7 Tactics To Gain Momentum When Transitioning Careers
How to craft a narrative that resonates, pitch your transferable skills, and bring unique value across industries and roles.
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(Path to the Unknown, Teddy the Corgi, California Coast, USA)
Throughout a career, most of us face a time when we need to or want to transition to a different role, a new industry, or both. The goal is to get into a place with higher growth potential, more alignment with our superpowers, or a better work-life balance. However, we often worry that we’ll “lose out” on the influence we’ve built, that manager role, or get down-leveled unfairly in interviews.
After a wide-ranging career, from consultant at McKinsey to Product Management (PM, PM manager, Chief Product Officer) to Venture Partner in early-stage VC to funded startup founder, I’ve found that there are a few important factors to focus on and play up as you make the transition. In this post, I share how I accelerated my career through transitions and position my experiences as an asset rather than a handicap with each step up the career ladder.
Tactic I: I Bring A Fresh Perspective
As the potential newest kid on the block, your biggest asset to companies is your fresh perspective and willingness to work hard. It’s mostly not your hard-earned (and expensive) college or 15 years of expertise (gasp). While recruiters use these as a first filter (fairly or not), you can get past this initial hurdle with persistence and creative networking. Rather than wallowing in how you “don’t have the right experience”, focus on demonstrating your ability to learn quickly, bring new ideas, and get things done.
From high school until my first full-time job after college, I worked as
a sales associate at a high-end men’s clothing store
receptionist at a Prosthodontist's office
analyst at an equity compensation startup
engineering intern at a global pharmaceutical company
admin for the School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley
operations intern at a public financial services company.
At first glance, these jobs don’t have much in common. The main value I pitched to the hiring manager across all these jobs was a strong work ethic combined with a new perspective and true curiosity. It was important to demonstrate this in the interview process by asking thoughtful questions and not being shy to admit what you don’t know.
Tactic 2: I Learn Quickly
Landing a Business Analyst role at McKinsey and Company in the mid 2000’s was notoriously competitive. Management consulting and investment banking were the prestigious top jobs for new grads and compensated well. I was able to stand out among the applicants by leaning into my strength as a quick learner — a critical skill for consultants hopping from project to project.
In general, hiring managers look for people who are ambitious, curious, and driven. What you lack in experience, you need to make up for in willingness to do more than the job description, and the ability to learn quickly.
When talking about your past experiences, weave in stories around how you delivered value quickly: Insert concrete timelines (e.g. in six weeks I did X, over the course of a few months I did Y), and include measurable outcomes (e.g. I drove project X which led to x% increase in revenue or y% decrease in operating costs, our project led to a follow on project for another 3 months, we delivered over xx% of savings to the client).
Be curious in your interviews and conversations about the job and the industry: what are the traits of people who do well? what are common pitfalls new hires face? what are some things that surprised you about the company or job you took?
The ability to learn quickly and adapt to the culture remained critical skills that served me well throughout my career.
Tactic #3: I am a Culture Bar Raiser
There’s a term in Silicon Valley when it comes to the type of people companies want to hire: Culture Bar Raisers. Where you may lack years of experience or industry-specific expertise, you can focus on your ability to bring the type of work ethic and
values the company desires. First, learn the company’s culture and values by grabbing coffee with previous employees, and friends of friends who work there. Be curious about what the working culture was like, what values leadership emphasized, and what they love/dislike about their jobs.
Notice and adapt your style to the culture of the workplace. Is it more traditional? Is it more nerdy? Are they more data-oriented or value design aesthetics? Speak to these nuances in your interviews to show that you are aware of the differences and that you are willing to work with them.
Tactic #4: I am a Consistent High Performer
With McKinsey, I continued to build a broad range of experiences. While my fellow Business Analysts (BAs) quickly honed in on a specific industry, function, or even partner to work with, my projects spanned a dizzying array of industries — pharmaceuticals, retail, financial services, manufacturing, and technology, and the functions — sales, marketing, operations, strategy, M&A.
My staffing manager didn’t know what to do with me: she couldn’t use her tried and true method of relying on past expertise in an industry or function to make me attractive to partners looking for analysts. And yet, I had little issue getting onto projects I wanted, including a stint in Shanghai and Beijing for a Multi-National Corporation (MNC).
I learned that your reputation is your ticket. Whether you are switching projects within a company or going from a healthcare company to a financial services company, your reputation can and will follow you. What enabled me to take on a variety of projects at McKinsey was my reputation for stellar performance on past projects. Partners were willing to vouch for my work to their colleagues.
In another example, after a brief stint as an Individual Contributor at Instagram, I managed to convince another product leader at Meta to “hire” me as a manager, and from there eventually led a team of 6 PMs and 100+ XFN. Why did he take the chance? The best leaders hire people who can do a better job than them in the role. Therefore, above all else, I made sure I was viewed as a high performer in your current role and focused on pitching that quality, rather than the fact that I had never worked in that particular product area. That is the foundation upon which people will consider you for lateral or stretch jobs. This involves more than just working hard and doing a good job. In Western business culture, it’s important to also advocate for your work and make your impact known.
References were references — it mattered a lot less that it was not in the same industry. Even if you are making drastic shifts in your career (e.g. from sales rep to lab scientist), your reputation and work ethic will hold. While past references cannot vouch for your ability to use a pipet, they will be able to speak to your persistence, attention to detail, and ability to sell a story to get research funding.
Tactic #5: This is The Obvious Next Step
Many people make the mistake of trying to include EVERYTHING they’ve done in their resume or narrative, just in case something stands out they didn’t expect. This simply confuses the hiring manager or recruiter.
Instead, understand what skillsets and accomplishments are most valued by the hiring manager and company, and highlight those. Scrap everything else in favor of a clear story arc. Being concise is critical — more information is not better.
Remember to weave a story with your resume that connects where you were to where you want to go, and how your past roles make you the best candidate for this future job. Coming out of business school, I had offers from venture firms, tech startups, and healthcare companies. For each, I had a different narrative and resume that highlighted a different set of relevant experiences.
During Harvard Business School, I used the time to double down on my transition into technology. Without any background in “tech”, I decided to get involved in entrepreneurship, working with a fellow HBS classmate on a wine e-commerce startup. I focused on operations and product development. We used our classmates as alpha customers and went through an accelerator program with DreamIt Ventures.
This allowed me to draw a clean arc from strategy consulting at large tech clients (leaving out the fact that I served many other industries) to product-oriented entrepreneurship to break into a first Product Manager role at Thumbtack.
I think of it like weaving a scarf. Your past experiences are like balls of yarn that can be woven together in all kinds of patterns and combinations. The goal of building a narrative is to weave the most attractive scarf for that hiring manager with those balls of yarn.
Tactic #6: I Know You
Invest early in your relationships with other smart, ambitious individuals you work with or go to school with. Those people will go on in five to ten years to become people who can open doors for you. They are the people who, in the future, will help you out with industry or function transitions, hire the best people, and make introductions to potential customers, partners, or investors.
When it comes to making successful lateral moves into new industries or companies, referrals open more doors than applying online. If you’re looking to raise money for your company or find clients for your business, you start with your network.
Relationships underlie how success can often beget success. Similar to the idea that “the rich get richer”, or why the VC ecosystem develops in specific close-knit geographies where there have been big VC “exits”, when you build a powerful network of people who are in places where they can open doors and who support each other, you get more chances to find success. Once successful, you can then in turn open doors for others in the network.
So, invest in your network early and smartly. Go for quality over quantity. Find ways to break into circles of talent. When people ask me if they should go to business school, I ask whether they need the network and whether the school they can get into will give them that network. When people ask me if they should go to a Tier I tech company, I ask them about the strength of their current network. Volunteering and mentoring can also be great ways to expand your network. People often underestimate this as a consideration factor in their career decisions — don’t make that mistake!
I’ve personally benefited greatly from my peer networks at McKinsey SF, Thumbtack early days, HBS, and Instagram. In a way, your success begets success in others, and vice versa. If social connection isn’t your strength, there are ways to build shared professional interests and goals that can be equally powerful.
That’s all folks! See you next week at 3:14 pm!
Yue
This post is adapted from a guest post I made on
in April 2024. You can find the original post here.