Switching Careers? Here’s How to Write a Strong Resume - Where your work meets your life.

Switching Careers? Here’s How to Write a Strong Resume - Where your work meets your life.

Switching career paths and trying something completely new can open you up to exciting opportunities, help you learn new things, and even earn you more money. But it’s not always easy — especially if you’re looking to move into an entirely different field. Apart from doing your research and unearthing opportunities, there’s one essential thing you need to focus on before you make the leap: updating your resume.

Crafting a smart resume is key to showing your potential employer why you wish to make a change, what you bring to the table that will benefit their team and the company, and what this change represents for you. Writing a resume that showcases your career story upfront will also help you be better prepared as a candidate.

We recently analyzed 214 early career professionals aged 18 to 24 years old, who successfully pivoted their careers between September 2021 and April 2022. We looked at their resumes, interviewed them about their job search experiences, and spoke to their hiring managers to understand why each candidate stood out among the rest. This research revealed three things about how to craft a strong resume:

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1 Honesty is the best policy.

Trying to align your previous work experiences with the technical skills you require for a job in a different industry may not be the right strategy. Instead, be open about your work history, and explain the circumstances that led you to make a change.

2 If you want employers to notice you, use keywords.

Research shows that artificial intelligence (AI) is now being used to match the language job descriptions (JD) to the language on resumes. To get recognized by both the bots and the hiring managers, you need to use keywords that highlight the skills required for the new role. Even if you lack some of the harder skills, try to identify a few transferable skills listed in the description that you can also include on your resume — for example, good communication, strong collaborator, emotional intelligence, etc.

For example, if a JD asks for “strong leadership skills,” be sure to include the phrase “leadership” or “lead” on your resume when describing how you managed a small team of interns, or led a specific project.
For more industry-specific roles, some common keywords that recruiters mentioned looking for include “FDA,” “HIPAA,” and “ICD-10.”

3 There’s no one way to format your resume.

Finally, when it comes to formatting your resume, our research found there is no one-size-fits-all solution. That means you may want to experiment with different layouts and styles until you find something that works for you. However, make sure to avoid over-the-top designs, as these may distract from the content in your resume and will be difficult for bots to read.

Based on the best examples we found throughout our research, we’ve put together a few more tips on how to craft your resume — from top to bottom.

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Start with a personal statement.

This is a short description — a few lines — about who you are, your reasons for changing your career, your new goals, how your previous experience can be transferred to the new industry, and why you’re perfect for the job. Think of this as an elevator pitch to impress the recruiters.

Recruiting managers told us that words like “accomplished,” “achieved,” “adaptable,” “analytical,” “curious,” “creative,” “reflective,” “strategic,” and “team player” all stood out to them.
While you should explain in detail the reasons for your career change in your cover letter, your personal statement is the space to reaffirm your motivations.

PERSONAL STATEMENT

I’m a customer service professional with four years of work experience, who is interested in marketing. I’m a creative and curious person, with a passion for technology. I’ve recently completed a certificate program in digital marketing. I believe that my experience in client-facing interactions helps me better understand audience needs and makes me an effective and strategic problem-solver.

Showcase your skills.

On a traditional resume, most people highlight their job experience upfront to help recruiters get a sense of their work history. However, when changing careers, the hiring managers reviewing your applications may not always be familiar with the roles and responsibilities of a different industry. So, while crafting your resume, prioritize highlighting the skills you’ve learned throughout your career, not just your job titles.

Again, we recommend focusing on transferable skills that are valuable across industries. These are typically softer skills like problem-solving, communication style, collaboration, and openness to feedback, among others. Hard skills, or technical skills, are those that are specific to the industry or task at hand. These are the skills required to do your job well, such as Excel, data analysis, coding, copyediting, or proficiency in software or technology. If your previous roles required hard skills that overlap with the role you’re applying for, or if you’ve taken courses to help you acquire them, include this as well.

The goal here is to highlight the transferable and hard skills you possess that are important and relevant to the new role. When you demonstrate your skills, focus on the impact they made in each role, rather than just explaining the day-to-day work you did.

SKILLS

Planning

Assisted 100+ clients as a customer service representative with their purchase. Named “Employee of the Month” two times in a year.
Planned and organized the company’s annual conference from start to finish, including booking the venue, sourcing caterers, and managing the budget.

Collaboration

Supported the project team for outreach events for the company’s digital outreach for the company’s summer campaign in 2020. Managed related communications with five external clients.

Designed an internal newsletter template for the company on Canva that now goes out to 100+ employees every month.

Problem-solving

Set up an automated email response for different types of client complaints, making it easier for the customer service team to sort and prioritize queries.

Dealt with high-stress customer interactions during early morning shifts at Starbucks, and learned to find quick, creative solutions for issues related to billing, customer dissatisfaction, as well as order delays.

Writing skills

Wrote 500+ social posts across popular platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, as well as email content for the company’s internal newsletter.
Wrote 20+ articles as a student reporter at the university.

Highlight relevant work experience.

Below your skills, you can include a more traditional description of your relevant work history. Trim this section down to include only the experiences that showcase your most important expertise. Aim to highlight roles and responsibilities that prove you are capable of doing this new job, and that offer the hiring manager a well-rounded story of your journey.
As you write your work history, don’t just focus on the daily tasks. Instead, emphasize your accomplishments as well as your responsibilities in that specific role. This is important because potential employers may want to know what you can bring to the table, and simply regurgitating your job duties doesn’t show them that.

Our research suggests using numbers and statistics whenever possible. If you increased sales by a certain percentage, mention that. For example: “Praised by management for my ability to upsell products to customers, leading to a 21% increase in sales at our store.”

When you write what you accomplished, don’t hesitate to use action words or verbs like “managed,” “coordinated,” “learned,” and “oversaw.” For example: “Learned to quickly build rapport and trust with customers and was recognized as a top-performing employee in the team three times in 2022.”

Finally, if you have a year or two of employment gaps, explain why. You can write about any freelance projects or temporary work you might have done during the time. Maybe you had to take a break for personal reasons, like taking care of an ailing parent or your own health. Be honest about the circumstances and explain what you learned from the experience. For example: ”While I was unemployed, I took classes and received certification in XYZ.”

WORK EXPERIENCE

Career break to take care of an ailing parent
(April 2022 – July 2022)
Acted as primary caregiver for my mother who underwent a critical surgery.
Apart from taking care of her physical and mental health, I took on responsibilities at home, including coordinating medical appointments, medicines, and food, as well as managing finances and care-related expenses.
Customer Service Coordinator, XYZ Company, New York City
(Feb 2021 – March 2022)
Promoted to coordinator in eight months based on my high performance and target achievements.
Analyzed complex data sets about customer complaints to set a process in place to sort and prioritize queries.
Set up an automated email system to respond to customer queries, freeing up at least 30% of the customer service support team’s time, as well as finding an innovative fix to decrease our response time to customers by at least 30 minutes.
Customer Service Assistant, XYZ Company, New York City
(June 2019 – Jan 2021)
Provided quick and consistent customer support to 100+ customers daily across multiple company locations.
Built a strong reputation for being a trusted advisor to customers on the company’s range of FMCG goods, increasing the sales by 5% in the quarter.
Collaborated with the marketing and product teams to share inputs on customer preference.

Career and life advice for young professionals.

List all relevant education experiences.
List your educational qualification in reverse chronological order, with the most recent first.
Add your degree, diplomas, or any other certifications that may be relevant to the role. Include details about the modules from any courses you’ve completed to show that you have a more comprehensive understanding of subjects or skills that may be pertinent to the position you’re interested in.

CERTIFICATIONS

Beginner and Advanced Google Analytics, Google Analytics Academy
(Feb 2022 – May 2022)
Courses included data collection and processing, configurations and setting up dashboards, customizing data, analyzing data, and advanced marketing tools.
Digital Marketing Skills, LinkedIn Learning
(Jan 2022)
Courses included foundations in digital marketing, SEO optimization, content marketing, email marketing, branding, and paid marketing strategies.

EDUCATION

BA, Business administration, ABC College
(June 2015 – May 2019)
President, Student Entrepreneurship Society
Member, Student Ultimate Frisbee League

Career transitions can take time and preparation. While an arduous process in the beginning, taking the time to tailor your resume is one way to become more strategic about making a move, and present yourself as a self-aware, confident, and strong candidate to potential employers. Use the templates and examples above to help you make it past those first rounds of the hiring process, and impress hiring managers across industries.

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