Adjacent Roles
Tailoring moves you sideways well. It does not teleport you.
Change one variable at a time and the story writes itself.
Adjacency is a real argument
Same function, new domain. Same domain, new function. One of those two usually holds, and that is what makes the case.
Lead with what transfers
Put the transferable work first and let the unfamiliar domain be the second thing they read, not the first.
Two jumps at once is rare
New function and new domain and a level up is not tailoring, it is a different search. Worth knowing before you spend six weeks on it.
Before
A fintech backend engineer applying to a health-tech backend role, leading with 'payments experience'.
After
The same engineer leading with 'regulated-domain systems, audit trails and data retention' — then payments as the setting.
The domain word was doing the work in the first version, and it is the part that does not transfer. The second names the constraint the new employer actually shares.
Do this before moving on
Write your target role next to your current one. If both the function and the domain change, find the intermediate step — the role that changes one of them — and consider aiming there first.
Check yourself
Which of these is the most realistic single switch?