets.com
jobmarketsecrets@aol.com or janet@jobmarketsecrets.com
Also available on Amazon
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Comment by Julie OMalley on September 15, 2008 at 4:42pm

Janet is right, you definitely have to know your desired path before you can craft a resume to help get you there.

Your new resume should open with an Objective that briefly explains that you want to transfer the skills from one area to the new field, so the reader will not just see a list oif unrelated past positions.

You should also summarize your most relevant qualifications for the new position before the work history begins. You need to pique the reader's interest within 10 o r20 seconds, so think like a newspaper headline-writer and make a bullet list of your most intriquing "story lines."

The cover letter is also super-important for a career changer, because you can elaborate a bit on why/how your skills are transferrable.

Also, if you've done any internships, training courses, self-learning, freelancing, or other professional development directly related to the new field, hint a thea in the cover letter and in the Summary.

Here are a couplde links for further details:

http://www.pongoresume.com/blogPosts/128/4-easy-steps-to-a-powerful-resume-objective.cfm

http://www.pongoresume.com/articles/54/good-vs-bad-make-the-best-of-your-cover-letter.cfm

Best of luck,
Julie O'Malley, CPRW
Web Content Writer/Blogger
PongoResume.com
http://www.pongoresume.com/

Comment by Lisa Epstein on September 15, 2008 at 4:57pm

Monster resume expert, Kim Isaacs suggests you start by:

"Writ[ing] down a list of your most desirable, related qualifications; these should form the cornerstone of your resume. Next, select the most appropriate résumé format based on the type of career change you are pursuing."

She goes on to describe the different types of resume formats best suited for career changers - combination chronological, functional resumes, resume letter.

Comment by Darlene McDaniel on September 15, 2008 at 10:12pm

Great advice from all before me. I too recommend that you determine what you want to do before attempting to craft a resume. In order to discover what you want to do, I recommend that you determine what you like to do and what you don't like to do. If you begin here, you will begin to form concrete thoughts about what vocation or career change you want to make.

Once you answer the what question, you will need to determine how you will get to that place. Do you need to go to school to acquire more education? Do you need to take an entry level job over a professional job to attain some experience? Which ever path you need to take, it will also become important to determine how you will answer the why question. Why did you choose to make a career/vocational change? This is very important informaiton when discussing the career change with hiring managers.

Here are some posts that may assist you in your job search:

Do You Know Who You Are...?

Shameless Marketing

The Product is You

Enjoy the Journey!

Darlene
Interview Guru
www.interviewchatter.com

Comment by Vicki Herrod on September 16, 2008 at 12:08pm

Agree with those comments. I would advocate that you do at least get a start on the resume document simply because it is more challenging to prepare one after self employment. My advice is to think like a large corporation and focus on your FUNCTIONAL roles when you were self employed. Were you the lead sales executive mostly? Or the lead accountant? One thing was most likely primary...describe your successes, client base, revenue growth, achievements in leadership/hiring and again, act as if you were an employee when you begin the document.

For external consumption, the resume should state your business yet one tip that may help you would be to leave off titles because saying you were CEO doesn't translate well back into corporate frequently. So we don't suggest you alter your title..but rather leave them off for every role you've had and adopt a functional format instead.

I think starting the document will make you feel better prepared to mentally get ready for the process of a search. Hope that helps!

Comment by Tom Ruff on September 16, 2008 at 2:52pm

The experts before me offer great advice that I couldn't top. All I have to offer is that if you are interested in medical or pharmaceutical sales, I've written a couple blog posts on the best resume format specifically for this industry:

http://tomruff.com/blog/?p=106

http://tomruff.com/blog/?p=13

Best of luck,
Tom

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