Making that Career Change

I have been in Human Resources for close to the last 13 years and currently hold the title of "Director." Over these years, I've had the opportunity to meet people who are interested in a career change, but don't necessarily know how to go about making one. It becomes all about expressing your interest in a position through the lens of what knowledge, skills, and abilties you bring to the table and about remembering that a company with an advertised vacancy is interested in getting the best available person for the rate they're willing to pay. It then becomes a question how do you present your background in a way that will best place your materials in the interview pile.

Each job advertisement you see says the company is looking for several years of experience in the field and a degree. You've got many more years of experience, but no college degree and you're feeling a little low. The first thing to remember is that while these job requirements are clearly important to successful execution of the job, you shouldn't wall yourself into a place where you don't apply. For any advertisement stating such requirements, you can and should read it as requiring certain skills, as opposed to specific requirements. This is important, because years of experience doing something doesn't necessarily mean the necessary skills or necessary aptitude has been gained. For instance, a year of teaching mathematics in the Bronx full time would be a much different experience than a year of teaching mathematics in rural Vermont. Different sets of skills and different sets of experiences, challenges, and skills needed to be successful in each position yet, both would be represented as having had a year of teaching.

In 1971, the United States Supreme Court ruled on a case called "Griggs v. Duke Power Company," (401 U.S. 424 (1971)) in which the court ruled that job requirements must be job related - essentially that requiring a bachelors degree (for instance) must be somehow be a "reasonable measure of job performance." This was a discrimination in employment case, but it illustrates the point that if you can demonstrate that your work experience has given you the skills that would be comparable and that are a reasonable measure of job performance, there's no reason you shouldn't apply. While it is specifically focused on federal jobs, the USAJOBS.gov website has a brief articulation of how this works. Under that section discussing the experience requirements, you should assume the phrase "Experience typically gained with..." as describing what the company is looking for. As with any "rule" there are exceptions to these rules - for instance, where a job has a statutory regulation around credentials (teaching or medicine for instance) the required background will be more hard and fast.

The important thing, then, is what transferable skills you're bringing to the conversation, and how do you address them when expressing your interest in the position. The first part is choosing a format in which you discuss your credentials. In this instance, perhaps a skills based resume or some kind of hybrid inclusive of a skills inventory would be appropriate.

If you've done your research carefully and you know what job field you're interested in pursuing, you should have an understanding of what the general requirements for that job may be and how your knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA's) play into it. You can find general job descriptions at salary.com which explain the general requirements for the job and you should be reviewing the job advertisement carefully - reading for the specifics of the job. You need to know what skills you have in your arsenal as compared with the skills required for your target position.

In each company, there will be variances between their opening and the "general" job description. As such, before you apply to a company, you should know something about the company's operation - the sources of such knowledge depend by company. Most company websites will discuss what the company does, public companies have filings with the federal government they're required to make, and of course "Google" searches will uncover vast amounts of information on almost any company.

You should be using your cover letter to discuss how your KSA's apply to the company's mission or vision statements, how your previous work experience has given you the tools with which to excel in this position and point out how and why your previous work experience ties into what this company is likely looking for. In short, you're looking to highlight those transferable skills you have developed over the years and be able to articulate the reasons why these skills are applicable.

There are no easy recommendations and no easy paths. Changing careers is a difficult thing, for this reason. What has been described here requires a great deal of work and personal exploration. However, if you demonstrate that commitment, and through that commitment you demonstrate that you have the requisite KSA's to bring something to the table at a given company, you will have put yourself in a much better position to be ready to make that transition.