Interview and application tips when changing your career
Changing career can be equal parts exciting and daunting. It’s never too late to make a lateral move, but applicants are understandably nervous about how to secure interviews and jobs in a field they have no experience in.
If you’re looking to change career, start with talking about your transferable skills in your cover letter and in your interviews. You may not have the specific experience in a particular area, but you’ll likely have dozens of skills that are at least tangentially related to your new prospective career. Review the job vacancy advertisement and identify the skills you can relate to. There are plenty of management capabilities and other ‘soft’ skills that transcend industry.
This does however mean that you will need to learn to be comfortable with what you don’t know. You won’t have all the relevant experience and you won’t know everything there is to know within this new industry. But that shouldn’t be frightening: instead, use this as an opportunity to demonstrate how you will quickly get up to speed and plug the skills gap. You may want to explain that you have a great attitude towards lifelong learning, or talk about other situations in which you’ve quickly had to learn a new skill or adapt to new challenges. Make sure to remain honest and resist the temptation to tell white lies about your experience, as this may do you harm in the long run.
This is also a good opportunity to demonstrate your flexibility. Turn the career change into an advantage by showcasing how comfortable you are with new opportunities, new priorities and unexpected twists and turns.
Finally, you’ll need to prepare an answer to the all-important question: why are you changing careers? Practice your response and make sure to put a positive spin on your reasoning. You may want to speak about the future rather than dwelling on the past: “I’ve achieved some great things over the past X years, but I’ve now reached a point where I’m looking for new challenges and feel that this new industry would be a good fit for the rest of my career.”
Be confident in your abilities, open and honest about your development areas and draw on your wealth of skills and experience – and you’ll secure a role in your desired industry in no time. If you’re looking to change careers and would like to speak to experienced recruiters about how best to do so, the team at Optimum are always willing to answer your questions. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Posted By: Abigail Simpson
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