#TBCResults: From a 5-year career break to a finance role at a FMCG in Spain
#TBCResults - 045 - Arianna: From a 5-year career break to a finance role at a FMCG in Spain
Arianna’s Problem:
“My end goal is to fix up my resume, improve my interview skills, and find a job. Also some direction in life.”
“I want a job in finance, but right now that is extremely broad and I need help trying to narrow it down.”
The world is truly a small place. Because Arianna and I were kindergarten classmates back in Manila, and now we’re in a Google Meet call as I sit at my dining table in the Netherlands and she sits in her home office in Spain.
We’re here because she needs help getting back into the corporate world.
Arianna’s taken a few years off from corporate to change her life. Namely she:
Finished her 2nd masters in finance in Spain. (Her 1st masters in finance, she got back in the Philippines.)
Taught English to Spanish kids of different ages.
Got married and worked on all the logistics involved. (I used to think this wasn’t that difficult but now I’m thinking about getting married. I was wrong. There are a million logistical nightmares involved, especially if one or both of you are abroad. It is the equivalent workload to a full-time job. This is not easy. I have huge respect for Arianna and everyone else who attempts this.)
And now she’s ready to get back into working for corporate.
Her initial problem though was, she has no idea what to do or where to start. So she called me for help. And I’m happy to help, because this is one of my favorite types of problems to solve.
“Specifically, Arianna’s problem was that she didn’t know how to communicate to the Spain job market that her finance skills were still sharp and that she was ready to get to work.
So what we had to do was build a better understanding of what the market’s asking for, and in parallel document all of her strengths, transferrable skills, and experiences. That way we could present Arianna as a top candidate.”
We just had 2 small problems to work around. Namely she:
Wants to be fully remote or to find a role in the same town she's in. (She didn’t live in Barcelona or Madrid.)
Had < 1 year of full-time corporate experience prior to all these life changes.
Nothing we can’t work around, but I was clear with her on expectations. The job wouldn’t come quick, nor would it come as an mid-career level up role. There’d be a lot of work on her part, but we can and would get her into a new finance role if she had patience and trust in the method.
She understood, and we got started.
So where did we start?
With Arianna documenting all of her experiences. And I mean all of it. From the projects she did during her masters to the additional tasks she took on as a teacher, everything was documented in both her resume and her portfolio. Then I reviewed it all and started finding the key skills we’d highlight in her applications.
Once we got a clear idea of what her transferrable skills to highlight were, we started building her career story. This is how she’d explain her life and career decisions, plus how that helped her build the skills needed to thrive in this role (whatever that role is).
The Bumpy Career’s Proposed Solution:
Arianna’s situation sounds complicated at first, what with moving countries, and taking a few years off to get her degrees and personal life logistics in order. But if you simplify it to what’s the core question we need to solve, it gets
The core question being “How do you land a job that hits your ideal checklist and in the shortest amount of time?”
And I call my answer, The Bumpy Career’s Status Shift Method which comprises of 4 steps.
1️⃣ Audit & Align (Get Clear and Set the Goal)
You tell me what you want — no matter how vague, ambitious, or uncertain it feels right now. I’ll assess whether it’s feasible based on your background, goals, and current situation during our scoping call.
You’ll also gather your career map, which includes:
A Masterfile resume with everything you’ve done so far
An Ideal Job List divided into Dream Companies, Great Companies, and Safety Nets
An Ideal Offer Checklist broken down into Must-Haves, Nice-to-Haves, and Red Flags
Together, we’ll identify the gaps and misalignments between where you are and where you want to go.
2️⃣ Optimize & Strategize (Build the Roadmap)
Next, we rework your “career map” into something sharper and more strategic:
A targeted resume, an optimized LinkedIn, and a weekly job hunt system
Addressing skill gaps or possible portfolio pieces
Aligning your positioning with what your ideal employers actually want to see
Every move from here on is intentional.
3️⃣ Sharpen & Showcase (Boost Visibility and Make Your Case)
Here’s where we make you visible to the right people:
A LinkedIn networking plan with clear scripts and targets
Custom portfolios or case studies (if applicable)
Interview prep that tells the right story: how you got here and why you’re the right fit
A tight elevator pitch that makes you sound like the obvious candidate
We only get one shot to make the best impression. We’re not wasting it.
4️⃣ Execute & Secure (Apply, Interview, Win)
You’ll apply strategically, focusing only on high-impact roles.
Then we prep for interviews, negotiate offers, and secure a role that fits the vision we clarified in Step 1.
We also course-correct as needed — your strategy evolves based on market feedback, and we’ll adjust through optional catch-up calls.
And we do all of this in < 4 hours of live coaching.
💡 Why The Bumpy Career’s Status Shift Method™ Works
✅ You get clear on the right job. No more random applications and hoping for the best.
✅ You stay strategic, not reactive. Every step is mapped, not improvised.
✅ You move fast and efficiently. No overthinking or second-guessing.
✅ You land offers with confidence. Because you know you’re showing up as your sharpest self.
Back to Arianna.
Once we had her resume, cover letter, and portfolio set up, it was just a matter of figuring out the right approach for applying.
We started with parallel approach of cold applying and networking. Since we didn’t know what would work best given her situation, it was best to try both at the same time for the first few weeks and regularly review where we were seeing progress.
Timeline and Deliverables:
We had 3 1-hour calls where we:
✅ Built a strong resume, highlighting her transferrable skills from her teaching career to the projects she developed during her masters degree. We focused on building a 1-page finance resume with strong soft skills.
✅ Built a cover letter that was easy to customize and talked about her career story that subtly explained why she took her career break.
✅ Built a strong portfolio that showcased her data analytics skills. I wanted her applications to stand out as much as possible, and the clearest way to do that is always with a portfolio.
✅ Built out her ideal offer checklist, where we made it clear what locations she was willing to work in and what was her ideal salary range based on local standards.
✅ Built out her job hunting tracker and figured out the remaining gaps between her and these ideal roles.
✅ Built up her LinkedIn.
✅ Interview practiced, especially on getting her career story right and about how she’d approach certain work situations using her past experience.
✅ Developed her networking points, from her elevator pitch introducing herself to the questions she’d ask about the work an the company.
✅ !! Most important !! Worked on her mindset and approach to the job hunt, that this would take time given the strict set of criteria and the assets she’s bringing in. But that this would get done. She just needed to stay focused and not let the long timelines or rejections get her down.
Outcome:
Arianna came out of our calls with a strong resume, interview skill set, and portfolio. She was ready to go interview, be it in English or Spanish.
The real issue was, would her cold applications get her through to the initial interviews? I knew that if he could just pass this initial stage, she’d do great in the interviews. I just worried if what we built was strong enough to get past all the initial filters.
Thankfully, they were!
Arianna signed a job offer bringing her finance and data analysis skills into a major FMCG 5 months after we signed on to working together.
Even better, she would be working exactly in the city she was living in. So she’d be building up valuable connections at the workplace without having to commute (or worse, move!)
We hit her goals and more in great time given the initial situation we’re in. And Arianna really developed new networking skills quickly that will continue to serve her well, which I’m quite proud of her for. I know that she’s going to go far, and am excited to see what happens next for her.
Some words from Arianna herself:
I knew that Arianna would land a job once we got the foundations right. I already cautioned her it wouldn’t be quick given the long timelines of applying in Europe and the strict job offer guidelines she had for herself. And she kept that in mind to be more flexible in what she applied to and more proactive with what she negotiated for herself.
My greatest wish is that her new company gives her the space to develop into the top finance professional I know she can become~ This is just the start for her new career in a new country after all.
***
The Bumpy Career is the career coach for the confused high achiever.
Meaning you're the type of person that if you know where to go and what you had to do, you'd be number 1 in an instant. But you're a bit confused today on exactly that: where to go and what to do.
That's where I come in.
We'll work together to give you a actionable roadmap to make your career live up to your expectations. If that sounds great to you, then learn more about how we can make it happen here and let's talk soon~