I would like to share the following tale with you as prime example of how skills can become transferable. On a recent drive back from the north coast, myself and a friend were chatting about jobs, salaries, resumes, the economy and the like as you do when confined to a small space. We got to talking about what this friend of mine does for a living, let’s call him James to protect the innocent. Now James, as I understand it, is an engineer. He studied engineering at university, he then went out into the world and started working as an engineer. Check out his resume and it also says engineer as does his passport and other pieces of identification. So James, tell me, what exactly does your role involve on a day to day basis. James’ reply was quite surprising. I thought he might be out there building bridges, wearing a shirt and tie with hard hat – the typical image we conjure up of any professional in this field. But no, James does not leave the office and does not have a hard hat. James role involves costing most of the large infrastructure projects he works on. He is constantly working on budgets and forecasts, running financial models to project costs, delivery timeframes and how to staff these projects. Essentially, he is performing the role of a management accountant yet he is adamant that he is an engineer. I left it there because I did not wish to upset the poor chap. After all, he had spent so long training to become an engineer that to be called an accountant might be insulting (similar to the Dentist/Doctor mistake). However, when the conversation went back to salary and James realised that a management accountant may earn more than he in his role, he very quickly became interested in the finer details of accounting, attempting to position his skills for such a role.

The key learning here is that you need to keep an open mind when considering a career change. You will have many transferable skills that would be welcome in other roles. It is critical that they stand out on your resume so the employer does not have to guess about why you’ve applied for a role.

Over the past few weeks, I have either read, overheard or being part of a discussion on the life expectancy of the beloved resume. Many say the resume is dead and we are now awaiting the official burial or perhaps a cremation would be more appropriate. Let us take a brief look at the transformation of the resume during the past 20 years. Resumes 20 years ago and perhaps 10 to 15 years ago were presented on rich thick paper, gold leaf in some cases and bound in expensive covers, all of this effort to seek out the attention of the recruiter or hiring manager by standing out from the crowd. Despite the effort invested in the physical presentation, these documents were generally quite stale in terms of content. As we gained more freely available access to computers, the resume progressed. Templates were freely available and job-seekers started to experiment. Some of the resultant resumes were disastrous but failure goes hand in hand with success, if you’re not failing, you’re not trying!

We’ve since witnessed the resume transform into a sales and marketing document designed to highlight your key saleable assets, your skills and experience. There’s a choice of resume formats to employ depending on your circumstances. We have recently experienced a massive surge with individuals having an online presence. From networking sites like facebook and Linked In to interactive job boards, an online brand is becoming part of the norm. Recruiters will seek you out in these networking sites perhaps to check you out following an application you made or they will use these online areas as search tools to augment traditional methods.

For the time being, sending out your resume is still very much part of the job hunting experience and I would not subscribe to the fact that the paper resume is dead. Digital resumes are on the rise and it’s essential to place an equal amount of effort into your digital resume when actively job seeking. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel however as much of the content in your traditional resume can be replicated in an online resume. Question is, have you invested the required amount of time and energy into your traditional resume?