Want a New Job in a New Career?
You want a new job in a new career? Consider the following.
Your Resume
Your resume is only capable of attracting what you have on it. In other words, if your experience and education doesn’t accurately reflect what you want to be doing going forward, then there will definitely be a resume/job search disconnect. In my experience, this is a very common frustration for job seekers and was one of the main reasons which drove me to write my book. There are ways to fix a resume “disconnect” by using a combined style resume and by how you emphasize and arrange content. Keep in mind that the employer can only know what you give them, and the information needs to be relevant to what you want, and, more importantly, to what they want.
Your Strategy
Are you spending all your time answering postings online? Jay addressed this earlier this week in “Odds of Finding Your Next Job On A Major Job Board” and “When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like nails.” In addition to it being a low-yield strategy (the stats show it will bring a 10% success rate at best), it’s very difficult to make a career change that way.
When I was a recruiter, I was the person in between the job candidate and the hiring manager. If a candidate’s qualifications didn’t fit, I had to screen him or her out of the process. That was my job, and that is the job of anyone who is receiving your resume through the typical posting process, whether it’s through a job board or directly through the employer’s own web application process.
The best strategy for career changing is to find “friends” who will introduce you to the person who has the power to hire you (not the recruiter). Someone has to talk to you and then BELIEVE you can do the job. In a career change, it’s very difficult for your resume to be the mechanism to convince them that you can do the job in spite of a different education or whatever. In most cases only you will be able to do that… or a friend who recommends you to the hiring manager.
Your Background Transferability
Maybe you lack the experience needed for a career change. What you don’t have in experience, can you make up in skills, aptitude and/or ability? Most of the time, it’s a matter of seeing and then “selling” the transferability of your skills and background. You need to find out for sure. Horse carriage makers once had high-demand skills until cars were invented, but horse carriage makers figured out how to adapt in order to thrive in the new environment.
The purpose of networking is to build relationships, but it is also to get information. I would ask friends – new ones and old – to help you meet the experts in the area you are trying to move into so you can “interview” them about what it takes to shift into the role you’re seeking. If you do have to gain experience in the new area, then finding creative ways to gain the experience you need might be next on your agenda.
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Angela Loëb is an author, speaker and career coach. She and her partner, Jay Markunas, help people make successful career transitions through seminars, webinars, tele-coaching events and individualized coaching services. Listen to them on The Job Search Boot Camp Show. Find out more about their programs & services at www.greatoccupations.com.
Tags: career change, job search, job search strategy, networking, Resume, transferable background, transferable skills