How Do You Write a Cover Letter When Changing Careers?

Updated Nov. 13, 2025 by Todd Dybas, editorial program manager at LinkedIn News.

TL;DR: Career-change cover letters are essential and should open with a clear, researched hook that explains your transition and reframes transferable skills using industry language to demonstrate value. Use a scannable format with brief bullets or highlights. Cite relevant training or certifications, and keep the tone positive and employer-focused rather than emphasizing gaps in experience.

By Lora Korpar

Cover letters can be a pain to write, but they are essential for a successful career change in most industries.

Cover letters are an ideal opportunity to explain why you are making a career transition and highlight how you would be a good fit even without direct experience.

“[Cover letters] are a necessary evil,” said Leigh Neys, a career coach and international education strategist. “People love to hate them, but the reality is many jobs still require a cover letter. And so they're an important component of the job process and need to be very thoughtful.”

1. Career Change Cover Letter vs. Regular Cover Letter 

A regular cover letter emphasizes the skills, training and experience an applicant has gained for a position, but someone transitioning to a new career may not have direct experience to highlight.

“When you're a career changer, you may not meet as much of the criteria in the job description as you would when you are looking for a similar role to what you've been doing,” Julie Wyckoff, a certified career transition coach and resume writer, said. “So the cover letter is a great opportunity to highlight the areas where you have skills that you bring in and address how some of your transferable skills may be able to fill those gaps.” 

You can land a job even without direct experience. Neys said to appeal to the new industry you are moving to.

“It's really important to position yourself in a way that certainly sells your skills and experience, but in the language and terminology of the industry that you're looking to work in,” Neys said.

2. How to Write a Compelling Cover Letter

Anna Morgan, a career transition consultant and recruiter, and Wyckoff said the first step to a strong cover letter is a successful hook and a user-friendly format.

“The biggest challenge with cover letters is getting them to be read,” Wyckoff said. “Getting [recruiters] to digest the information and writing it in snackable little bites is really important.”

Morgan said to treat the cover letter like a “marketing document,” making it as direct and concise as possible. Wyckoff said the first few sentences should be about why you want to work for the employer. This includes doing research into the company and its business goals.

“Make sure that you reflect back to them why you want to be a part of [their mission] right up front in the first couple of sentences,” Wyckoff said. “So the first few sentences are crucial to stating why you're interested in them, the connection between you and what you've been doing and where they're headed in their organization.”

Wyckoff also said to add underlined bullet points after your opening statement to make your cover letter more skimmable. Breaking information into smaller pieces will draw eyes to your letter because it is easier to read.

3. How to Explain a Career Change in a Cover Letter

Describe why you are changing careers in your letter, especially if it is a dramatic shift. Hiring managers often wonder “Why?” when reviewing a nontraditional applicant, so it’s important to address that question briefly. 

Morgan said explaining your career transition will also help you appear more relatable to recruiters.

“We all like a hero's journey, a comeback story,” Morgan said. “So I don't advise oversharing… but I do believe in relatability and the human condition. Most of us have had a career pivot or a life situation where we had to adjust and found we had strengths in [new fields] and we're continuing to educate ourselves.”

However, Neys advised against using this section to criticize your previous employer.

“There's certainly valid reasons that people want to leave jobs, but it's not the place to talk about your bad boss or the horrible pay,” Neys said. “But you can say you're looking for a growth opportunity or a culture that aligns best with your values. And putting those valid reasons in a positive light is totally appropriate because if you don't put it in your cover letter, you're likely going to get that question at an interview.”

4. How to Accentuate Transferable Skills in a Cover Letter When Changing Careers

The most important aspect of yourself to highlight in your cover letter is how the skills in your previous industry will apply to the new one.

But how do you discover your transferable skills? Morgan suggests evaluating what you learned in your previous industry.

“I always invite clients to do a career inventory so they have a very solid list of those core competencies, assets and strengths,” Morgan said. “And that could be also just going through their own profile and auditing the skill section.”

Neys said to look over your current resume and search through job postings in the position you want, then find commonalities. 

“Sometimes what I find is in different industries, there's just different ways of positioning similar experiences,” Neys said. “And so you can draw out some of the experiences you've had that are very applicable and use the language that the other industry is using.”

Wyckoff also said to highlight your natural skills by mentioning personality assessments like the CliftonStrengths and describing how you applied those strengths to past work experiences. The CliftonStrengths Assessment identifies your natural talents and suggests how to develop them into strengths.

“What's great about strengths coaching is your strengths are innate talents you're born with, so it really doesn't matter what you've done in the past from an experience perspective,” Wyckoff said. “You might naturally be good at problem-solving or have an aptitude for building connections with others. So speaking to those strengths can be really powerful for career changers.”

Morgan added that you should be creative when thinking about transferable skills. The way your skills carry over isn’t always obvious.

“It might be three of your main skills from the hospitality industry that would equal one of the core skills you would need to be successful as a sales specialist for an engineering firm,” Morgan said. “But be able to look at those required skills and make a list under each of them [and say], ‘Based on my experience, I believe these things would help me demonstrate why I'm qualified to learn this skill.’”

However, not all skills will be transferable. We must admit to ourselves there will be learning to do. Morgan, Neys and Wyckoff recommend avoiding any mention of skill gaps in your cover letter.

Don’t lead with “I don’t have…” or “I don’t know…”. Instead, emphasize that you are a quick learner open to new experiences. Mentioning examples of how quickly you’ve learned new skills in the past can be beneficial.

Wyckoff said the cover letter should also reference training or certification you’ve completed for the new industry. Add this even if you don’t have experience using it in the workplace yet. And express your enthusiasm about learning more in the letter.

“You're highlighting the assets that you do have and demonstrating how you overcame, learned, fast-tracked, figured out things and had success in spite of not having that particular [experience] prior to starting a past position,” Morgan said.

5. How to Appeal to the Hiring Team in the Cover Letter

Neys, Morgan and Wyckoff say a vital practice when writing a successful cover letter is putting yourself in the recruiter or hiring manager’s shoes. 

Wyckoff said you can frame having an outside perspective as an advantage. For example, if your previous employer was a customer of the organization you’re applying to or a similar organization, you can bring a unique perspective to a customer service role.

“The unique lens through which a candidate may be able to contribute to the business may be an advantage over the pool of candidates who have been doing the same role in that field all along,” Wyckoff said.

A common pitfall in any cover letter is only talking about yourself and failing to mention how you would fit into the company.

“We want to make it less about us and more about the problem we can solve for the prospective organization,” Morgan said. “See if we can lessen the ‘I’ language and make it more about the organization and come from a place of gratitude and intrigue.”

“So by flipping your mindset and saying ‘All right, if I wanted to hire me what would be important for the committee to learn?’ you're doing a much better job of selling yourself because you're showing how you can provide value to the company,” Neys added. “Framing your cover letter as not just a retrospective of what you've done, but of what you can do to help this new organization is really key.”

Frequently Asked Questions About Cover Letters When Changing Careers

• How do I write a cover letter for a career change? Start with a compelling opening that states your motivation for switching fields, map relevant accomplishments to the role’s needs and end with a clear call to action for next steps.
• What should I highlight if I lack direct experience in the new field? Emphasize practical, cross‑industry competencies and measurable outcomes from past roles that demonstrate your ability to learn and perform in the new position.
• What format makes a career pivot cover letter easy to read? Keep it concise, use short paragraphs and a few bolded or bulleted lines to showcase key strengths and any recent coursework or credentials that support your candidacy.