Changing career? Lead with transferable skills

Career changers lose interviews to translation, not ability. The work you did counts, but it is written in the wrong dialect.

Name the skill, then the proof Do not write "retail experience". Write "handled cash reconciliation for a GBP 12k daily till with zero variance for 9 months" — that is operations and controls, which is exactly what a finance ops team screens for.

Common translations - Hospitality shift lead to operations coordinator: rota planning, supplier orders, incident handling. - Teaching to learning and development: curriculum design, group facilitation, progress reporting. - Call centre to customer success: churn signals, escalation handling, CRM hygiene.

Put the translation at the top A three-line summary at the head of your CV should state the role you want, the closest evidence you have for it, and the strongest number on the page.

Expect to explain the switch One honest sentence in the cover note beats three paragraphs of hedging.