Considering a Job or Career Move but Not Sure What Comes Next?

Not everyone who thinks about a career move has been pushed into it. Often it's someone who is still employed, doing a perfectly good job, but with a nagging question that won't go away: is this it, or is there something else I should be doing?

After more than 25 years in recruitment, I can tell you that the people in this position usually have more options than they realise. The problem is rarely a lack of experience. It's that they can't yet see their experience through the eyes of a different employer.

Before deciding what job to apply for next, it's worth understanding what you already have. Here's how I'd suggest approaching it.

Start with what you have — not job titles

Job titles make people think too narrowly about their experience. Someone may have spent fifteen or twenty years doing one job, but during that time they will have developed skills in leadership, customer management, problem solving, projects, compliance, training, operations, commercial decision-making or any number of other areas.

So set your job title aside for a moment and look instead at what you have actually done: the responsibilities you have carried, the achievements you are proud of, the projects you have led, the problems you have solved, the people you have managed, the customers you have dealt with, the systems you have used and the decisions you have made.

Employers recruit for capability and evidence, not simply for a matching job title. A recruiter reading your CV is asking "what can this person actually do, and what proof is there?" — not "have they done this exact job before?"

Work out what you actually enjoy and want more of

A career move shouldn't simply be about escaping the parts of your current job you dislike. If you move away from something rather than towards something, it's surprisingly easy to land somewhere with the same problems in a different wrapper.

Ask yourself instead: which parts of my work am I particularly good at? Which parts do I enjoy? What do colleagues regularly ask me for help with? What would I happily do more of?

The answers often reveal possible directions people hadn't considered — and they're also exactly the things you should be evidencing in your CV, because you'll talk about them with genuine conviction at interview.

If you've spent years in one role, don't assume you're stuck

This is one of the most common concerns I hear: "I've done this for 20 years. Who else is going to want me?"

Longevity brings substantial experience, deep knowledge, resilience and — importantly — evidence of progression and reliability. Employers value all of those things. The issue is usually not a lack of transferable experience, but recognising it and communicating it outside the language of your current employer or industry.

If you've spent your career inside one organisation, its systems, acronyms and internal language feel like the whole world. To another employer, they're meaningless. The work is translating what you did into terms that make sense anywhere: what you were responsible for, what you improved, what you delivered and what happened as a result.

If you've had several careers or roles, look for the thread

At the other end of the scale are people who have moved between jobs, industries or functions and worry that their career looks disconnected. In my experience, they often have more possibilities rather than fewer.

Look for the common skills running through those roles. Perhaps it's managing people, organising work, dealing with customers, resolving problems, influencing stakeholders, training others, managing risk or delivering projects. Those threads are the backbone of your story, and they give you a much wider range of options than someone with a single-track background.

Your career doesn't need to look perfectly linear to make sense to an employer. It needs a clear thread and relevant evidence — not an apology for variety.

Research possibilities before deciding

Once you have a clearer view of what you have, spend some time browsing vacancies before applying for anything — and search using skills and responsibilities as well as job titles. Look at different sectors and at roles adjacent to your own.

As you read job descriptions, ask yourself four questions:

• Which parts of this can I already do?
• Where have I demonstrated this in my career?
• What evidence do I have for it?
• What would genuinely be a gap?

This is often the point where people discover roles they had never considered, where their transferable skills are a genuine fit. It also tells you honestly where the gaps are — which is far more useful information than a vague feeling that you might not be good enough.

Understand the difference between transferable and relevant

Here's something many candidates miss: having a transferable skill isn't enough on its own. Your application has to help the employer see why that experience is relevant to their particular role.

Saying you have "stakeholder management skills" tells an employer very little. Showing who you dealt with, what you were responsible for and what happened as a result tells them a great deal. Transferable becomes relevant the moment you attach evidence to it.

This is the single biggest difference between CVs that get shortlisted and CVs that don't — and it's where a recruiter's eye is genuinely useful.

Don't force one CV to cover five possible careers

If you have several possible directions, resist the temptation to write one CV that presents all of them equally. It usually produces a confusing document that says nothing strongly enough.

A better approach is to establish a strong Master CV containing your full experience, then adapt the emphasis and evidence depending on the type of opportunity you're pursuing. The Master CV is your career record; each application draws from it the parts that matter most to that employer.

Test an opportunity before applying

When you find a vacancy you're genuinely interested in but aren't sure whether your background fits, assess the match before you invest time in the application. Look at what the employer actually requires, what evidence you have, and where the genuine gaps are.

That's exactly what a CV to Job Match Review does: an honest, recruiter-led assessment of your CV against a specific job, including whether the role is worth pursuing and what would strengthen your application if it is.

You don't have to have the answer before you start exploring

A career change doesn't always begin with knowing exactly what job you want. Sometimes it begins with understanding your experience properly, exploring where it could take you and gradually narrowing down the possibilities.

If you have several possible directions, feel stuck, or simply want an experienced, independent perspective on your options, a Career Coaching conversation is a good place to start. And if you'd like an honest view of how your current CV presents your experience, a Complimentary CV Review will show you exactly where it's helping you and where it's holding you back.

Not sure where to begin? Tell Michelle where you are and she'll help you agree the right support and the cost before you commit to anything.