Leveraging past achievements for career change

Abby Locke gives excellent advice for career changers who want to leverage their previous achievements.

One of the main challenges for career changers is to maximise their past successes while positioning themselves for a new career in a different industry or functional area.

After all, if you’ve got five or ten years’ solid experience behind you with some great successes to show for it, you’ll want to demonstrate your ability to get results to a new employer. On the other hand, you don’t want the employer to think that your experience is irrelevant.

One way to leverage your achievements is to “flip the script on previous experience” as Abby says. She gives an example of how a federal employee repositioned his experience for a corporate leadership role. Rather than focussing on the details of his achievements, he emphasised his leadership qualities.

Two further tips for career changers

- know your transferable skills
You’ll need to make sure you can bring the right skill-set to the new role. Identify what the new role requires, and look for a match in your previous experience. Write your resume / CV around the desired skills, using your previous successes as examples that you have each skill.

- use the key words of your new target industry / role
In the example of federal employee to leadership role, the candidate uses appropriate terminology to show his suitability. “HR Management” and “Talent Development” point to his understanding of what such roles require. “Speaking the same language” is crucial when you are changing career, as it shows you are familiar with the challenges of the new sector or role.