Is your resume ready for your career change? Does it generate enough impact to get interviews with perspective employers? Be sure it does before you send it out!

Let's say you're a teacher and your contract was not renewed. Your district made budget cuts and the inevitable finally happened - your job was eliminated. You saw the writing on the wall long before your job was eliminated and you went back to school for nursing. Smart - you were proactive and you took charge of your career.

So how do you write your resume to reflect your career change? Here are a couple of tips for your new resume.

• Tailor your resume to the job for which you are applying and not for the job you had.

• Remember, your teaching career is important, but ask yourself what your perspective employers want to know.

• Write your new resume with the job description in mind.

• Highlight all of the qualifications you have; your resume should align as closely as it can to the job description. Do not copy the job description - you won't be invited to interview if you do that.

• Add in all of your relevant transferable skills.

When you write your career change resume, remember the purpose of the document. The employer is looking for an individual to fill an open position and for someone with the right skill set, education, and professional background. So it is easy to see that the most effective resume is one that shows how closely your skills match the employer's job opening. It is the best way to demonstrate your level of expertise and how well you would fit in.

Clearly an employer looking for a nurse is looking for someone with medical training and a nursing degree. Since you have the necessary credentials, you're doing great. Ask yourself whether it is wise then to go into all of the gory details about how you exceeded district reading and math test score objectives. Or, would you be better off going into greater detail about your nursing skills, coursework, intern/externships, and the medical volunteer work you did.

Your new employer will be looking to see if you know your stuff when it comes to nursing. Make sure you get an interview by targeting your resume to the job you're looking for and appropriately addressing the needs of the employer as closely as your skill set will allow. Use these tips and your resume will get you an interview.