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How to Write a Resume for a Career Change (with real examples)

By   ·  6 minute read

If you’re struggling, staring at a blank page, wondering how to write a resume for a career change when you don’t have any of the actual experience required, you’re not alone. As a professional resume writer, I’ve helped jobseekers position their skills for pivots for over 10 years, the pandemic and ensuing great reset/great resignation really kicked career changing into high gear.

In 2021, some 53% of employed U.S. adults who quit their job did just that, changing either their occupation or field of work, according to an analysis from Pew Research.

If you’re like most jobseekers, you’ve found yourself contemplating a change in career. Whether a total transformation that requires bootcamp or a new degree, or leveraging soft skills and functional knowledge to pivot to an adjacent industry or role. And you’re not alone! The average person holds 12.4 jobs between the ages of 18 and 54 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

So, if you’re sitting here rubbing your forehead or nodding in agreement, this article will be your guide to crafting a career change resume that hiring managers want to read and answers the “why me” question for busy recruiters. Finally, I’ll let you in on my little tip that increases your potential for successfully navigating career change by upwards of 50%.

In this article, you will learn all about resumes for career changes:

  • How to know what information to include in your career change resume
  • How to write a resume summary and headline for your career change resume and whether or not to use an objective on your resume for a career change
  • What order information should go in on a career change resume
  • The biggest mistake jobseekers make when career changing
  • How to 2X your interview power with this one shift in strategy.

How to know what information to include in your career change resume

When writing a career change resume, you’re not really writing about your experience in the same way out would for a promotion or lateral move. Instead, think like the hiring manager to identify the problem the person in this role would solve and select information using that filter.

If you are IT manager with a lot of project management experience, maybe you want to apply for more of a straightforward PM role. In this situation, you would lean more heavily into the why and how of you delivered project results than you would on your IT resume.

Your IT resume might be chock full of tech specs, but your PM resume has a different focus. For example: methodologies used, project budgets, stakeholder management, everything a project manager would deal with in their day-to-day.

Think like a hiring manager. Take the time to research the role and get clear of what someone in a hiring capacity would want to see.

When trying to decide what to include, you can base decisions your goal. You know your audience, what they would care about, and select details accordingly.

How to write a resume summary and headline for your career change resume

Writing resume summaries and headlines is never easy. Adding in the complexity of a career change makes it all the more complicated.

Luckily, my favorite tips and tricks for headlines and summaries hold true for career change resumes! First up, your headline. This is THE most important real estate on your headline because it’s the first thing a recruiter or hiring manager sees.

You can certainly use something generic like Summary of Qualifications. I I actually recommend this for an ATS-friendly version because it makes it easier to parse. I also recommend using a branded headline using your desired role OR a headline that consists of three high-value, role specific keywords.

If you’re not comfortable putting your target role at the top of your resume, remember, its more of a signal to hiring managers that you know what you’re looking for. A career change resume with a generic headline looks like you’re just blasting out our your resume to anything vaguely interesting.

You can clearly indicate that you’re not sending out tons of resumes and crossing your fingers that something sticks. Using a branded headline that quickly registers alignment with the hiring manager.

It can look like this:

Rebecca Henninger
Montville, NJ 07045 | 973.270.1777 | Rebecca@thejobgirlcom⠀

Marketing Manager

or this

Rebecca Henninger
Montville, NJ 07045 | 973.270.1777 | Rebecca@thejobgirlcom⠀

Target: Marketing Manager

What should a summary for a career change resume look like?

No worries, I have a failsafe formula that you can use!

Position Title (what you aspire to) who delivers (what you’re uniquely known for) by (insert soft skills) in (types of environments, e.g. publicly traded multinationals, start-ups, etc.). Achieved (insert top achievement) as (role/function) at (Name of Company).

Here’s a sample to give you an idea how it goes!

Aspiring creative services manager who delivers high-ROI, integrated campaigns. Focus on customer experience and business needs in high-tech B2B marketing environments. Achieved record-setting gains in engagement, adoption, and conversions as head of digital marketing at Acme Corporation.

Since we are talking about career change resumes, go ahead and add aspiring to the job title. OR, try just leading with what you’ve done in like this and add your target near the end.

High performer who delivers high-ROI, integrated campaigns. Focus on customer experience and business needs in high-tech B2B marketing environments. Achieved record-setting gains in engagement, adoption, and conversions as head of digital marketing at Acme Corporation. Seek to leverage high-value CPG network and readily transferable people and project management in agency-side client-facing account management role.

What order information should go in on a career change resume?

The order of information on your resume is one of the biggest differences between a traditional resume and career changes. For a career change, you will need to make strategic decisions based on what is most critical to highlight for the hiring manager.

For example, if you had a corporate career, left to raise kids, and are now returning to the workforce, you can create a Relevant Professional Experience to highlight business experience. That can then be placed directly under your summary, rather than in traditional reverse chronological order.

If your education is the most relevant, or if you recently upskilled in an area, completed a boot camp, or something similar to bridge the gap into your desired field, don’t bury those goodies on page 2!

For boot camp, you might want to create a relevant projects section. This would highlight tech skills developed and the scope of projects you delivered. Don’t forget to position these achievements in terms of business value. This will show you understand the scope and impact of the role you are applying for within the broader context.

The biggest mistake jobseekers make when career changing

I have worked with a lot of career changers. The #1 mistake they make is not taking the time to get clear BEFORE they start putting their resume together.

Your resume seems like it would be a logical starting point. Remember, your resume is not a biography, it’s a highlight reel. Your highlight reel needs to be customized to an audience. Think of yourself like a product. Different buying groups would find value in different benefits. The same goes for your career change resume.

If you don’t begin with clarity, hiring managers won’t take the time to do it for you. They will not call and ask what you’re interested in and how they can help. They are busy, recruiters are overwhelmed, and YOU are in the drivers seat of your job search. Take the reins and accelerate your impact by identifying the role or fields you are targeting BEFORE you start writing your resume.

While it might feel counterintuitive and scary, like you may be putting yourself out of contention for a role, remember that you can always pivot and adapt your strategy. In fact, I highly recommend it! When you begin applying and networking, you’ll be getting tons of feedback. Feedback could come in the form of rejection, praise, or even just information that begins to compound.

You can always course correct but it’s so critical to start with a clear goal in mind.

This simple shift can increase resume response rate by 50%—or more!

Most jobseekers get their resumes ready, outlining everything they’ve ever done in their roles. Then they start applying to jobs that seem like them might be fit or might be interesting.

They get no or lackluster responses and recruiters reach out on LinkedIn for jobs that are irrelevant or too junior.

There’s a better way! Instead of working on your resume first, career changers in particular should start with an in-depth evaluation of their skills, values, experience, and interests. From there, identify a few potential targets. Additionally, start thinking about your network strategically to identify who might be able to help you in this critically important research stage.

Clients in my career coaching practice follow this guidance, starting first with an assessment. They gather insights and feedback to develop clear goals for their job searches. As a result, they see measurable improvements in resume response rate and interview success.

Do you need a specific format for a career change resume?

No, career change resumes do not have a specific formula or format. Rather, the most important point is to ensure that you have a strategy for your resume. From there, allow content and strategy to lead all formatting decisions. Any resume templates you use should be clean and crisp. They should allow hiring managers to read and ATS to parse easily without distracting from your measurable achievements.

Finally, don’t underestimate the power of metrics. This holds true whether or not the results are the same ones you’d be counted on to deliver in your next role. Metrics shows that that you have achieved results consistently and these quantified achievements are a game changer.

Still struggling with your career change resume? Check out career change samples that have worked for my clients here and here, improving response rates by upwards of 50% or schedule a discovery call at https://www.rhresumes.com/discovery.