Very few people stay in one career or even one job for decades anymore. Moving from one job to the next is one way to acquire skill sets relatively quickly. Once you acquire those skill sets, you may feel as if it is time for a career change. Your resume can help you reach that next career target in a couple of ways.
The career objective on a resume is sometimes a long, run-on sentence that doesn’t really say a lot about who you are or what you are looking for in a career. However, using a career objective effectively can help you when you are looking to change careers, but do not have experience in the career you are targeting. Succinctly state which skills you do have and how you want to use them. For example: I want to use my design skills to present museum exhibits.
Look carefully at job descriptions for your next targeted career and pick out the skills you have now that will transfer to this career. For example, while you may never have designed a museum exhibit, your art gallery event planning and exhibit design are both assets in your targeted career because they are also skills used in planning and designing museum exhibits. Environmental design skills are also a plus in staging a 3D exhibit where foot traffic patterns and how people interact with the exhibits are important. Highlight your transferable skills in a skills summary and show how you used these skills in an Accomplishments and Experience summary on your resume.
When you have a strong resume that clearly states the position you want, you have a greater chance of capturing the attention of the reader and moving on to your next big adventure.
