Prompts for a Career Change Resume

Translate Your Accomplishments Into the Target Field's Language

Your accomplishments are real but they are described in the vocabulary of the field you are leaving

You are a hiring manager in [TARGET FIELD]. I am moving into it from [CURRENT FIELD].

Below are bullets I wrote about work I actually did, followed by a posting for the kind of role I want.

MY BULLETS:
[PASTE 8-12 BULLETS FROM YOUR CURRENT RESUME]

TARGET POSTING:
[PASTE THE FULL JOB POSTING]

For each bullet:
1. Restate it in the vocabulary the posting itself uses, keeping every fact — scope, tool, outcome — exactly as I wrote it.
2. Show the original and the rewrite side by side so I can check that nothing moved.
3. If a bullet has no honest equivalent in [TARGET FIELD], write "no translation" and say why, rather than forcing one.

Return the rewrites as Markdown bullets grouped under each job. Ask me about anything ambiguous before you start.

Rules — these override everything above:
- Use only the experience I give you. Do not invent employers, job titles, dates, degrees, certifications, skills, or metrics.
- If a number would strengthen a line and I have not given you one, write a placeholder like [X%] or [$X] for me to fill in. Do not estimate it.
- Do not add a tool, skill, or credential I did not list, however standard it is in my field.
- Rewrite, reorder, tighten and re-emphasize what is already there. Where I have given you too little to work with, ask me for it or leave [add detail].

Audit Your Real Experience for Transferable Evidence

Before you rewrite anything, to find out which parts of your history actually support the move

Act as a career coach helping me move from [CURRENT FIELD] to [TARGET ROLE]. Work in 2 phases.

Phase 1: read everything below, then ask me up to 6 questions about the parts you cannot judge — scope, who I worked with, what happened afterward. Stop there and wait for my answers.

MY RESUME:
[PASTE RESUME]

WORK THAT NEVER MADE THE RESUME:
[PASTE NOTES ON PROJECTS, VOLUNTEER WORK, COURSES, SIDE WORK]

TARGET ROLE:
[PASTE JOB POSTING OR ROLE DESCRIPTION]

Phase 2, once I have answered: sort my evidence into 3 groups — directly transferable, partly transferable, and not relevant here. In every row, name the requirement it answers and quote the line of mine it comes from. Do not upgrade a small thing into a large one.

Finish by naming the 3 rows that make the strongest case for this move, and 1 row I am probably overrating.

Rules — these override everything above:
- Use only the experience I give you. Do not invent employers, job titles, dates, degrees, certifications, skills, or metrics.
- If a number would strengthen a line and I have not given you one, write a placeholder like [X%] or [$X] for me to fill in. Do not estimate it.
- Do not add a tool, skill, or credential I did not list, however standard it is in my field.
- Rewrite, reorder, tighten and re-emphasize what is already there. Where I have given you too little to work with, ask me for it or leave [add detail].

Claude: Claude holds a long paste in one message, so the resume and the loose notes can go in together instead of being split across turns.

Choose Between Chronological, Functional and Combination

Your recent titles do not match the target role and a straight chronological list buries the relevant work

I am changing careers from [CURRENT FIELD] to [TARGET FIELD] and I cannot decide how to structure my resume.

My history, in order:
[PASTE EACH ROLE: TITLE, EMPLOYER, DATES, 2 LINES ON WHAT YOU DID]

Target role:
[PASTE POSTING]

Recommend one structure — reverse chronological, functional, or combination — and argue for it from my history specifically, not from general advice. Name the cost of the structure you pick as well as the benefit.

Then give me the section order as a Markdown outline: heading names, what belongs in each, and roughly how many lines each should run.

One constraint: every employer and every date stays visible somewhere in the document. A structure that hides dates reads as concealment, which costs more than the awkward order it fixes.

If 2 structures are close, say so and give me the tiebreaker.

Rules — these override everything above:
- Use only the experience I give you. Do not invent employers, job titles, dates, degrees, certifications, skills, or metrics.
- If a number would strengthen a line and I have not given you one, write a placeholder like [X%] or [$X] for me to fill in. Do not estimate it.
- Do not add a tool, skill, or credential I did not list, however standard it is in my field.
- Rewrite, reorder, tighten and re-emphasize what is already there. Where I have given you too little to work with, ask me for it or leave [add detail].

Decide What to Cut From Your Old Career

Your resume runs long because most of the page is still written for the field you are leaving

You are editing my resume down for a move into [TARGET ROLE]. The problem is length: most of the page is [CURRENT FIELD] detail that a [TARGET FIELD] reader will not use.

MY CURRENT RESUME:
[PASTE FULL RESUME]

TARGET POSTING:
[PASTE POSTING]

Go bullet by bullet and label each one KEEP, COMPRESS or CUT, with a one-line reason tied to the posting. Rules:
- Never cut an employer, a title or a date — only detail.
- A role may shrink to a single line, but it stays on the page.
- Keep anything showing scale, ownership or a result, even when the domain is wrong.

Then output the compressed resume as Markdown, built only from text I already wrote, followed by a short list of everything you removed so I can put any of it back.

Rules — these override everything above:
- Use only the experience I give you. Do not invent employers, job titles, dates, degrees, certifications, skills, or metrics.
- If a number would strengthen a line and I have not given you one, write a placeholder like [X%] or [$X] for me to fill in. Do not estimate it.
- Do not add a tool, skill, or credential I did not list, however standard it is in my field.
- Rewrite, reorder, tighten and re-emphasize what is already there. Where I have given you too little to work with, ask me for it or leave [add detail].

Write a Summary That Explains the Pivot

The top of your resume has to answer "why is this person applying" before the reader reaches your job titles

Write the professional summary for a resume that has to explain a career change.

About me:
- Moving from [CURRENT FIELD, YEARS IN IT] into [TARGET ROLE]
- Why, in my own words: [ONE OR TWO SENTENCES]
- The 3 things in my history that most support the move: [LIST THEM]
- Target posting: [PASTE POSTING]

Give me 3 versions in Markdown, each 3 sentences or fewer:
1. Leads with the transferable strength
2. Leads with the pivot itself, stated plainly
3. Leads with what I have already done in the new field

Every claim has to come from what I gave you. Do not credit me with years in [TARGET FIELD] I did not state, and skip any adjective you cannot point to a line for.

After the 3, tell me which one you would send and what it risks.

Rules — these override everything above:
- Use only the experience I give you. Do not invent employers, job titles, dates, degrees, certifications, skills, or metrics.
- If a number would strengthen a line and I have not given you one, write a placeholder like [X%] or [$X] for me to fill in. Do not estimate it.
- Do not add a tool, skill, or credential I did not list, however standard it is in my field.
- Rewrite, reorder, tighten and re-emphasize what is already there. Where I have given you too little to work with, ask me for it or leave [add detail].

Build an Honest Gap List for the Target Role

You want to know exactly where you fall short of the target role and what would genuinely close each gap

Compare what I have actually done against what this role asks for, and be blunt about the difference.

MY BACKGROUND:
[PASTE RESUME OR A FULL WRITTEN SUMMARY OF YOUR EXPERIENCE]

TARGET ROLE:
[PASTE POSTING]

Build a table with 1 row per requirement in the posting:
- The requirement, in their words
- Evidence I have, quoted from my own lines, or "none"
- Status: met, partial, or missing

Then, for every partial or missing row, suggest one concrete way to close it — a course, a portfolio project I could build, a certification, or a volunteer commitment — with a rough time cost, and rank them by how much each would change a hiring decision. Where you name a specific course or certification, flag it so I can confirm it exists before I count on it.

Nothing on that list goes on my resume today. It is a plan for the next few months, not resume content.

Rules — these override everything above:
- Use only the experience I give you. Do not invent employers, job titles, dates, degrees, certifications, skills, or metrics.
- If a number would strengthen a line and I have not given you one, write a placeholder like [X%] or [$X] for me to fill in. Do not estimate it.
- Do not add a tool, skill, or credential I did not list, however standard it is in my field.
- Rewrite, reorder, tighten and re-emphasize what is already there. Where I have given you too little to work with, ask me for it or leave [add detail].

Rewrite Jargon-Heavy Bullets for an Outside Reader

Your best work is written in acronyms and internal system names that mean nothing outside your industry

These bullets make sense to anyone inside [CURRENT INDUSTRY] and to nobody outside it. My reader is a [TARGET FIELD] hiring manager with no background in my field.

[PASTE 5-8 BULLETS, ACRONYMS AND INTERNAL SYSTEM NAMES INCLUDED]

For each bullet:
1. Tell me what an outsider would fail to understand, and why.
2. Rewrite it in plain language, keeping the scale, the tool category and the result exactly as I stated them. Replace an internal system name with what it is — "the patient scheduling system", not the vendor's product name.
3. If you cannot tell what an acronym or a term means, ask me instead of guessing.

Return the rewrites as Markdown bullets, and flag any line where the plain version sounds smaller than the original so I can decide what to do about it.

Rules — these override everything above:
- Use only the experience I give you. Do not invent employers, job titles, dates, degrees, certifications, skills, or metrics.
- If a number would strengthen a line and I have not given you one, write a placeholder like [X%] or [$X] for me to fill in. Do not estimate it.
- Do not add a tool, skill, or credential I did not list, however standard it is in my field.
- Rewrite, reorder, tighten and re-emphasize what is already there. Where I have given you too little to work with, ask me for it or leave [add detail].