Career Change on a Resume (Guide + Career Change Resume Examples)

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Table of contents

What Resume Format is Best for a Career Change Resume?
How to Use Transferable Skills to Enhance a Career Change Resume
How to Discuss a Career Change in Each Section of Your Resume
Sample Career Change on a Resume
Key Takeaways
Resources to Help With Your Job Search

Few careers unfold in a perfect straight line. No matter how many detours lead you down the road to your current career, your resume should be your place to tell your unique career story with pride. Our guide will help you do it by discussing how to describe career changes on your resume and how to prepare your resume for a new career path.

Our guide will cover:

Resume formats you should consider when building a career change resume.
How to use transferable skills to make your unique history feel relevant to any role.
How to discuss career changes in each section of your resume.
A sample resume featuring a major career change.
Key takeaways to keep in mind.

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What Resume Format is Best for a Career Change Resume?

Maybe you're thinking of updating your resume to target a new field where you have no experience, or maybe you're thinking of building a resume for a role in your current field, but the thought of wrangling your complex career history gives you hives; no matter what the situation is, getting your resume organized will give you a strong starting place. For this, you need to choose a resume format that puts your best foot forward.

Traditionally, resumes use the chronological format because it places experience front and center and makes it easy for recruiters to skim through your career history. This is great for candidates with a straightforward career trajectory but may not work if you're transitioning to a career where you have little experience. Focusing too much on experience when it isn't the strongest point on your resume can be a mistake.
If you have little experience overall or no relevant experience in the field that you're entering, a strong alternative option is the functional resume format. This format focuses on skills, so you can make your transferable skills the highlight of your resume.
For candidates anticipating a career change, the combination format is often the best of both worlds. This is because it gives equal weight to skills and experience and is flexible enough to allow you to highlight your past experience while still allowing you to focus on how that experience contributed to your relevant transferable skills.

How to Use Transferable Skills to Enhance a Career Change Resume

Speaking of transferable skills, if you're making a pivot into a career path that's new to you or if you're looking for ways to make old experience in a different field useful on your current resume, displaying transferable skills is essential.

Transferable skills are skills that carry over from one career to another. Often, they will be soft skills related to things like time management, organization, interpersonal abilities, and problem-solving. Transferable skills can be more technical too. Broad knowledge of technologies like Excel and PowerPoint is relevant across many fields as are business expertise, accounting skills, data management, and scheduling.

So how do you know which transferable skills apply to your new role? Start with the job listing. Look for keywords that the employer uses to describe the responsibilities of the role. Your previous experience may not line up exactly with the niche expertise in the job description, but you'll surely find some soft skills that match.

Pro tip

Still not sure which skills from your previous roles will transfer to your new career path? Ask ChatGPT for resume help! AI can help with your resume in lots of ways. Just be sure to fact-check its answers and avoid replacing your unique voice with AI-generated content.

How to Discuss a Career Change in Each Section of Your Resume

From your resume profile down to your education, big career changes can feel like a major blocker to getting started on your writing process. The good news is — they don't have to be! As long as you're open and honest about your unique circumstances, you can still build a resume where each section shines. Here's how:

Address your unique circumstances up front in your resume profile

Start off your resume with an open approach by writing a brief professional summary that includes the details of your career change. You don't have to dig into the "why" and "how" of your unique path. Instead, succinctly state your previous career and your new path while emphasizing how these career moves have prepared you for the opportunity you're seeking. Here's an example:

Sample professional summary for a career change resume:

Detail-oriented and highly adaptable former educator transitioning into project management, bringing 10+ years of experience in classroom leadership, curriculum development, and team coordination. Skilled in strategic planning, stakeholder communication, and deadline-driven execution, with a proven ability to manage multiple projects, coordinate diverse teams, and implement structured workflows.

Write a skills section that focuses on transferable skills

As we previously discussed, transferable skills are vital to a career change resume. Use them to your advantage with a skills section that looks something like this:

Sample skills for a career change resume:

Project Planning & Coordination
Leadership
Resource Management
Communication
Problem-Solving & Adaptability
Time Management
Conflict Resolution
Decision-Making
Training & Development

Make your experience section feel relevant

When it comes to your experience section, you'll want to describe each entry in terms of transferable skills and accomplishments that fit in with the role you're seeking. Minimize industry jargon related to your prior industry and focus on how each role prepared you for this change. Consider omitting irrelevant experience from the early stages of your career or reducing the real estate that you use to describe roles that don't apply to your current career.

Sample professional summary for a career change resume:

Project Coordinator (Intern)
Blue Sea Consulting Firm | May 2024 – Present

Assist in managing project timelines, deliverables, and stakeholder communications for multiple client initiatives.
Create detailed project reports, tracking progress using Asana, resulting in process improvements culminating in a 22% increase in productivity.
Facilitate team meetings, coordinating cross-functional collaboration, and ensuring alignment with project goals.

English Teacher & Curriculum Developer
Wichita Falls High School | March 2020 – May 2024

Designed and implemented structured lesson plans, demonstrating expertise in planning, organization, and time management.
Led cross-functional teams of educators in developing and executing school-wide improvement initiatives.
Managed multiple projects, including curriculum updates, extracurricular programs, and technology integration.
Trained and mentored new teachers, showcasing leadership, training & development, and performance evaluation skills.

Freelance Tutor
Self-Employed | January 2016 – March 2020

Coordinated complex tutoring schedules for 45+ students per month.
Tracked student process, documenting an overall 33% improvement in grades over 9 months.

Include your degrees and professional training

Even if your college major is no longer relevant to your current career goals, your degree still belongs in your education section and can still be an asset on your resume. If you're concerned about the relevance of your education section, include professional development training, webinars, certificates, and projects related to your current field alongside your degree.

Sample professional summary for a career change resume:

Bachelor of Arts in Education

University of Texas, Dallas

Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification
Project Management Institute (PMI) | Expected: June 2025

Certified Scrum Master (CSM)
Scrum Alliance | Completed February 2025

Pro tip

These are the basic sections that most resumes include, but you're not limited to just these! If you have relevant experience, interests, or projects that you'd like to showcase on your resume, just add the section that you need. Projects, hobbies, and volunteer work can be a great way to make up for missing experience in your field.

Sample Career Change on a Resume

Having trouble visualizing a successful resume for a career change? Take a look at this sample resume for inspiration.

Resume career change example data analyst

Use this template

Key Takeaways

Choose a format that highlights your strengths.
For many career changers, the combination resume format offers the perfect level of flexibility, but you shouldn't take our word for it. Check out all three of the common resume formats and decide for yourself which one will work best to tell your story.
Emphasize transferable skills.
When you lack experience in the field that you're applying to, transferable skills are here to save the day! Focus on broad technical abilities and soft skills to show the employer that your past experiences have prepared you for this new opportunity.
Build each resume section to emphasize your adaptability.
From your resume profile to your education, each section should focus on being honest about your circumstances and showing the employer how your unique career path is an asset. You can go above and beyond by including additional resume sections that focus on your projects, hobbies, interests, or volunteer work in your new field.

Resources to Help With Your Job Search

Hailey Brophy is an experienced writer with a diverse career in digital publication. She is passionate about using her unique skills and experiences to help job seekers find the information that they need to succeed.