What’s the fastest path to a career change?

I’m in the midst of reinventing myself from an administrative to a post-MBA professional worker. I’m finding it to be a lot harder than I expected to make that transition. Can you give me some advice?

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2 replies
  1. Penelope Trunk
    Penelope Trunk says:

    The key to reinventing yourself is to rewrite your resume in a way that makes it look like you’ve actually been doing the job you want to get into. That makes the change much easier than trying to get a job in a new field.

    This resume re-write does not require lying, but it does require being able to reframe all your past experience in a fresh light. Generally, that’s really difficult to do – it’s hard to see ourselves differently and it’s hard to tell a new story about ourselves. This is why most people who are making a career transition have a lot of luck hiring a professional resume writer to revamp their resume.

    The key to a smooth career reinvention is making it seem like you are not doing a reinvention. It’s sort of like you can only get a date if you seem like you already have tons of dates, or you can only get investors to give you money if you look like you don’t really need money.

    So my recommendation would be to hire a career coach for an hour or two so they can help you see yourself differently for the interviews and present yourself differently on paper.

    If you don’t want to hire someone to jump start your process, you could read this post on how to rewrite your resume like a professional resume writer:

    http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2008/03/18/how-to-edit-your-resume-like-a-professional-resume-writer/

    Here are a bunch of other posts I’ve written about resumes:
    http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/category/resumes/

    In the end, everything you want from your career starts with rewriting your resume to get it. I hope this helps.

    Penelope

  2. jessica
    jessica says:

    Funny timing.

    One of our good friends did this for two years.

    Went ivy, had professonal career, went ivy MBA to switch careers, went to top tech firm and STILL can’t figure out what they are doing career wise.

    So smart, so talented but directionless. At least they have a stellar resume :)

    I think it’s hard to go from Admin to MBA-level job without experience in some form of whatever you are going for. Can I ask what type of job you are seeking now?

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