TAILOR.

Writing a CV when you're changing career

You're not the candidate the recruiter is expecting. You know it. They know it within seven seconds of opening your CV.

A career change CV has the opposite problem to a graduate CV. You have ten or twenty years of solid experience, but it's the wrong shape for the role you're applying for. Your default CV reads as "marketing director" when you're applying for product management. "Teacher" when you're applying for instructional design. "Operations lead" when you're applying for a strategy role. The skills transfer. The vocabulary doesn't.

The fix isn't to rewrite your CV once in your new direction. It's to rewrite it specifically against each job advert, every time, so the recruiter sees their own keywords in your bullets. A career-change CV that uses the new sector's vocabulary feels less like a switch and more like a logical progression. The recruiter has to do less work to imagine you in the role.

TAILOR does the translation for you, application by application, in minutes.

Translate your CV for the new role

Free first analysis. No card. Full bundle including a tailored cover letter.

Translate your CV for the new role →

Three real challenges

1. The wrong vocabulary on every bullet

You describe what you did in the language of your old role. The recruiter scans for the language of their role. Match score zero. TAILOR rewrites each bullet using the keywords the job advert itself uses, so the recruiter sees their phrasing reflected back.

2. The "why are they applying for this" question

Without explicit framing, the recruiter assumes you applied by accident or as a backup. TAILOR generates a 2-3 sentence opening summary tailored to the role explaining the bridge: what you have that's relevant, why this direction is intentional, what you'd bring on day one.

3. The relevant-experience burial

Your most transferable project is in the middle of page two. Recruiters never get there. TAILOR foregrounds the experience that's relevant to the target role, moving the most evidential bullets to the top third where decisions are made.

The TAILOR fit

For every job you apply to, paste the advert and your existing CV, get back a CV that reads as if you'd been heading toward this role for years. Plus a cover letter that addresses the career change directly, an interview brief covering the "why are you switching" questions that always come up, and company research so you can speak credibly about the new sector.

Translate your CV for the new role

Free first analysis. No card. Full bundle including a tailored cover letter.

Free first analysis. No credit card needed.

Start now →

Career change CV FAQ

Should I write a different CV for every career-change application?

Yes, for the strongest results. Generic career-change CVs read as exactly that: generic. A CV tailored to each advert's specific keywords lifts your through-rate sharply. The hard part historically has been time; TAILOR collapses the rewrite to minutes.

How much of my old career should be on my new-direction CV?

Enough to prove depth, not so much that the old role overshadows the new direction. Lead with experience that's transferable. De-emphasise duties that don't connect. TAILOR makes this decision per-application based on the advert.

Do I need to address the career change in my cover letter?

Yes. The cover letter is where you frame the bridge between old and new, because the CV alone can't carry that narrative. TAILOR produces a cover letter alongside the CV that addresses the direction shift explicitly and persuasively.

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