#YourCareer : The Best Job Search Tool For Changing Careers. Question: Consider Changing Your Job/Career? Great Read!

In the course of a job search, you will use a wide variety of tools – resume, LinkedIn, and cover letter, but also the networking pitch and references (these can be a deal-breaker!). When you are changing careers, you’re going after something you haven’t done before – a new industry, different role or both. Therefore the tools you use need to emphasize your potential, prove your passion and showcase skills and expertise outside of your professional experience to date. To this end, optimize your job search tools for the new career you’re targeting.

Resumes are required for job search, but not always helpful for career change

Employers expect to see your resume, so you need to have a great resume. You wouldn’t show up to a party without a gift or to a tennis game without a racquet, so don’t show up to an interview (even an exploratory one) without a resume. That said, resumes emphasize professional, paid work experience, so they will highlight what career changers don’t have. You can help your case by adding what relevant background you do have in the Executive Summary at the top. You can share relevant skills and volunteer experience in the Additional Information section at the bottom, but a prospective employer skimming your resume will notice that you are new to the field, and there isn’t much you can do about that with how a resume is designed. Therefore, you need to influence the prospective employer before they even see your resume.

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Article continued …

LinkedIn is useful, if you use it

Prospective employers often see your LinkedIn profile before your resume because it’s public and searchable. However, if you set up your LinkedIn profile and then forget about it, it acts just like your resume. It even looks like a traditional resume, with the About summary section on top, followed by Experience and then Education. Instead, proactively manage your profile, updating it for what you’re doing towards your career change. This includes changing your Headline (what appears under your name) so it doesn’t just default to your most recent company and title – these will showcase your old career, not the new one. Edit your About summary section to lead with your career change activity and to list skills and expertise specific to your new career. Regularly comment, curate or create original content related to your new career, so your Activity shows you’re already in the midst of a new career, not a newbie.

Cover letters can tell your new story, if you don’t just rehash your resume

Just like you can edit your LinkedIn to emphasize your new career field, you can create cover letters that tell your story as if you’re in the new career field, not an aspiring wannabe. For this Client Success Manager, this means talking about the transferable skills in account growth and relationship management specifically in the context of the new target area. You’re showcasing past results but presenting them in a way that people in the new career will appreciate. As a career changer, you are the one, not the prospective employer, that needs to explain why your background is relevant. Since cover letters are written in prose, instead of bullet point fragments, they are a great tool for career changers to tell your story exactly the way you want it to unfold.

The best tools for career change allow prospective employers to see you in the new career right now

Cover letters let you tell a story, but some employers don’t read cover letters. LinkedIn is more active than the resume, but some employers aren’t active on LinkedIn. The best way to ensure that prospective employers see you in the new career (v. your years or decades of other experience) is by talking to them firsthand. Your networking pitch – introducing yourself at a conference or other professional setting – can be entirely focused on what you’re doing in the new career. References – someone else saying how great you are – can convince a prospective employer to consider you, even if your resume, LinkedIn or cover letter didn’t get noticed. Bottom-line: The best job search tool for career changers is something that reaches the decision-maker directly, whether it’s your own networking or someone else’s testimonial.