Dear Annie: I'm in my mid-30s and have had four management jobs where I've been what you might call a "fixer." The jobs have been vastly different from each other, in different industries -- including e-commerce, public relations, and event planning -- but I've produced great results at each of them, taking three small businesses and one large one from the brink of collapse to great success.

    Luckily, my reputation has gotten around in the city where I live now, and employers have sought me out with new opportunities. But I'm considering a move to another city on the other side of the country, where I'm an unknown quantity, and since my experience is so varied, I'm having difficulty explaining to companies there what it is that I do, exactly. Can you give me any pointers on how to build a resume that ties it all together? -- Jack of 3 Trades

Dear Jack: For what it's worth, you've got plenty of company. The recession bumped lots of people out of their old jobs and into new roles in unrelated fields. Taking any work they could get to pay the bills has left these folks with an assortment of experience that can be hard to tie together into a tidy narrative. Not only that, but millennials, that vast cohort just a few years your junior, are notorious for changing jobs every couple of years no matter what the economy is doing.

    "I hear questions about how to 'package' a variety of jobs all the time, often from people in their 20s who have tried out lots of different things in hopes of finding their niche," says Robert Hellmann, a New York City career coach. Partly through national career-development network The Five O'Clock Club, he has counseled managers at JP Morgan Chase (JPM), the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, American Express (AXP), and elsewhere.

    "Writing a resume that works can also be a challenge for people who have moved around a bit within one field, but who now want to change careers and do something else entirely," Hellmann adds -- including several of his current clients who aspire to quit Wall Street.

    The key is to figure out what it is that you want to do now and then tailor your resume accordingly. "Once you've set a clear goal for your next move, getting there becomes much easier," Hellmann says. That's because "your resume and cover letter do not have to be a literal description of every job you've ever had. Instead, focus on what you can do for each prospective employer and emphasize only the aspects of your experience that are directly relevant."

    Hellmann notes that "the usual mistake people make is to throw all their experience out there and leave it up to employers to figure out how it fits. The trouble is, they won't. You have to do that for them."

    Once you've decided what kind of job you want, Hellmann says, write a strong summary paragraph for the top of your resume that describes only those parts of your experience that relate to it. "That paragraph will also be the core of your cover letter, your two-minute 'elevator speech,' and what you talk about in job interviews," Hellmann says. "Then, in the body of the resume, filter out anything that doesn't connect to the job you're trying to get."

    For example, one of Hellmann's coaching clients worked for a real estate firm, mostly "making sure tenants paid their rent on time," but he wanted to be a financial analyst. "He really liked the financial analysis courses he took in college, and he excelled at them, including winning a couple of awards for projects he had worked on," Hellmann says. "So we wrote a resume around those projects and highlighted the roughly 20% of his real estate job that involved financial analysis." The client got a financial analyst job.

亲爱的安妮：我已经三十出头，从事过四份管理工作，你也许会把我做的这些工作称为“协调者”。这些工作彼此千差万别，涉及不同的行业——包括电子商务、公关和活动策划——但是我在每个行业都做出了不错的成绩，把三家小企业和一家大公司从崩溃的边缘挽救回来，获得了巨大的成功。

    幸运的是，我在目前生活的城市建立了良好声誉，雇主纷纷找上门来，为我提供新的就业机会。然而，我却考虑搬到美国另一边的某个城市，我在那里人生地不熟，由于我的工作经验丰富多样，我很难向公司解释清楚我能做些什么。你能否给我点建议，如何打造一份条理清晰的简历？——做过三个行当的杰克

亲爱的杰克：值得一提的是，很多人和你有相似的经历。经济衰退让很多员工丢掉了他们原来的工作，在毫不相干的领域担任了新的职位。只有找到工作，他们才能付账单，这让拥有各种各样工作经验的人很难整理出一份清晰明了的简历。不仅如此，还有千禧一代，这些人数众多的求职者只比你年轻几岁，无论经济形势如何，他们出了名的爱跳槽，每隔几年都会换个工作。

    纽约职业顾问罗伯特•赫尔曼说：“我总是会听到如何包装各种工作经验的问题，这些人通常在20多岁的时候就尝试了许多不同的工作，希望找到他们的理想职业。”通过全国职业咨询网站“五点钟俱乐部”（The Five O'Clock Club），他为摩根大通银行（JP Morgan Chase）、纽约联邦储备银行（the Federal Reserve Bank of New York）、美国运通（American Express）和其他公司的经理人提供了咨询服务。

    “有些人在某个领域做过各种工作，不过他现在想换个职业，从事完全不同的工作。在写简历的过程中，以前工作经验就会成为他们的挑战，”赫尔曼补充道——包括他现在的几位客户，他们都渴望离开华尔街。

    关键问题在于弄清楚你现在想做什么工作，然后采取相应的行动，量身定制自己的简历。赫尔曼说：“如果你为下一步行动设定了明确的目标，那么行动起来就会变得很容易。”这是因为“你的简历和求职信不必长篇累牍地描述你从事过的每份工作，而是侧重于你可以为未来的雇主做什么，只强调你和这份工作直接相关的经验。”

    赫尔曼指出：“人们普遍的错误是在简历上堆砌所有的工作经验，让老板去判断这份简历是否合适。麻烦的是，老板才不会这么做。我们必须为他们整理好简历。”

    赫尔曼表示，如果你决定自己想要从事哪种工作，那么在简历的开头撰写有力的摘要段落，只描述与此相关的工作经验。赫尔曼说：“这段文字也将作为你的求职信、你的两分钟‘快速演讲’和你在工作面试中谈话的核心内容。然后，在简历的正文部分，略去那些和你想从事工作无关的内容。”

    比如，赫尔曼有位咨询客户为一家房地产公司工作，他的职责主要是“保证租户按时支付租金”，但是他想成为一名金融分析师。“他非常喜欢在大学里攻读的金融分析课程，他获得了优异的学术成绩，包括他研究的项目还赢得了几个奖项，”赫尔曼说。“因此我们围绕这些项目撰写了简历，强调他大约20%的房地产工作涉及到金融分析领域。”这位客户最终得到了金融分析师的工作。

    Another client had been a teacher for four years and then a psychotherapist for over a decade, but wanted to go into sales. She and Hellmann wrote a resume with "just a one-line place-holder for those four years of teaching, so there wouldn't be a gap in her work history. But the main emphasis was on the marketing and self-promotion that any self-employed person has to do," Hellmann recalls. "She had succeeded in building enough buzz for her therapy practice that she grew her client base by 33% over two years. So, in her resume for sales jobs, she highlighted that and described how she did it." She got hired as a salesperson.

    Of course, the fact that you're hoping to move to a different city where no one knows what you've accomplished does complicate matters a bit. But by laying some groundwork ahead of time -- including doing some selective long-distance networking before you pack your bags -- you can identify opportunities from afar. Social media, especially LinkedIn and Twitter, can be especially helpful for this purpose, but don't overlook the possibility that your fans in your current city might know some movers and shakersin the town you're going to. Ask them to recommend you, and you may be halfway to your next gig. Good luck.

Talkback: Have you ever looked for a job in a different field, or tried to explain a mixed bag of experience to a potential employer? What worked for you? Leave a comment below.

    另一位客户当了四年的老师，然后当了十年的心理医生，然而她想投身销售领域。这位客户和赫尔曼共同撰写了简历，“只有一行提到了四年的教学生涯，这样不会在她的工作履历上出现空白。不过简历主要强调市场营销和自我宣传方面，这是任何自雇人士必需的能力，”赫尔曼回忆道。“她成功地为自己的治疗工作打造了良好的口碑，她的客户群在过去两年中增长了33%。因此，在她申请销售工作的简历中，她强调了这一点，而且描述了她的具体做法。”她最终得到了录用，成为了一名销售人员。

    当然，鉴于你希望搬到另一座城市生活，那里没有人知道你此前的职业成就，这让问题显得更为复杂。不过你可以提前奠定基础——包括在你收拾行李前，有选择地积累远方的人脉——你可以确定那边的工作机会。社交媒体，尤其是商务社交媒体LinkedIn 和Twitter，在这方面会特别有帮助，不过别忽视你所在城市的拥趸，他们可能认识你目标城市里的实权派。请他们为你推荐，也许你下份工作就成功了一半。祝你好运！

反馈：你曾经在不同的领域寻找工作，或者向潜在的雇主解释复杂的工作经验吗？哪些做法对你有用？请在下面发表评论。（财富中文网）

    译者：孟洁冰