In a competitive job market, where it is already difficult for job seekers to get noticed, trying to convince managers in a totally different field that they should recruit you to their team is likely to be a Herculean task, but it can be done with some thought, determination and positivity. The one thing you cannot do is to use the same old resume you had for your old jobs to cross over into something else. In fact, you might not even need a resume at all, just a longer covering letter, depending on your objective.
Getting into a new field depends on whether you are merely transferring the skills you already have or are making a significant change in direction. There are two forms of emphasis when you are changing career fields: one is emotional, if the change is drastic, and the other is transitional, if the change is minimal.
1. Transitional
With a transitional objective, your skills are likely to be transferable (something you developed in your old career being applicable to a new one). There will be connecting links between the new field and your old one and you will be able to identify those links easily between the jobs and responsibilities you have had to the one you are hoping to get. For example, from being an accountant in the construction industry to being a bursar in a school. Transitional posts are often accessed through regular research into the field, networking with people from it and learning about the skills and qualifications necessary to get into it. Skills that can be transferred would include those gained perhaps from your former career, a hobby or volunteer experience, etc. For example, if you were very good in communication as a lecture or teacher, you could use that in marketing to help write press releases or persuade people to buy goods and services.
Make a list of your most desirable and related qualifications, which should be the key part of your resume, then build everything else around them. Choose a chronological, or historical, format for writing your resume where your career history will be plainly seen. You can either begin or end with your qualifications, but the actual skills and accomplishments related to the new the job should be very clear to see. It is important to mention your new career objective and why you wish to change. It means that employers won’t assume you’re staying in your old field.
A single page covering letter stating your objective of moving into the new field through your acquired knowledge and skills, and why it would be beneficial to do so, would also help your application.
2. Emotional
For a dramatic change in jobs, you would need what I call the ‘emotional’ approach, where it would be an emphasis on feelings, accomplishments and desires, especially in the covering letter, rather than actual work and qualifications. Your resume would be in the ‘functional’ style where it would downplay your former career, while drawing out the related skills from it that would be useful in your new job.
The beginning of your resume should start with your new career goal, a summary of your qualifications and then the skills you believe you have that would be very useful in achieving this new goal. You could end the resume with a brief listing of your past jobs, emphasising only the relevant ones which would match or enhance the new post. You have to demonstrate why you are particularly interested in this new field and how both you and the employer would benefit from your switching fields.
The cover letter should emphasise your knowledge of, and passion for, the new industry you’d like to enter and any related experience/training you have in it. This is where you would stress your own motivation, enthusiasm and keenness to get stuck into your new career, one that would benefit the employer’s objectives and operation. It would be mainly about your accomplishments, your need for new challenges and your need to keep up to date with new technology and skills. You would also stress your desire to learn, to enhance your own development, despite your age (if you are older) and to put all the experience and knowledge you have had to even better use.
This covering letter could be sent on its own without the resume, if you wish to give a flavour of who you are and what you are seeking first, but you have to be prepared to produce your resume if required.
The emotional approach would take the focus away from your lack of suitability for the new job and place it on your potential to contribute to the new business in a expert way they might not have envisaged. In that way, you might turn a sceptical employer into a welcoming one.
