The days of staying with one organisation for life are long gone. And so too is the concept of staying on a single career path that spans a lifetime. Change often promotes new opportunities and growth; growth opens more doors and provides more opportunities.
But whilst we know that professionals today will have multiple careers over their lifetime, it does raise one issue that causes some head scratching.
How to shape your CV if you are career switching to an entirely unrelated industry.
As a professional CV writer and career coach, this is something I am asked about frequently. Here is an example. An individual with 10-years’ experience in hospitality wanted to change career path into technology. This individual had a CV that illustrated fantastic skills obtained from their prior career experience but no former work experience within technology.
Similarly, in another example, an individual with 23-years’ experience as a secondary school teacher wanted to embark on a career change but had only a work history in teaching roles from which to populate a CV (teaching roles in the UK are recruited through application forms, so creating a CV was a whole new challenge in itself).
What do career changers do when they write their new CV?
Well, it would appear that most simply proceed with writing about their former experience and tasks in exactly the same way because they have no experience in the new field.
And what happens?
Nothing. The career changer finds it really difficult to even get selected for an interview, never mind the job!
What do professional CV writers do?
Well, using extensive knowledge of industries, professional CV writers can take existing experience from one career path and re-frame it to highlight the transferable skills that would be desirable in the new field.
Even though the experience is the same, the CV is transformed (albeit often subtly) and as a result, the outcomes change.
What happens?
The CV is now hitting the right notes. The career changer gets selected to interviews, and now they have more opportunities to get a job within their new industry of choice.
- Yes, having a professionally written CV is an investment.
- It’s not free like when you do it yourself.
- And if you CAN do it yourself, why invest?
But if you are not getting the right outcomes and not getting shortlisted, think about how much longer it is taking you to switch careers.
How long do you want to leave it? How long are you prepared to wait to get that opportunity?
Or if you want to think about it in another way….
The sooner you start on a new career change, the more experience you will gain. Change promotes new opportunities and growth; growth opens more doors and provides more opportunities.
When that opportunity comes knocking, will it be you that gets promoted to the next level or will it be a colleague who has gained that bit more experience from changing sooner?
Read more about CV services and prices in the link below.
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