Applying to cabin crew in your 30s after a corporate career: what to leave off the CV and what to keep

I joined Virgin Atlantic at 31 after nine years in insurance, so I have opinions about the CV for career changers, and I see the question every week from people with an office background who think the whole thing counts against them. It does not. But the CV has to be rebuilt, not trimmed.

What to leave off

The job titles that mean nothing outside your industry. 'Senior Claims Adjuster II' tells a recruiter nothing. The software list. The certificates in things nobody on an aircraft cares about. The two paragraphs about your promotion path. And the objective statement about 'seeking a new challenge', which reads as 'I am bored'.

What to keep, rewritten

Everything that involved people, conflict, deadlines and calm. In insurance I spent nine years talking to people on the worst day of their year. That became one line: 'Handled 30 to 50 calls a day from customers reporting accidents, floods and bereavements; trained to de-escalate and to deliver difficult news.' That is a cabin crew line. It was always a cabin crew line. I just had not written it that way.

Team leadership, if you had it, in terms of people not org charts. Any customer facing volume. Any public speaking or presenting. Any time you were the one calm person in a room.

The age question

Nobody asked. Virgin's training group had a 44 year old. The assessors care whether you can do the job and whether you will stay. If anything the corporate people are seen as more likely to stay, because we chose this deliberately.

The salary question

Have an answer ready for the interview for 'you will be earning less than before, are you sure'. Mine was true: I had done the maths, I had savings for the first year, and I wanted the job more than the salary. They wrote it down. A vague answer to that question is what actually gets career changers rejected, not the age.

What surprised me

How much of the corporate experience was useful in training. I could read a manual, take notes, sit an exam and manage my time. The 21 year olds struggled with that part more than with the drills. And two years in, the office habits (turning up early, replying to emails, keeping a diary) are why I have a clean record.

If you are 30 plus with a desk job and wondering: rebuild the CV around people and pressure, have the money answer ready, and apply. The cabin is full of us.