Career Change Resume Template Free

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How To Write A Resume For Changing Careers

When you make the difficult choice to look for a job in a new industry, its important to write a career change resume.

Your old resume, tailored to your old career, wont suit your new field. For your job search to succeed when you make a career change, you have to make sure that your resume is tailored to the right positions and highlights the right skills.

Important steps for creating a career change resume include:

• Picking the right resume format
• Highlighting transferrable skills
• Tailoring your resume to suit your new industry
• Emphasizing your most relevant experience

Anyone can reach a crossroads in their profession and decide that its time to make a change. Maybe youve developed new skills, run out of opportunities, or realized that your current career doesnt motivate you like it once did. Whatever the reason, if you want to change jobs, you will need to know how to write a resume for a career change.

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Resumeways Free Template 1100010

This template keeps things short, elegant, and easy to read. The colored graphic at the top adds a nice design element to stand out, especially against a straightforward layout that places your most recent job experience at the top and education and skills below. Just be sure to delete the icons next to the contact information and move it to the body of the resume.

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What Is A Career Change Resume

A career change resume is a resume for a job-seeker who is leaving one industry and entering another. It highlights the experience that is relevant to the new field, and the skills that are transferrable to future roles. A career change resume is similar to a typical resume, but it is tailored to suit jobs that are different from the previous positions listed in the resume.

With the right tweaks and changes, you can easily turn your existing resume into an effective career change resume.

For example, identifying your transferrable skills is an important part of writing a career change resume. If youre attempting to transition into a new industry, you will need to research what skills you will need in future jobs, and demonstrate in your resume that your previous roles have prepared you with transferrable abilities.

Further, your career change resume should de-emphasize irrelevant job skills, unless they’re very impressive and showcase your quality as a candidate.

Your education is another important source of transferrable skills. Consider all of your degrees, diplomas, or other certificates and brainstorm the skills you developed as you studied. If you have relevant academic experience, it’s essential to highlight those credentials.

Even hobbies and memberships could be an asset to your career change resume. For example, if youre applying for an accounting position, your role as treasurer for your local lawn bowling club would be perfectly relevant.

Smash Resumes Simple Two

File Format: AI

Need a little more space? This two-page template injects a more personality with golden accent colors but is still professionaleven if you need to go on for longer. You can make this option even better by nixing the line graphs in the Skills and Language sections, and sticking to text instead. Since the ATS might read your resume straight across you should adjust what text you put in the left column so that the text still makes sense if read this way.

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Career Change Resume Examples And Ideas

Here are a few ideas to get your resume writing juices flowing:

Free hybrid resume template found on Jobscans Free Resume Templates page.

This functional resume format from Zety.com is an option for career change job seekers entering a brand new industry.

Careerplanner.com breaks down the various components of the hybrid resume.

Resume Genius shows how to best feature a job seekers skills in a combination resume without covering up work experience.

How To Make Resume Summary Examples For Career Change

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So you are thinking about making a career change but unsure how to do it? The first step is creating a resume that will help you stand out from the competition. A resume summary is a great way to showcase your skills and experience and can be especially helpful if you are making a career change. This article will give tips on how to write a resume summary that will help you stand out from the competition. We will also provide some resume summary examples to help you get started!

Making a resume is hard, but it can be even harder if you are trying to make a resume for a career change. When making a resume summary for a career change, it is important to focus on the skills and experience you have that are relevant to your new field. You should also highlight any accomplishments or awards you have received in previous roles. If you do not have much experience in your new field, you can still include resuming summary examples demonstrating your transferable skills. For example, if you are changing careers from teaching to marketing, you could highlight your experience developing and delivering presentations.

How To Write A Professional Resume Summary For Career Change?

Be informative

Know Your Resume Summary Audience

Tailor Your Summary For The Job Posting

Use Keywords

Describe Your Interest in the Job

Check For Grammar

Ask For Feedback

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Resume Layout And Design: First Impressions

Your professional look should be neat and clean. The layout and design of your resume are just as important as the text. Why? There are several reasons:

But what makes a good layout? This may seem counterintuitive, but the simpler, the better! You want recruiters to be able to read every word. That means no big text blocks, no fancy fonts, and just a dash of color if any. Your accomplishments are what distinguishes you, not any overly fussy design. Legibility takes priority over all else. If recruiters cant find what they are looking for, they will simply move on, especially if they would be taking a leap by giving a career-changera chance.

• Put information into headers or footersthe ATS cant read them
• Downsize the type to gain space
• Send files in a format other than PDFdifferent programs may alter your formatting (Word files are notorious for this issue, dont use them unless the online application system doesnt give you a choice
• Use emojis or other cute graphic elements.

If you are planning to move into a creative field, consider using one of the expertly designed templatesin resume.ios Creative section. If not, choose from Professional, Modern, or Simple.

Emphasize Your Transferable Skills

What are transferable skills? It’s all in the name, really transferrable skills are skills that aren’t specific to one industry and can be ‘transferred’ to another. A good example of this is leadership if you’re a good leader in one industry, you’re going to be a good leader in another industry, regardless of your background.

Transferable skills are usually soft skills. Unlike the hard skills mentioned earlier, soft skills aren’t keywords that you want to target or skills to list at the end of your resume. Its much more effective to illustrate transferable skills through specific bullet point examples.

Here are some examples of bullet points that demonstrate commonly required soft skills:

• Leadership: Led the transition to a paperless practice by implementing an electronic booking system and a faster, safer and more accurate business system reduced cost of labor by 30% and office overhead by 10%.
• Teamwork:Collaborated with community outreach team to organize monthly fundraising events raised over $50,000 in donations within three months.
• Communication:Collaborated with a team of 10+ remote developers and senior leadership team to assess project outcomes and prioritize future features.
• Initiative:Overhauled service delivery processes, leading to a 70% increase in customer satisfaction.

This resume bullet point exemplifies leadership through the use of the word led and a specific achievement from a past job.

Read more: How to include soft skills on your resume

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How To List Skills On A Career Change Resume

When it comes to the skills section, what most recruiters want to know is if you can actually do what the job ad asks for.

And like with the other sections till now, relevance is key.

You should only ever list skills that are appropriate to the job youre applying for.

To find out whats relevant, start by scanning the job listing.

Most job ads usually include a list of requirements or skills they expect for a good candidate to have.

So, all you have to do is mention those exact skills on your resume.

Lets take a look at an example.

Career Change Resume Objective

You should not include a resume objective when changing careers . A resume objective is an outdated section that should be replaced with a resume summary section a brief intro summarizing your experience, skills, accomplishments, and anything else youd like to share.

Coming up next, well look at examples of how to write this summary section as a career changer.

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How Do You Put Transferable Skills On A Resume

Transferable skills are critical when you are switching careers because these show recruiters, hiring managers, and potential employers that you have the skills that they need for the new job position. To showcase these on your career change resume:

Pro tip: Check the job description for specific skills and work those skills into your resume for career change.

Recap: How To Write A Resume For Career Change

If youre planning on switching careers, you should write your resume to make your experience seem as relevant as possible for the job you want next.

Always think of the employers perspective when deciding what to put on your resume and what to leave off.

Write your career change CV or resume based on the employers job description and youll be much more likely to win the interview.

Thats how to get a new job in a new field. Employers want candidates who can step into a role, learn the position quickly, and succeed. They want low risk. The more you can show similarities between what youve done and what the employer needs for this job, the better!

To summarize: Your CV or resume for a career change will be most successful if you start with the employers needs in mind, work backward, and think carefully about how to position your own experiences both professional and personal to make yourself seem capable of stepping into their job and being a success!

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Use Your Work Experience To Show Off Transferable Skills

Lets take a different example and say youre moving from a job in sales to copywriting.

A resume youd use for sales compared to a more creative field like copywriting is probably going to be a bit different.

But what do both of the roles have in common?

Well, for one, they both require you to have excellent communication skills. You also need to be good at understanding your target market and conveying complex information in simple language.

And thats the common thread you want to focus on in your work experience section.

So, when listing your previous jobs, think of some transferable skills that you bring to the table that are going to be relevant.

Even unrelated jobs have some universal skills that are helpful everywhere.

To give you a better idea of what we mean, lets look at some examples:

Sales Executive

Company X – 11/2016 – 04/2019

• Boosted sales for the most underperforming product by 40% by developing helpful and instructional material for prospects.

Heres whats done right:

• Shows transferable skills and achievements.
• Highlights only the parts from the experience that are related to the new role.

While the above example doesnt talk about product descriptions or ads, communication materials and sales scripts do show that the candidate can write.

So, for a copywriting position, its going to be relevant and worth mentioning.

Now, compare that to the career change work experience below:

Heres what you need to know:

Example : Human Resources

Adaptable and emotionally intelligent professional seeking a human resources specialist position at Main Corporation. Possesses an extensive background performing administration for mid-size employers. Experience documenting internal operations and assisting new hires through the onboarding process.

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How To Write A Career Change Resume

All resumes contain sections in common and you need to know what to include when writing a resume. Because you are changing careers, the sections you use, and the organization of your resume will be a bit different from a job-hunter staying within their career. Your sections should be listed in the following order:

• Objective statement or career summary

This organization allows you to showcase the attributes that your new career will require.

What Is A Good Objective For A Resume For Career Change

A resume objective for career change bridges the gap between your previous role and your new role. A good objective would clearly and briefly provide your relevant experience and explain how this will help you succeed in your new career.

For example, an accountant wanting to land a job in sales would write:

Certified Public Accountant with 10 years of experience writing accurate and timely financial reports, reducing costs, and improving overall efficiency. Looking to leverage my analytical skills and attention to detail in crafting sales systems that will streamline all sales processes and increase profitability.

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Focus On The Most Relevant Work Experience

For a career change resume, the work experience section is all about transferable skills. You dont necessarily need to list all of the responsibilities you had at your old job. Instead, focus on the responsibilities that are the most relevant for the new position youre applying for. For example, if youre a customer service representative hoping to land a job in digital marketing, you may choose to narrow in on your ability to find creative solutions for your customers.

Here are a few tips for describing your work experience:

• Connect your work experience back to the skills listed in your skills summary section
• Focus on achievements, providing numbers and data whenever possible
• Tailor your descriptions to each job you apply for, working in keywords from the job description

If youre running out of space on your resume, keep in mind that you dont need to list every job youve ever had. Stick to your most recent two or three jobs, and leave older, irrelevant jobs behind.

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Key Takeaways For A Career Change Resume

Dont hesitate, the world is full of amazing opportunities. Use resume.io, its builder-tool, and design templates to impress recruiters and start that new career!

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Resume Krafts Simple Word Template

File Format: DOCX, PSD, AI

Dont be fooled by the erasable iconsthis template may have a modern look but it keeps things simple and compact. Keep in mind that some ATSs will read your resume from left to right, ignoring columns, so we recommend including only the job title or only the year in the left column and moving the other piece of information to the right to be on the safe side.

What Should A Resume Look Like In 2022

Employment took some heavy hits this past year, but a well-written resume can be your best tool for tackling the job search in 2022. Yet the big question looms: How do you deal with gaps in your work experience?

You can take advantage of different resume formats built to sway attention away from time you spent without employment. The functional resume focuses on specific skills rather than gaps in employment. On the other hand, the chronological resume will make those gaps in your work history more obvious.

Another great addition to your application toolkit is a cover letter. This document gives you the chance to address any gaps in your resume by explaining your particular situation professionally. We also offer some help in that department with our Cover Letter Builder, which automatically writes a full-page letter based on the information you provide. It’s quick, easy and efficient.

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