How to Craft the Perfect Career Change Resume

Thinking of changing fields? Learn how to revamp your resume to emphasize your new objective and key qualifications.

By Jennifer Verta, Monster Contributor

Are you looking for a career change in your 30s, in your 40s, or at any other age? While you’re probably busy refreshing or acquiring knowledge and skills for the new role you’re after, don’t forget to dedicate time to optimizing your career change resume as well.

Your old resume, targeting your current industry and position will need a little reorganization and refocus to address the new job requirements you’re pursuing. In this article, we’ll help you recalibrate your resume for career change with a step-by-step guide on the actions you need to take to succeed.

Research Industry Keywords

Before jumping into our tips to help you prepare your best career change resume, it’s important to start by researching the skills, education, and experience that employers desire for your aspired role. On top of this, get familiar with the type of jargon they use, as you’ll find it in job ads and need to use it in your resume in the form of keywords. To complete this process, you should:

Identify Your Transferable Skills

Now that you know what employers want, take stock of your transferable skills, one of the most powerful tools in the career changer’s arsenal. Transferable skills travel with you from job to job, and in many cases allow you to prove that you can do a job you’ve never officially held the title for.

When identifying your transferrable skills don’t just stop at considering your past work experiences. Hobbies, volunteer activities, internships, side gigs, and trainings can all help you build skills that you can leverage in your resume for career change. Once you gathered this information, it’s time to get to work on your resume.

Follow our seven simple steps to creating a successful resume for when you’re looking to take a new path:

1. Pick the Right Format for Your Career Change Resume

While for most candidates a reverse-chronological resume works wonders to let their talent shine bright, if you’re trying to venture into new career waters, you’ll have to take a different approach. Because you may not have any experience specific to your new career, your best options for formatting your resume are:

a) Functional Resume

In a functional resume, the work experience section is brief and often includes only the titles and the companies you previously worked for. This is because the real deep dive is into skills, which are grouped into categories at the top of your resume. This format is best suited for career change resumes in which you’re breaking into a completely new industry that has little to no overlap with your previous one.

b) Combination Resume

A combination resume is your best bet if you’re able to transfer your current skills and experiences into a new field. It blends the features of both a functional and a reverse-chronological resume. More specifically, it starts with a resume summary and a skills section in which to add your employment history.

This allows you to showcase to recruiters right away that you have the competencies required. By adding your previous work experience, even if it’s in another area, you’ll also leave no gaps for the recruiters to wonder about. A combination resume is built with the following sections:

  • contact information
  • resume objective
  • skills breakdown
  • relevant certifications
  • work experience in reverse chronological order
  • education

2. Write a Persuasive Resume Objective

To make a strong start in your resume for a career change, place your resume objective at the top, just below your contact information. This section is crucial for career switchers because it allows you to briefly explain why you are competent for the job despite having little to no experience in the targeted role.

In a few lines, state your objective to transitioning to a new role, and give your most relevant accomplishments with clear metrics. This is the elevator pitch of your career change resume and, as such, it must give recruiters reasons to keep reading. Take time to explore some resume objective examples to help you craft one of your own.

3. Showcase Your Skills and Certifications in Your Resume for Career Change

In a career change resume, your objective almost goes hand in hand with the skill section. In this segment, you need to present the hard and soft skills that qualify you for the job, which you likely touched upon in your resume objective. It can be as easy as listing your skills and the level you’ve mastered them, such as:

  • JavaScript: Advance user
  • HTML: Advance user
  • SEO: Intermediate

Alternatively, you can write a brief sentence about how you demonstrated or developed these skills in the past. For example:

  • JavaScript: Built a JavaScript-based mobile app for tracking hotel prices across 1500 different platforms.
  • HTML and SEO: Helped build and position on Google Ecommerce XYZ website in 20XX.

Even if you can’t quantify your soft skills, don’t give up on including them in your career change resume as they’re often the bulk of the transferable skills you have when switching careers. A few examples are:

  • problem-solving
  • presentation skills
  • critical thinking
  • researching
  • interpersonal communication
  • organization

For hard skills, such as coding, data analysis, or other technical skills, you can also include your certifications in the same section. For example:

  • Data analysis: Advance user, successfully completed Google Data Analytics Certificate in 2022

On the other hand, if you can’t tie your certifications to a particular skill, simply create a dedicated section to show off your certifications. This means that if in your previous career you gained realtor certifications, but are now looking for roles in marketing, you shouldn’t include those in your career change resume as:

CERTIFICATIONS

Certified Digital Marketing Professional, American Marketing Association (AMA) - 2023

SEMrush Role of Content Certification, SEMrush Academy - 2023

4. Sell Your Professional Experience Right

In a career change resume, presenting your work experience in the right way can make the difference between getting that callback or being passed over. To begin with, don’t make the mistake of listing every single experience you’ve ever had. A resume for career change should still be around one or two pages long, which means you can’t fit everything. Instead, you should cherry-pick the experiences that highlight relevant skills to the new job you’re after.

Rather than simply listing the responsibilities you had, briefly describe specific accomplishments that are applicable to your new career. Try and include numbers and statistics whenever possible to show what you bring to the table. For instance, if you are a former teacher moving into editing, you could describe your experience as:

Highschool XYZ, 20XX to 20XX.

English Literature Teacher

  • Prepared classroom activities and tests for 6 classes each year.
  • Provided clear and individualized feedback to each student, leading to a 30% increase in the average student score.
  • Maintained accurate and complete records of students' progress and development.

5. Polish the Education Section of Your Resume for Career Change

Whether you went back to school to pursue a new degree or qualification for your new career or not, you should always make sure to revise your education section and present it appropriately. Here is what it should look like:

Name of Institution — Location, Year

Degree | Score

When it comes to listing experiences and education, always go for the reverse chronological order. If you gained your degree within the last five years, you could also leverage any courses you took for your previous career that also apply to your new one by simply listing them in bullet points. Likewise, during your years in school, you might have gained certain skills that you haven’t used since, but that are important to spotlight now.

To get a better idea about how all these sections combine in a resume for career change, check out our template below for professionals that went back to school to help them pursue a new career:

Career Change Resume Example

AMY WEST | INTERIOR DESIGNER

Chicago, IL 60609 | Phone: (555) 555-5555 | aw@mail.com | linkedin.com/amy.west

Award-winning interior design student, upcoming BFA graduate and certified home stager who is transitioning from real estate sales to a career in interior design.

Repeatedly recognized for creative, conceptual, and analytical talents; AutoCAD and design proficiencies; and exemplary work ethic. Demonstrated success in transforming client ideas into beautiful, functional design solutions. Experience leading design projects to finish on time, on budget and with excellent quality. Offer expert home staging, client relations, sales and negotiation skills developed as a licensed real estate agent.

SKILLS

  • AutoCAD: Advance user
  • Adobe Illustrator: Advance user
  • Photoshop: Advance user
  • MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint: Advance user
  • Interpersonal communication, gained through previous real estate agent experience.
  • Creativity: Won 1st place in a student design competition for “Best Hotel Lobby Design.” Singled out among 50+ designs as the favorite by client sponsor (a four-star resort) and awarded a $1,500 scholarship.
  • Attention to detail: gained through previous experience in home staging.
  • Leadership: Selected as project lead in the design of a guest bedroom for “ASID Showcase House,” a biannual event sponsored by the American Society of Interior Designers. Led student team of four to complete bedroom design for a multimillion-dollar home in exclusive suburb.
  • Time management and Budgeting: Delivered a luxurious design while remaining within a budget of $3.50 per square foot.

EDUCATION AND CREDENTIALS

Institute Of Art One — Chicago, IL 20XX

BFA Degree Candidate, Major in Interior Design | GPA: 3.7

Key Design Courses:

  • Space Planning
  • Lighting for Interiors
  • Design Basics 2D & 3D
  • Residential Design
  • Commercial Design
  • Environmental Codes

Certified Home Stager | Licensed Real Estate Agent — Chicago, IL 20XX

EXPERIENCE

Design Firm Two, 6/20XX to Present.

Design Assistant in leading commercial design firm

Design Firm One — Chicago, IL 20XX-20XX

Interior Design Apprenticeship in group specializing in commercial and retail design

Key Contributions:

  • Developed modern design concept for assigned clients (an upscale, regional women’s wear boutique chain), winning acceptance and go-ahead for project.
  • Coordinated the design and space-planning process, including oversight of fixture/furniture selection, code compliance and architectural details.
  • Completed a range of projects for studio classes, including Advanced Residential Design (family room), Residential Design (kitchen and bathroom), Commercial Design (corporate office), Hospitality (restaurant and wine bar)
  • Placed 2nd in regional lighting-design competition. Built custom lighting fixtures from scratch to earn recognition by a panel of professionals as one of the best designs among 45 entries.

HOME STAGING & REAL ESTATE SALES EXPERIENCE

Realty One— Chicago, IL 20XX-20XX

Licensed Realtor / Certified Home Stager

Commercial/Residential Real Estate Firm, Chicago, IL 20XX-20XX

Licensed Realtor, 20XX to 20XX

Key Contributions:

  • Demonstrated expert home staging, prospecting and relationship-building skills, generating a 30% increase in sales each year despite a challenging real estate market.
  • As a certified home stager, leveraged talents in transforming homes to give the best first impression to potential buyers. Efforts resulted in quicker sales (typically 6 weeks vs. the current 4.5-month average) and higher profits (exceeding area averages by 20 percent).
  • Delivered multimillion-dollar annual revenue growth for the past decade and earned #1 rankings and numerous awards throughout career, including:

- Top Listing Agent of the Year (out of 50-member XYZ Realty team)

- Five-time honors as Top Salesperson of the Year (out of realtor teams of up to 32)

- Seven “Multimillion-Dollar Producer” awards from the Association of Realtors

PORTFOLIO OF DESIGN WORK AVAILABLE ON REQUEST

In our career change resume example, the candidate gained qualifications to change fields. If that’s not the case for you, we suggest pushing the education section below your experience, as the transferable skills you have from your real-life experiences will be most important. Your resume should then have the following structure:

NAME SURNAME | JOB TITLE

Location, Postcode | Phone | email | LinkedIn contact

RESUME OBJECTIVE SPACE

SKILLS

  • XYZ
  • ABC

EXPERIENCE

Company Name, 20XX-20XX

Job title

  • Key accomplishments

EDUCATION AND CERTIFICATIONS

Institution — Location, Year

Type of degree/certification | Score

Key Courses/Points:

  • ABC…

6. Save the Extra Details for Your Cover Letter

If you feel like you weren’t able to mention everything you think is important in your career change resume, don’t worry! That’s what a cover letter for a career change is for. This is especially helpful for career switchers as a place to clarify why you want to change roles and how your skills can be a great addition to the new company despite your different background.

7. Proofread, Send and Stay Positive

Before sending out your career change resume and cover letter, always make sure to proofread them. For best results, proofread after a break from writing, or use one of the many free online writing assistants to catch any typos. You could also have a friend or family member read your documents for as fresh set of eyes.

Once you’ve sent your applications, take a deep breath, and trust the process. Switching careers require taking a leap of faith but with determination and a positive attitude, anybody can do it.

Have Monster Experts Review Your Career Change Resume

Make sure you write a powerful resume for career change that gets your foot in the door. Need help fine-tuning the details? Get a resume assessment today from the experts at Resume Writing Service. We’ll send you detailed feedback, and specific suggestions for communicating your unique set of skills, career goals and industry preferences. It's the best way to make your resume stand out from the competition.