CV Types
Career Changing
The Decision to Change Career
Making a career change is a major decision, particularly in the latter stages of your working life when you’re experience and knowledge are focused on a particular function or industry sector. It can be notoriously difficult to convince prospective employers that they should take a risk with a career changer when they can choose from more qualified applicants. As a result, many career changers only flirt with the idea and end up returning to their previous careers when the scale of the challenge confronts them.
But others succeed in this change because they follow a straightforward change model:
(1) Understand what you want and why you are making the change
(2) Select the right time to change
(3) Research the roles and industry
(4) Ensure your qualifications match the requirements and obtain training accordingly
(5) Promote yourself effectively through networking, job searches and your CV
The most critical element of the model is to know yourself and your reasons for change. Being unhappy at work is not usually a strong enough justification. Perhaps it is just the company you are currently working for that is making you unhappy or the fact they are giving you tasks that do not play to your strengths. In these cases, a discussion with your line manager or moving to a competitor company might be your best options. So be clear about your motivations and your true needs from a role.
Passion or Prospects
A successful career change is most often achieved through one of two routes: pursuing a genuine passion or pursuing jobs which are plentiful and so offer you the greatest prospects. If you are fortunate to identify a passion, you can usually approach this through volunteering to gain experience, freelancing or returning to education to gain new qualifications in the area, e.g., an MBA. If brave enough, you can even try the self-employment route but this requires careful planning and financial resources.
The other option is to pursue areas where you feel you have transferrable skills and the best chance of obtaining a post. In this scenario, your CV and networking skills become paramount in securing your new role.
Critical Elements of a Career Change CV
Career change CVs have a difficult job to do. They must demonstrate that you have the relevant skills, as opposed to direct experience, to perform a role or to learn the role in a suitable time frame. (See CV Formats). This strategy may be complemented by offering a prospective employer other capabilities that are relevant for the organisation. This may give you a unique comparative advantage over other applicants who may only know the role and are not as able to make wider contributions to the organisation.
How Platinum will help with your Career Change
We understand the challenges you face and will work with you to help consider your true motivations and areas of genuine passion. We partner with professional career coaches who are available to support you through this process.
In addition, we can work with you to identify potential roles, steer your research of potential target companies to understand their strategy and where your achievements may be relevant, and then produce a CV and Cover Letter that will powerfully market your capabilities, passion and distinctive selling points to prospective employers.
CV Gaps or Issues
Common Problems People Face with Their CV
For some people, a CV presents awkward problems. In an ideal scenario, your CV will paint a glittering picture of someone with a distinguished career in the target position, with a proven record of accomplishments and upward trajectory that will convince a prospective employer that they are capable and a low risk candidate for the job. Naturally, HR staff screening CVs and the actual hiring manager want to know they are making the right decision and can justify their choice to their line managers as well as ensure they have the best staff to deliver their own performance objectives.
However, in reality, life is not often this kind. Most of us will go through periods where a job did not work out, where we needed to take time off for medical or family reasons, where we were fired or made redundant, or where we changed jobs quite often. The list goes on. Managing these “red flags” as far as prospective employers go is a real art, as lying is not an option you can afford to take if you want to maintain integrity and protect yourself from potential problems later on.
Addressing these Deficiencies in your CV
There is no one solution for these problems, rather a range of solutions that depends upon the nature of the issue and how you coped with it at the time. For example, sometimes a medical issue that caused you to miss work can be used to demonstrate your intrinsic values or courage in the face of adversity. Or, if you changed jobs frequently in a short period, you may need to draw attention away from the positions held and more on the skills used, leaving the detailed explanation for your job changing to an interview. The key is to make what you have done so compelling that they want to see you in spite of the apparent weaknesses – these they will check out once they meet you.
How Platinum will Help with your CV
We will interview you to understand your experience in some detail to determine the best CV format and content to focus the attention of the prospective employer on your strengths. Using a mixture of different CV structures, headings, description and omission, you can help an employer take a chance on your potential and be more prepared to understand and excuse the “red flags”.
Fast Turnaround
Sometimes we are simply too busy to complete a CV or need to respond to a last minute opportunity. We can work with you to schedule a quick CV re-write with or without an interview to produce a professionally-written and formatted CV that includes your most recent experience.
We will discuss a turnaround time with you and, depending upon our prior commitments, agree a suitable time frame to produce a first draft for your review so any final adjustments can be made.
Seek Promotion
Taking stock of your experience can be a critical step in enhancing your career and salary. So often people stay in an existing role out of feelings of job security or simply because they are unaware of the opportunities available for people with their skills and experience. In many instances, the experience you develop from ad hoc projects, budget responsibilities and team management may offer exciting prospects that you have not fully explored. It is always worthwhile auditing your experience and developing an updated CV that can be ready to pursue career enhancement opportunities.
Writing your Professional CV
To develop a professional CV that will support your career advancement you need to ensure that it demonstrates:
- A clear upward trajectory
- A track record of success in your past roles that are relevant to the target job
- Evidence of your potential to assume higher order responsibilities
- A more strategic or bigger picture perspective
- Understanding of people and how to make change happen
How Platinum will Help
We will work with you to identify your career achievements to show evidence of the capabilities identified above. Using tried and tested interview questions and depth probing we aim to produce a compelling picture of your skills and career trajectory that will impress virtually all prospective employers. The process of depth probing will also help prepare you for tough interview questions that will challenge you on these and other critical employer criteria.
Graduates
New Beginnings
Whether you are a graduate fresh to the job market or a person returning to work after maternity, you face the major challenge of producing a CV that will convince employers it is worth taking a chance on you. With limited practical experience or a large gap in your employment, employers are forced to rely on their belief in your ultimate potential to succeed or learn quickly.
Writing a New Professional CV
Faced with a blank sheet of paper or an old CV can be daunting. You are required to address many questions, particularly:
1. What should I include and what do employers in this area like to see?
2. How should I structure my CV?
3. What do I say about any weaknesses in my experience?
4. Can I include voluntary or non-work achievements in my CV?
5. What are going to be my unique selling points?
Unfortunately, the answers to these questions are not always the same for different people. Your work experience, educational qualifications and other life experiences differ and so do the roles and companies you target. As a result, your CV will need to be carefully tailored in both structure and content to suit your experience, goals and target job. Do not just copy a sample CV and populate it with your own data as this will not necessarily produce a winning formula.
You must also show why you are different or better than other candidates who may have more relevant experience. Understanding your distinctiveness and linking it to the challenges of the company in a Cover Letter can make a powerful argument for talking to you.
How Platinum will Help with your New CV
We fully realise the challenges involved and will use our expertise as CV writers and former senior managers to develop a tailored CV that is capable of bringing out your achievements and capabilities in a manner that will strike a chord with prospective employers. We will explore your experiences in detail to tease out aspects of your education and non-work experiences that support your case and evidence your ability to add value.
