Changing fields without pretending you have not

The transferable claim has to be specific to be believed.

Career changers are advised to emphasise transferable skills, and the advice fails when it is applied generically, because a claim that leadership transfers is unfalsifiable and therefore unpersuasive. The reader's actual concern is concrete: will this person be able to do this job, and how long until they are useful.

Answering that requires being specific about which parts transfer and honest about which do not. Naming the gap yourself, and stating what you have done to close it, is considerably more credible than an implicit claim that there is no gap. Readers are generally receptive to a person who has assessed their own position accurately.

Evidence matters more here than anywhere. Something built, studied, or done in the new field, however small, converts an assertion of interest into a demonstrated one, and it is the single thing that most often distinguishes successful changers.

It is also worth being realistic about level. A move across fields frequently involves a step back in seniority, and applications that ignore this are rejected for reasons the applicant never learns. Naming a willingness to enter at a level appropriate to the new field removes an objection nobody will raise with you.

The other move available to career changers is to reduce what is being asked of the employer. A short contract, a defined project, or a role slightly below the target level all lower the risk the hiring manager is taking, and risk rather than capability is usually what stops these applications. Proposing that explicitly is unconventional and works more often than the conventional approach of asserting transferability.