Positioning your CV and LinkedIn to reduce career change risk

When you want to change careers to Change Management, it can be super scary and a little bit risky. There are lots of things that can wrong, such as: 

failing to successfully transition

running out of money while you’re looking for a role

looking wishy-washy or unfocused to the market, 

And, getting blindsided by easy-win roles that drag you back to the past you’re trying to leave. 

For some people, myself included, they like to have the safety and security of having a lot of cash savings before changing careers. I needed to have built up that nest egg for myself to feel confident to make some risky change. But for you, it might not be about the finances. It might be about the positioning in the market. And while you can be thinking about building relationships, connecting with recruiters, and applying for jobs, a good place to start is simply positioning your CV and LinkedIn.

My top tip is to start today. 

Update your CV to be more aligned to Change Management roles as soon as you can. If you need you can watch my Intro to Change Management webinar (click here) and add on my Change Management CV Template at checkout. I talk with my Leading Successful Change students about the integration period and the time that it takes to gather momentum and shift the energy. The start is the hardest, so start earlier and you’ll have built that momentum for when you’re ready to make the move. Ideally this is at least 4-6 weeks out but there’s nothing to stop you from updating your CV 6 months out to get that energy starting to shift. 

Once you’ve updated your CV, definitely tackle your LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn is one of the best channels to position yourself and your goals in the market and your headline does NOT need to match your current role and can instead chunk up to a higher level value that you offer or hint at the direction you want to head. I can't stress enough that the reason that people find me is because I optimise my LinkedIn profile with keywords and key skills (which you get in the Intro to Change Management webinar). When you do that on your LinkedIn profile, people find you.

The platform is like any other social media platform. It rewards you for using it. Update your LinkedIn profile, that'll already look great. Any of the badges that you get from me for Intro to Change Management webinar and Leading Successful Change program, you can put on your profile which makes sure you pop and tells the market you’re serious about Change Management. Optimise all of your Skills area and especially things like your Headline and your Summary. And then get active on the platform. You don’t have to post, you can simply comment on or reshare other people’s content. For example, I have a LinkedIn network of over 9,000 people with lots of Change Managers, Change Analysts, Heads of Change, Change Directors, as well as too many recruiters to count in my network.  When you comment on one of my things, they see your name pop up that you commented on mine. Recruiters might start reaching out to you because LinkedIn is all about networking and aspiration now. 

By harnessing the power of positioning via your CV and LinkedIn, you can absolutely reduce the risks when you’re planning to make the career change to Change Management. 

Once you’ve updated your CV and LinkedIn, you can start reaching out to recruiters and letting them know you’ll be on the market soon. Get the ball rolling now, get into recruiter’s books and they’ll put your name in their database to reach out to you