How to Pivot: CV Strategies for Career Changers

Changing careers is tough. Actual experience is always going to trump transferable skills.

If you are relying on transferable skills, you are probably at a disadvantage to those who actually have the direct experience. On the open market, applying for roles online is a challenge. You will find it much more effective networking into a role and contacting organisations directly.

But when you do apply, you still need the right document. You need a skills based CV.

The Skills Based CV

This is a style of CV where we prioritise transferable skills over work history. Where you have irrelevant experience, you want to deemphasize it.

Instead, you can leverage voluntary roles, side projects, qualifications and training. These may demonstrate knowledge and experience more so than your previous career does.

The "Aspiring" Tactic for the ATS

Recruitment software and Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) dictate a lot of the initial sifting process. You must integrate as many keywords as possible so your CV is optimized for the technology.

But how do you include a job title you have never held?

A clever tactic is to put the job title of the role you are applying for in brackets with the word "aspiring" in front of it. For example, if you want to move into procurement, you could say you are an "aspiring procurement analyst".

By doing this, you are not saying you are one, you are saying that you aspire to be one. It gets the job title into your profile for the ATS without bending the truth.

Framing Your Experience

There is a real knack to finding the relevance in your past tasks and framing them in the context of your new career.

Take an armed forces professional who led the shipping of military kit across borders. If they want to move into project management, they should not frame it as a military operation.

Instead, they want to talk about project managing and coordinating the operational movement of heavy capital equipment. You just talk in slightly different language that makes it feel more relevant to the audience you are applying for a job with.

Prove it with Case Studies

Your CV needs to turn into a business case. On a career change CV, use a career highlight section on page one.

While a normal CV might have three case studies, a career change CV could have up to five. Think about what skills the job needs and provide evidence that you have them.

Write these as mini case studies in the STAR format. That stands for Situation, Task, Actions and Result.

The result is the most important bit. You must try and find tangible, measurable, statistical evidence that you succeeded. On a skills based CV, just list the name of the skill before you go into the detail.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a skills based CV guarantee an interview? No. Actual experience always trumps transferable skills. If you are relying on a skills based CV, you are at a slight disadvantage on the open market. Networking directly with organisations is often a much more effective strategy.

How many case studies should I include on page one? On a standard CV, we recommend three STAR case studies. For a career change CV, you can include up to five. This provides enough evidence to prove you have the exact transferable skills required for the new role.

Should I use AI to rewrite my CV for a new career? Absolutely not. Using ChatGPT to write your entire CV is the biggest mistake you can make. Over 53% of hiring managers are less likely to hire someone who uses AI to write their application. You will end up with the exact same document as hundreds of other applicants.

Do applicant tracking systems read career change CVs? Yes, and this is why keywords are critical. If you do not include the exact job title and skills mentioned in the job description, the recruitment software will likely reject you straight off the bat. Using the "aspiring" tactic is the best way to bypass this initial hurdle.

How far back should my career history go? Keep it relevant. Once you have covered eight to ten years of detailed career history, you should start tucking everything else away. Put older roles into an earlier career section as a series of simple one liners.