Your career narrative is the story you tell about your career — how your past experiences connect to where you want to go next. It explains your transferable skills and helps others (and yourself) see how experience gained in different contexts is relevant to your target role.

Many people underestimate how much their existing experience already applies to new careers. The key is learning how to reframe that experience to highlight transferable skills and demonstrate value in a new context, rather than focusing only on job titles or industries.

A strong career narrative is built by:

• Identifying your core transferable skills and linking them to your target role
• Reframing past experiences into clear, short examples that demonstrate those skills in action
• Practising how to communicate your story clearly, confidently, and consistently

Confidence grows through repetition and real conversations. The more you practise articulating your career narrative, the easier it becomes to communicate your value in a way that feels natural, credible, and aligned to the direction you are moving toward.

Part 1: Define your pitch

1. Identify 3–5 core transferable skills you want to highlight. These skills should be skills that:
   • Have a high relevance to your target role
   • You are highly skilled in and want to be known for
   • You enjoy using
2. For each skill, write a short example from your past experience that demonstrates it in action.
3. Link each example to your target role by noting how that skill is relevant in the new context.
4. Summarise your overall narrative in 2–3 sentences:
   • Who you are professionally
   • What experience and value you bring, and how it is relevant to where you are heading
   • Focus on transferable skills, not job titles

Part 2: Practice your pitch with others

1. Share your pitch with friends, family, or people in your network.
2. Practise saying it out loud in a natural conversation, rather than reading it verbatim.
3. Ask for feedback on:
   • Clarity and how easy it is to understand
   • What strengths stand out most strongly
   • What roles or directions they think your skills might align with
4. Notice patterns in the feedback you receive – especially where others see strengths you may not have fully recognised.
5. Update your pitch based on feedback and reflection, and continue refining until it feels clear and natural to you.