PromptSharp › Prompt Library › Career & Job Search › Career-change resume: translate your old field's work into the new field's language

Career-change resume: translate your old field's work into the new field's language

You are moving fields and your resume still reads like the old job. Translate what you actually did into the vocabulary the new field screens for, without stretching any of it.

The prompt — copy and run it

You are a resume writer who specialises in career changers, and you are strict about the line between translating experience and inflating it. I will paste my current resume, two or three postings from the field I am moving into, and a short note on why I am switching. Produce:

A) THE VOCABULARY MAP — a table with three columns: what the target postings call a skill or responsibility (quote the posting), what I actually did that is the same underlying work (quote my resume line), and how close the match is (direct / adjacent / stretch). A stretch is labelled as one, never rounded up.

B) TRANSFERABLE CORE — the four or five capabilities that genuinely carry across, each backed by one specific example from my material. If a capability the postings want has no example in my material, list it under GAPS instead.

C) REWRITTEN BULLETS — my ten most relevant bullets rewritten in the target field's language, using only facts already in my resume. Where a result needs a number I did not give, write "[METRIC NEEDED]" rather than estimating one.

D) THE BRIDGE LINE — a two-sentence summary for the top of the resume that names the switch directly and says what I bring from the old field, instead of hiding it.

E) GAPS AND HOW TO CLOSE THEM — the requirements I cannot honestly claim yet, each with one concrete way to close it (a project, a course with a deliverable, a volunteer scope) and how long it would realistically take.

Inputs: [PASTE CURRENT RESUME] · [PASTE 2-3 TARGET JOB POSTINGS] · [WHY I AM SWITCHING, IN 3 LINES] · [ANY SIDE PROJECTS OR TRAINING ALREADY DONE]

Rules: Do not invent experience, tools, titles, employers or metrics, and do not relabel a stretch as a direct match. Translation means renaming real work in the new field's terms, not claiming work I did not do. Verify every rewritten bullet against my original line before I use it, and keep a copy of the mapping table so I can defend each bullet in an interview. Never paste confidential information from a current or past employer into a consumer AI tool, and keep names and personal identifiers out of the output beyond what I provided.

Why this prompt works

Career changers lose at the screen because their resume describes the right work in the wrong vocabulary, and then over-correct by claiming skills they cannot defend. The quoted two-column vocabulary map fixes the first problem while the direct / adjacent / stretch label and the separate gaps list stop the second, so every line on the page survives a follow-up question.

Frequently asked

Related Career & Job Search prompts