Changing Careers?

Is it time for you to consider changing careers? If so, the ideas below offer some excellent advice for revamping your resume and focusing it on the direction you plan to take in your new career.

As you know, your resume has to be top-notch. Anything else just doesn't cut it. When changing careers, your skills and achievements may not perfectly fit into your new position. How can you make your resume appeal to a prospective employer in your new field of employment? You have to present yourself in a different way that you have in the past. Your resume has to be carefully tailored to the new employer's needs and goals.

First, choose a resume format that highlights your qualifications and accomplishments. For career changers, this will either be a combination format or a functional format. The reason these two formats are better for career-changers, is that they place more emphasis on the work done rather than on the employers, education and dates of employment.

Even though this seems trivial, it isn't. In either format, list your skills and achievements near the top of the page - and be sure they match the employers needs. Let the hiring manager see what you have to offer instead of what your job title was or where you worked. While the company you worked for is important on some level, who you worked for may detract from what you did while you were an employee there. Why?

For example: Let's say you worked for Southlake Marketing as a graphics designer and now you want to re-focus your career in a new direction. Now, you want to be an art teacher. While the two involve artistic abilities, many of the tasks and responsibilities will not be the same. Placing those skills and aptitudes where the prospective employer can see them first, is critical, especially when you remember that your resume gets scanned, not read. You only have a limited amount of time to make a great first impression.

When considering the skills you should put in your resume, remember that there are many transferable skills that employers seek regardless of where you work. Every employer wants someone who takes initiative and is a problem-solver.

They transfer from position to position.
Consider this list and how each one might apply to you:

• communication skills (written and oral)


• team player


• negotiation skills


• leadership abilities


• solving problems


• motivating others

Of course there are many more possibilities, but you should be able to understand the concept by those presented here.

For more information about changing careers, look here: Career Planning