Give Me 1 Resume - See Yourself in 3 Different Careers

Been in the same job for a long time only to find that it no longer exists? Read on to find out how our resume writer breaks down how to best way to capture that experience.

Changing careers can be tough.

You know it’s not a walk in the park, especially when you’ve been with the same industry for 5, 15, or 30 years already. It’s even much harder if you’re performing your job responsibilities as if they’re second nature to you; exacerbated by the emotional attachment you have with your boss, colleagues, and the company itself.

Changing careers doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, now is the best time to think about your career that will form part of your New Year’s resolution for 2021. With COVID-19 showing no signs of going away anytime soon, keep an open mind whether staying with your current job and industry is still worth it. Remember, it’s easier to let go than to keep holding on to something that you know will bring you nowhere.

Plateau gets you stuck

I’m going to keep this straightforward: you and only you have the power to change your destiny. As a resume writer, I’ve encountered many people who feel stuck in their current jobs because they are not aware that they could spin their resume for different industries. So, they keep on doing what they’re doing, expecting different results.

Let’s take Eve as an example. She’s been doing sales for a car company for nearly 20 years. Many times, it has occurred to her to change careers as she feels she has reached a plateau. She has always wanted to explore opportunities outside of sales, but analysis-paralysis has crept in, preventing her from doing what she wanted to do. She thought that it’s counterintuitive to change careers since she’s earning enough and moving to other company and industry is like starting again from scratch.

Unfortunately (or fortunately for Eve), the unprecedented impact of the coronavirus pandemic prompted restructuring, declaring her position redundant. She was left with no choice but to take sabbatical to attend to family matters and find another job. This time, she promised herself to explore other job opportunities in different industries.

Pivot

With Eve’s nearly 20 years of stay in her company, she has lost track of her career achievements and milestones. So, she drafted her resume for a few updates and decided to seek advice from her long-lost friend who happens to be a certified career coach and resume writer at the same time.

During the intake process, Eve was asked what her three career prospects were. At first, she felt uneasy in trying to answer the questions because what she thinks she’s good at is purely doing sales. But with much encouragement from her friend, she finally came up with her next career prospects: copywriting, marketing, and product management.

After Eve mentioned all three, her friend asked follow-up questions until they were able to distill the transferrable skills that she’s gained from working as an automobile sales supervisor and incorporated them into her resume. To give you a glimpse of how her friend spun her one resume into three different careers or industries, see the examples below:

Sales: “Created and conducted presentations and answered questions from difficult customers.”

Copywriting: “Wrote content for a pitch deck that has gained $6M deal — a record breaker for Ford in the area.”

Marketing: “Handled the company’s social media accounts to send traffic and attract qualified leads to our website.”

Operations Management: “Managed a team, set key performance indicators (KPIs), exceeded quarterly targets, and implemented strategic process improvements while engaging cross-functional teams across a highly matrixed organization.”

Clearly, Eve was in awe of how her one resume was pivoted into three different careers or industries to effect career change.

Single to multiple resumes

The professional resume writer should help you figure out your transferable skills to spin your one resume for different careers or industries by staying with the facts. This means transforming your exact same experience for relevancy to be in line with your target job. Aside from your transferable skills, we also draw the essential information from your education, certifications, licenses, and volunteer experience or community involvement that make sense to the job you’re applying to.

Summing up, it’s prudent to tap the assistance of a resume writer to tailor your resume when planning for a career change. Remember that a single resume should be transformed to multiple resumes to optimize it for the applicant tracking systems and audiences that will consider it for different types of roles. Also, silence your inner self-talk telling you that you don’t have the necessary skills to apply for your dream or ideal job. Equally important, keep in mind that you are not starting from scratch; you are starting from experience.

Need an objective perspective to figure out how to best capture your achievements? Claim your free resume analysis today to find out how The Contingent Plan resume writers may be able to help.