Upcoming Events

By Julie Kuhns, Healthcare Transformation Leader and Nonprofit Board Member

If you are considering a career change, returning after time away from work, or trying to explain a resume that does not follow one obvious path, it is easy to assume you are starting over.

You are not.

In career conversations, I often hear people describe their experience as “all over the place.” They point to a gap in employment, a role that does not match the title they want next, or work completed outside a traditional workplace. Those experiences are not random. They are evidence of how you learn, contribute, solve problems, and earn trust.

That is your career throughline: the thread that connects experiences that may look unrelated on paper into a meaningful story about who you are and how you work.

Consider someone who has been a store manager, cake decorator, caregiver, and dog walker. At first glance, those roles may not seem connected. But look closer.

A store manager may be trusted with cash, keys, daily operations, and a team. A cake decorator is responsible for getting important details right for a milestone celebration. A caregiver is entrusted with someone’s well-being. A dog walker often holds the key to a client’s home and cares for a pet that is part of the family.

The job titles are different. The underlying strengths are not.

The throughline might sound like this:

“Throughout my work, people have trusted me with important responsibilities. I take ownership, pay attention to detail, and follow through with care.”

That is much more powerful than trying to force every past job into a single career category.

Why your throughline matters

Your throughline helps a prospective employer, mentor, or networking contact understand more than your job history. It helps them see your strengths, your values, and the kind of contribution you are likely to make in any role, regardless of title.

My own path has included floral design, healthcare program leadership, human resources, and digital transformation strategy. On paper, those experiences could look disconnected. In reality, they have been connected by the same instincts: curiosity about how systems work, an interest in human behavior, and a desire to make complicated things clearer and more manageable for people.

Whether I was arranging flowers, improving a process, leading a complex portfolio, or helping people navigate change, I kept returning to the same questions: What do people need? What is getting in their way? How can we create a better path forward?

That is my throughline.

How to find yours

1. Look for patterns across your experiences.
   What kinds of problems do people ask you to solve? What work gives you energy? What do colleagues, customers, friends, or community members consistently rely on you for?
2. Name how you work.
   Think beyond your job title. How do you approach a challenge? What do you notice that others may miss? How do you help a team, client, customer, or community move forward?
3. Connect strengths to evidence.
   Do not just say you are organized, dependable, collaborative, or adaptable. Share a brief example that shows it. What did you coordinate? What obstacle did you work through? What changed because you were involved?
4. Tell a forward-looking story.
   If you want to become a project coordinator but have not held that exact title, look for relevant experiences wherever they occurred. Perhaps you organized a fundraiser, community event, volunteer initiative, or family project. You may have coordinated budgets, vendors, timelines, communication, volunteers, and event-day logistics. Those are real, relevant capabilities.

Your goal is not to pretend every experience was part of a perfectly planned path. Few careers unfold that way. Your goal is to help others understand the value you bring from one chapter to the next.

Your experience is not a collection of disconnected chapters. It is evidence of what people trust you with, how you respond when something matters, and the strengths you bring into every room. The story is already there. Your work is to recognize it and tell it with confidence.

If you would like help identifying your throughline, consider speaking with a PA Women Work career coach and asking about the 3 Cups of Coffee Program.