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DOES
YOUR CAREER CHANGE
NEED A REALITY CHECK?
By Quick
and Affordable Resumes
It
is a job seeker's prerogative to be interested in a
particular type of position. This often means a total
career change, and a reality check.
Your current position bores you. You've stayed in it way
too long because you needed the security of a weekly
paycheck. Now you have found yourself in a situation in
which you need to find a new job. Should you apply for
the same boring position as your last one or reinvent
yourself and follow your dream job?
The answer is surprisingly simple and complex at the
same time: Yes, you should follow your dream job. If you
cannot afford to do this immediately, apply for the
boring position and prepare yourself for the second
position part-time if you can. When you are ready, do
not expect the job search to be quick or the pay scale
to be more or even the same.
Depending on how broad the gap in experience and
requirements are, the steeper the learning curve. The
steeper the learning curve, the less leverage you will
have in negotiating your desired salary. This is because
the hiring company is going to train you, and takes that
into consideration when making an offer.
Many job seekers make an emotional decision without
doing their research to see if they really understand
what the position is about and, more importantly, if
they qualify.
Being qualified is not limited to experience and
abilities. It extends to technical qualifications and
credentials such as a required degree or state
licensing.
Last, but certainly not least, job seekers fail to
properly create a resume that showcases their
transferrable skills. Worse, they do not write a
compelling cover letter acknowledging that they are
changing their career and outlining what they feel are
their best qualifications for the new position.
When we say outlining qualifications, we're not talking
about communication skills and ability to work well with
others. We're talking about tangible experience, even if
not an exact match. Do not make the common mistake in
confusing qualifications with attributes.
Even if a job ad specifies that the qualifications
include many attributes, list these items sparingly and
offset them with real specifics such as number of years
of experience, industry knowledge, technical skills and
required credentials.
Speaking of job ads, which is exactly where you will
find the information you need to determine if this type
of position is right for you and if you qualify.
Let's take
nursing for instance. Maybe you've always wanted to
work in a position caring for the elderly or helping
people recover from surgery or trauma. Your current
position as a customer service representative (CSR) is
okay, but it does not fulfill you. Your company is now
relocating and you do not want to move that far.
You are in a situation where you will collect
unemployment and a severance package, giving you six
months to find a new job. You do some soul searching,
speak with friends and family members and decide that
you want to be a
Surgical Technician. Well, that's half the battle.
Many people have difficulty just making a decision about
what they want to do.
If
you were to send out your CSR resume, you would not be
considered. Not because you are not a people person,
hardworking and efficient. It is because you do not have
the education, required state certification, and
clinical rotations that support these credentials. Upon
researching the field, you realize that you must first
go to school for a couple of years to earn a new degree.
That reality of your situation is that you must apply
for a CSR position and take surgical technician courses
in the evenings while working full time. It is advisable
to save as much money as possible so that when the time
comes to leave your CSR position to do your full time
clinical training during the day, you will have a
financial cushion.
In
this case, or in the case where you do not need
credentials, but do need to have the right transferrable
experience, a combination or skills-based functional
resume is a good format to use. To strengthen your
proposal to a hiring company, you should use a
two-column cover letter that does a side-by-side of
their requirements vs. your qualifications.
Before you make a decision to quit your current job or
to apply for a completely different type of position, do
your research to identify what you need and currently
have to offer. Then use the proper type of resume format
and cover letter style to present your transferrable
qualification in the best light.
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