You’re changing direction

A different industry, a different function, or back to a company after running your own.

You know the move makes sense. The difficulty is that your resume does not yet say so. Read straight through, it describes the career you are leaving rather than the one you are going to, and it leaves the reader to work out the connection for themselves.

They will not. At forty-one applicants a role, the document that requires interpretation loses to the one that does not.


What makes a change believable

The move has to read as a decision, not a retreat.

Lead with the problem, not the sector

Industries differ. The problems executives are hired to solve are far more portable — turnarounds, growth, cost, culture, integration, regulation. Framed around the problem you are known for solving, a sector change stops looking like a leap.

Transferable is a weak word

Claiming your skills transfer asks the reader to take your word for it. Showing the same capability applied twice, in two different contexts, proves it. The work is finding those instances in your history and putting them where they will be seen.

Name the reason, briefly

A change left unexplained invites the reader to invent a reason, and the one they invent is rarely flattering. One clear line, stated without apology, closes the question before it opens.

If you have been running your own business

This is its own situation, and it is the one we are asked about least openly.


  • You are not explaining a gap

    You ran a business. That is a role, and it belongs on the page as one — with scope, revenue, headcount and outcomes, exactly as you would present any other executive position. Presented apologetically, it reads as time off. Presented properly, it reads as a profit and loss you carried alone.

  • The real objection is commitment

    A corporate hirer is quietly asking whether you will leave again the moment something better comes along, and whether you can operate inside a structure after years of being the structure. Both are answerable — but only if you answer them before you are asked.

  • Your independence is the asset

    Very few executives have carried full commercial accountability with nowhere to escalate. That is unusual, and it is worth considerably more than the sympathy framing most people give it.

What a reframed career looks like

Real examples from our work. Click any one to read it in full.

Luxury retail executive resume sample
Medical sales executive resume sample
Aged care executive resume sample

Does your story land? Find out free.

Send us your resume and tell us where you are heading. We will tell you whether it reads.


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What this leads to

Changing direction takes longer than staying put. Here is the part we can compress.


5 daysFirst draft, after your branding sessionDelivery
2 weeksFinalised, polished documents in your handsDelivery
6 weeksMost clients report being in a new role, from receiving their documentsClient reported
Under 3%Clients who have invoked the rework guarantee or asked for a refundFive years, measured

Clients self-report salary increases ranging from $12,000 to $160,000 a year. They also tell us interview invitations pick up noticeably — we have not measured that comprehensively, so we will not put a number on it. The guarantee figure covers five years of engagements and is counted directly; the rest is what clients report back to us.

What one client said about repositioning


“The CV you did for me is brilliant. It’s gaining so much interest.”

A change is a rebuild, not an edit

Which is why this is the situation where the packages earn their keep.


Tidying the document you have will not do it. The order changes, the emphasis changes, and the language changes to match where you are going rather than where you have been. Your LinkedIn profile has to move at the same time, because a profile still written for the old direction undoes the resume.


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