Changing careers creates a chicken-and-egg problem: you need experience to get the job, and the job to get experience. A portfolio breaks the loop because it shows ability, not job titles.
Translate what you’ve already done
List the projects from your current job that use the skills the new job needs. A teacher moving into learning design has written curricula. A retail manager moving into operations has run rotas, stock and budgets. Describe these projects in the language of the new field.
Do two or three small projects
Pick realistic briefs and do them properly: redesign a local charity’s donation page, analyse a public dataset, write a policy brief, build a simple app. Small and finished beats ambitious and abandoned. Say clearly that they are self-initiated.
Explain the move in one paragraph
People wonder why you’re changing. Answer it before they ask: what drew you to the new field, what you’ve done to prepare, and what you bring from before that others don’t.
Get one external voice
A testimonial from a course tutor, a volunteer coordinator or a client from a side project makes the change feel less risky to an employer.
Keep your history, briefly
Don’t hide your previous career. Put it in the experience section with one line per role. Years of reliable work are evidence too.
Fuccura lets you keep separate portfolios with different templates, so you can have one for the old field and one for the new while you make the move.