If you’ve decided you want your career to take a different route, and are now applying for jobs which are nothing like those you’ve been doing in the past, you will need to change your CV to give you the best chance of being in contention for these jobs. Have a read of our advice below for changing your CV to increase your chances of success:
- Primarily, you need a CV which shows recruiters you are capable of being successful in their role. So, as a starting point, make a note of the skills and experience you would need in your chosen career path. This is the best starting point for constructing a relevant CV for your new career path.
- Against each of the skills / experience in your list, write down the evidence you have about your past career which demonstrates you have those skills. Easy ones could include:
- Leadership / Management, albeit in a different type of role
- Organisation skills
- Communication / Interpersonal skills
- Customer Service skills
You’ll also have to then find evidence relating to your new career path. As we know, recruiters will generally want to see experience in a similar role to that for which you are applying, even a more junior role in that sector.
However, even if you can’t give such specific evidence, find examples of where you can demonstrate you have the right skills for their vacancy, e.g.
- For jobs in HR, you could talk about your people management experience, delivering internal customer service, resolving complex problems, taking tough decisions, managing change etc. All of these are skills that are in demand in HR.
- For jobs in finance, call upon your evidence of number crunching when you managed a budget, or dealing with statistics when you were developing proposals and reports. You may have been a treasurer at a club or organisation and either here or the covering letter can be a great place to mention dealing with finances relating to these.
- Once you’ve managed to do all that, summarise your key skills (including the ones that are sector-specific) on the front page of your CV, so at a glance recruiters can see you could actually fit the bill! This is important to ensure that your CV is not rejected out of hand as on the face of it, you haven’t been employed in the correct sector.
- Then, have a good read over the rest of your CV, and
- Make sure you cut down the typical job description/ list of duties under each previous job in your career history section to only the big / meaty areas, and then
- Amend each of your past roles in your CV to show how you have demonstrated the skills relevant to your newly chosen career path.
- And finally, if you have started any formal qualification relating to your new career, make sure it’s prominently featured so recruiters can see you are serious about making the move to this new field of wor.
