Crafting a Resume for a Client Who Wants a Career Change

There will always be a time when a client will come up to you and tell you that he's made up his mind about making a career change.

It's a basic fact that certain skills get obsolete with time, especially during the dawn of the twenty-first century when innovations in technology became the norm with the goal of raising productivity in the workplace.

A person may also consider going for a career change if he feels like his talents and potential are not being used properly at work. This causes dissatisfaction and the desire to explore if something out there may be better suited for him.

To illustrate, a person may have started out as a high school teacher, and yet, he dreads those days when he comes face-to-face with his students. He thinks the principal is "making unreasonable demands," and feels inadequate whenever he sees his fellow teachers getting the results they want in terms of the students' academic performance.

This doesn't mean that he's incompetent. Hopefully, he will eventually figure out that teaching is not his core gift.

So how should you handle a client who needs a resume before he can get started on a new career?

First, it's crucial for you to understand the nature of the new career that your client wants to get into. Work on a career objective by condensing the tasks and duties that most appeal to him into a two- to three-sentence paragraph.

Second, make a list of his most outstanding transferable skills. Regardless of the profession or trade, there are certain skills that remain indispensable and important.

Here are just a few of these skills:

• Oral and written communication
• Gathering data (facts, figures, etc.)
• Interpersonal skills (negotiating, supervising, implementing, etc.)
• Computer proficiency

Third, list down any classes, courses, internships, etc. that your client may have taken to train for the new career for which he's vying.

In my next post, I'll show you how to put all these data together in a resume.