Step 2: Build your materials · topic 5 of 5

Tell the story of your change, and explain a gap

Two questions come up in almost every conversation a career changer has: "Why are you leaving your field?" and, if there's a gap, "What have you been doing since?" Neither is a trap. Both are a chance to show you've thought about where you're going.

Ibarra's research on career change describes part of the work as making sense of the change: putting together a story that links who you were to who you're becoming ^[1]. You don't need it to be finished. You need a version that's true today and short enough to say in 30 seconds.

Write the story in three sentences

1. What you did, and what you were good at. Use the industry-free language from moving out of a niche.
2. What pulled you toward the new work. Keep it about where you're going, not about what you're escaping.
3. How your past makes you useful in the new role. This is the bridge, and it's the sentence that matters most.

Example: "For eight years I ran logistics for large trade shows, where everything has to work on the day. Over the last two years the part I enjoyed most was fixing how our vendors and teams handed work over. I'm moving into healthcare facilities operations because it's the same kind of problem with higher stakes, and I'm used to planning for the thing that will go wrong."

Use the same story, in slightly different lengths, in your resume summary, your LinkedIn About section and the first minute of a conversation. When the three match, people trust the change.

Explain a gap in two lines

Most gaps have an ordinary reason: caring for someone, health, a layoff and a long search, study, a move, or time to work out what's next. You don't owe anyone the details.

1. One line on what happened, in plain words, without apology.
2. One line on what you're ready for now, ideally with something you did during the gap.

Example: "I took 14 months out to care for a family member. I'm back full time now, and I used the last few months to finish a project management certificate."

If the gap was a long search, that's fine to say too: "I've been looking for the right operations role since my team was cut in March, and I've been doing freelance scheduling work alongside."

On LinkedIn you can add a career break to the Experience section of your profile, so the gap has a label instead of a blank ^[2].

Practise it out loud

Say both answers aloud three or four times, to a friend or to your phone's voice recorder. Notice where you speed up, apologize or over-explain, and cut that part. Interviews, offers and negotiation are outside the scope of this guide for now; they're things we can work on in coaching sessions.