How to Write a Resume for a Career Change

The Challenge of the Career Pivot

When changing careers, your biggest challenge is convincing a hiring manager that your past experience in Industry A makes you qualified for a role in Industry B. The key to this is transferable skills.

Identify Transferable Skills

Transferable skills are abilities that are useful across multiple industries (e.g., project management, data analysis, client communication, leadership). Read the job description of your target role and identify which of your existing skills overlap.

Rebrand Your Experience

You need to translate your past experience into the language of your new industry. If you were a teacher transitioning to corporate training, don't talk about "lesson plans" and "students". Talk about "training curriculum" and "onboarding employees".

Use a Hybrid Format

A hybrid resume format places a large "Core Competencies" or "Relevant Experience" section at the top of the resume, grouping achievements by skill rather than by chronological job history. This brings your transferable skills front and center.

Leverage a Strong Summary

Use your resume summary to explicitly state your pivot and highlight the value your unique background brings to the new role. You can generate custom career-change summaries with our AI Summary Generator, uncover critical role skill gaps with our AI Career Advisor, and build your complete application in our Free Resume Builder.