Hi Fairies - looking for career change advice!

11 Comments

1. LauraOctober 16,2025 at 2:55PM UTC

   Don't take off work experience simply because it over x amount of years old. Instead base your resume on relevancy. If you have older applicable experience create a section titled "Additional Work Experience" or "Relevant Work Experience".

   Really dig into the transferable skills you have between the two fields, start talking to people in the BA realm who can give you real life insights into what companies are looking for and make sure to focus not just on the "what' but on the "how" and "impact" you've had (remember just because you don't have the exact experience in the exact field, doesn't mean there aren't ways to translate what you did into the language of what you are going to do).

   CVs are particular to certain fields as you know and when you transition out of those fields, you'll need to transition to using a resume.

   And remember you should be relying on networking, connecting and outreach where you have more of an opportunity to form real connections than sending into the ATS void where all they have to go on is your resume rather than getting to know you.

   I work with career pivoters and career breakers and want to assure you this is completely doable and you've got this!

2. AnonymousOctober 21,2025 at 3:13PM UTC

   OP here: Thank you for your thoughtful feedback! I do have a few versions of a resume I have used over the years, and I like the "Relevant Work Experience" line - especially because that can be a great place to house some of my academic roles where they apply. The limited experience I've had so far has indicated that unless I was a "Teacher," which I was not, many companies don't see the transferable skills in many of these roles (most likely due to a misunderstanding of what these roles entail in the day to day), so I like your approach.

3. LauraOctober 21,2025 at 4:56PM UTC

   It does fall on the job seeker to connect the dots for companies but the good thing is that it's in your control! You've got this!!

4. AnonymousOctober 16,2025 at 5:56PM UTC

   Be careful with a CV. It can be too long for a lot of businesses. What about staff development and corporate training roles? To be value add, they should start with a robust needs assessment which should be right up your alley.

5. AnonymousOctober 21,2025 at 3:16PM UTC

   That was exactly my fear! A CV is perfect for certain fields, but most businesses want an abbreviated resume format. I don't really have much desire to do staff training, and honestly, it is outside my skill set. I am not a teacher, nor have the experience of one, so have been overlooked in the past for roles such as these. My academic roles are primarily in goal setting and process analysis, with some data analysis, but my job titles don't convey that very well to the general public (which is why I considered the CV in the first place). Thank you for your feedback!

6. Mary Lea McTurnanOctober 22,2025 at 4:58AM UTC

   What exactly do you want ?

   figure that out and then get on down with your resume . I thought you were an academic which is why I suggested CV. Good luck!

7. Mary Lea McTurnanOctober 22,2025 at 4:56AM UTC

   Not for academics

8. Mary Lea McTurnanOctober 22,2025 at 4:56AM UTC

   A skills based CV.

9. SPQOctober 26,2025 at 5:31PM UTC

   Refer to the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA). See if you can download their BABOK (BA book of knowledge), which will help ensure you use industry terminology throughout your resume. The first step is talking the talk.

   Doing this research will also help you come up with examples of how you actually performed BA work in your career without the title.

   Determine what type of BA role or industry you are targeting. Is it Data and Finance? IT? Process and Operations?

   Find at least 10 BA jobs in your target field and assess the job requirements for similarities (you can use AI). This becomes your master list.

   Use your master list of requirements and see if you can write out point form accomplishments from your previous work to match them.

   Finally, evaluate what you have and decide if you should go with a chronological or functional (skills based) resume, or a hybrid. Where a hybrid may begin with a functional look by listing the projects you were on that you contributed BA to, then go into a chronological list of jobs. Or it starts with your work experience, then highlights notable projects.

   As someone who's kept a pulse on the BA field for 10+ years,.I would recommend subscribing to job alerts daily. And actually look at them. The more you familiarize with the industry, the better positioned you are at marketing yourself and upskilling to keep relevant with high demand roles. I would also look at quite a number of LinkedIn profiles to see how other BAs are positioning themselves. BA posts on LI are quite interesting, you'll end up learning what top BAs bring to the table. Now you can craft that carefully into your work experience.

   As for which field to start in so that you're not starting from scratch.

   First I would recommend you take on side projects at work that can bolster your current position through the BA lens. Again, it's super important for you to know what is BA work and how do I describe it.

   Also, you may want to look for analysis type of work in the field of education. From what I've seen, they usually hire technical BAs to support system rollouts. However, if you're more interested in Operational excellence, you may have to tweak your search criteria because the title is almost never accurate.

10. SPQOctober 26,2025 at 5:58PM UTC

    Going back on your replies, you may best be suited to a resume that looks like this:

    NAME
    Eye grabbing one-liner.

    About You paragraph with bolded key words. Add an optional side bar with key BA skills, taking up not more than one-third of this paragraph. (Remember that key skills listed as words are just hot air, so you need to add *How* you showed up for this--example from mine--Relationship and Consensus Building.
    Phenomenal ability to establish rapport and create relationships that foster open collaboration, feedback, and shared accountability; mastery of establishing confidence, achieving consensus, or facilitating trade-offs or compromises that will ensure alignment of business needs when divergent interests arise.)

    SELECT PROJECTS.
    A dedicated section, which starts with the name of the project then goes into a short description of your accomplishments. (Be mindful about actually selecting these to tailor them to the job if you have more than that will fill the page. Overflow to the next page is not terrible, but you'll have to experiment.)

    WORK EXPERIENCE. If your titles are unrelated, I would lead with the company name and format that in a way that catches the gaze, perhaps bolded. Your role then becomes italicized and less noticeable.

    COMPANY Title (dates)
    One-line of your role in BA terms.
    - bullet point achievements related to BA work

    You'll figure out where to put your education, certifications, associations, and volunteer work once you get the basic structure down.

11. AnonymousOctober 29,2025 at 12:28PM UTC

    I agree with some of the posts here already - consider skills-based resume or add a section for "other experience".

    I have also eliminated my older roles from my resume to reduce ageism bias. I keep the last 15 years though as it highlights my leadership and has some "impressive" tech companies on it.

    I think networking for the field you want while in the field you in might help you bridge the gap and gain some internal referrals. Also look at smaller companies. They may actually look at a resume.

    Good luck :)