Military Service to Civilian Career

4 Essential Tips to Transition from the Military to Civilian Workforce

Attention to Orders! 

Your military life is being closed out and civilian life begins.

It can be a rough transition from full time, active military service to a civilian career.  This has definitely been felt for those combat personnel whose job has been a warrior, which role isn't really required in a civilized society.  However, the skills of every military personnel are valuable.

Whether you are just starting a career in the military or about to finish with  many years of service under your belt, use these tips and remember them.  The tips will help make the transition from military to civilian life much easier.

Action #1:  Plan Ahead

Planning ahead is essential!  Don't be a knucklehead and wait to the last minute to start thinking about your future. This is top priority.  The military to civilian transition is a process and should not start a month of two before you exit out of the military.

Use backwards planning.  The logic of backwards planning is planning the sequence of events base off your main objective.   Your main objective is your civilian career.  Plan accordingly all the necessary events that need to take place before you exit out of the military.  This will ensure your main objective - your civilian career objective - is obtainable in the future.  You may need to take a course or have time and experience in a certain role.  Whatever civilian career you select, see what the job requirements are months or years in advance and check those requirements off before you retire from the military.

Action #2:  Have more than one Skill

Jim Rohn is an American entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker.  He has been very successful from a young age.  In one of his speeches, Living an Exceptional Life, he advises that to have economic safety for the future you have to have more than one skill.  An additional skill could be to learn a different language, develop sales skills, network and find good people, know how to get people to work together, or accounting skills.  These are some examples, but the list can go on.

The point of learning more than one skill is to make yourself marketable and competitive.  Jim mentioned that with each added skill you have, your worth in money goes up.  You will be able to influence others effectively and when important occasions or problems arise you will have multiple skills to accomplish much and solve multiple problems.  If you know you will be looking at civilian jobs in the future, plan ahead and learn a few different skills.

For example, if you want to become a finance advisor, you may need a series 7 license, which requires passing an exam.  You may be required to have a bachelor's degree, have certain finance or accounting courses taken, and have expert knowledge about stocks and investments.  Having the requirements checked off for the civilian job before you get out of the military will set yourself up for success.


Action #3:  Use Resources

The military does have resources available for those that are making the transition to civilian careers.  Go to Careeronestop at http://www.careerinfonet.org/moc/.  This web site will help you, a military personnel, transform into a civilian professional.

Get resume and interviewing tips and professional help.  The website mentioned above will connect you with other websites and professionals that will help you with resumes and interviewing prep.  Most of the assistance is free too.  Using the resource and getting professional help is a MUST.  When you get out of a military the professional language, slang, meanings, approaches and...wait for it...customs and courtesies are different.

It will be very wise for you to invest your time and effort in visiting with a professional that can help you prepare for the military to civilian transition.  Do this BEFORE you get out of the military.  Why?  You've heard of rehearsals before a mission, right?  Bingo!  Take what you have learned and rehearse, rehearse and rehearse.  I will speak more about resumes in Action #4, but you will be taught important lessons about interviewing, writing and speaking skills, and interpersonal skills.  You will need to develop these "soft" skills and rehearsing will help you do that.  Rehearsing is a MUST!

Action #4:  Dumb Down / Civilize your resume

As I mention under action #3, military language, slang, and meanings are different in a civilian work environment.  The military has thousands of  acronyms and statements that a civilian professional has no idea what they mean.  If you wrote your resume using many of the military acronyms to describe what your military professional job was, don't even bother submitting your resume for a civilian job opening.  If you don't civilize your resume you and the civilian hiring manager will be on two different pages.  Only about 1% of the nation's population is in the military.  Therefore, if you write you were the MI BDE CSM, there is only a small number of civilians that may know what MI BDE CSM means.

I have one suggestion to dumb down your resume - have a professional resume writer de-militarize your resume.  Again, use the resources I mentioned in Action #3.  Once you have a civilize resume, read it over and over.  You need to become familiar with the new words, phrases, and statements that are used to describe your past military career.  When in a interview or being screened by a recruiter you will need to regurgitate what you have learned from reading your resume over and over.

Take these four tips, accomplish the mission each one suggests, and go forth and do good things as a civilian.  Another tip, do Internet searches to see what other tips you can gather.  One Common Suggestion ResumeCareerMentors.com mentions all the time is to always search online to find many ideas and ways to improve yourself.  We live in the age of information and through the Internet, its free and obtainable just by a mouse click.  Good Luck!

Web Job Applications and Tailored Resumes

Why is filling out web job applications with tailored resumes important?

Being in the field of reviewing resumes and applications and selecting the top three, I find it very easy to bypass many resumes.

You may think filling out online applications via online job boards (e.g. Careerbuilder.com, Monster.com, etc.) should be an easy and fast task because all you have to do is upload your resume, answer a few questions, and then hit the submit button.  However, that should be far from what you ought to do.  

"Luck is always the last refuge of laziness and incompetence" (James Cash Penney).  

A good interpretation of this quote could be the definition of incompetence:

Inability to do something successfully

Another quote - from the book of Proverbs 10:4 (King James Bible):

"He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand:  but the hand of the diligent maketh rich."

If you have not caught on, I'm trying to gradually but firmly establish a mind set to submit a application that will give you the best opportunity to be called for a job interview.  The best practice in applying for a job via online application is to Submit a Tailored Resume!

If you are not carefully reading the job description in the online job posting, you are wrong.  If you submit a resume that has not been updated for that particular job, you are wrong.  The difference between someone getting a call for a interview and someone NOT getting a call is directly related to what is on the resume.  There have been many times I have reviewed resumes of applicants and say to myself, "Did this person even read the job description?  Did they even look at the requirements?  They don't even have one requirement!" These type of applications I quickly skip over and move onto the next application.

If a resume has many similar key words or key phrases to that of the job description, a staffing agent or hiring manager will not hesitate to pick up the phone and try to set up a interview.  Often times (if not all the time) a staffing agent or hiring manager will use staffing software tools that will highlight key words or phrases that come from the job description.  For example, if I am looking for an administration assistant who has experience in QuickBooks and accounting I could use a staffing tool that will highlight the words:  "Administration, Admin, QuickBooks, Accounting, Account, Bookkeeping, and Book Keeping."  

For example, search results would highlight a resume like this: 

Jon Doe Resume

888-888-8888

Resume Parkway, Seattle, WA 84321

Objective

Seeking administration assistant position requiring accounting / finance skill set.

Professional Experience
Administration Assistant
Seattle, WA

• Performed month-end account payable / account receivable
• Proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Expert level in QuickBooks.  Certified in QuickBooks User and provided training to Jr co-workers.
• Answer phones and directed visitors as a front desk Administration Assistant. 

If the resume is plastered with highlights, a staffing agent or hiring manager will not hesitate to call the candidate.  If a resume does not have many highlights, the staffing agent will most likely skip over the resume.  The lesson is to make sure your resume has many key words and phrases so you can be identified as a qualified candidate.

**Extra gold nugget - if you are not actively seeking new employment, but want to entertain new opportunities, put your resume online (e.g. Careerbuilder.com, Monster.com, etc.).  Before you post your resume online, customize your resume with key words, skill sets and expertise you have.  When staffing agents and hiring managers do custom searches for your particular skills, your resume will pop up in their searches.

Actions to take to submit a tailored resume:
1) Carefully read the Job Description.  Identify the key skills that are required for the job.  Identify key words, phrases, responsibilities, and attributes.
2) Review the company's website that has the job opening.  Learn what kind of product or service the company provides, learn the mission statement, and then try to understand or visualize how the position you are applying for will aid in what the company is accomplish.  Spending 15 to 20 minutes on this task, could pay off.
3)  Have your resume and the job description side by side and begin tailoring your resume.  Pull key words and phrases off the job description and add them to your resume.  **This does not mean to fabricate your resume with words and phrases that do not match your expertise.  This means to customize your resume so it represents you and fits the needs of the job opening.  If you do not a have skill listed in the description, do not add it to your resume.

I hope this has been helpful.  There is much more that can be done to improve your resume, but tailoring your resume is one of the most important practices to do.  After all, it is your resume that is seen first and gives you the first and most of the time the only chance to be offered a job.