The announcement of this year’s Most Valuable Employer (MVE) for Military® award finalists will spur scores of savvy military experienced job seekers to apply to military-friendly companies, and rightfully so. However, military experience is not a guaranteed foot in the door. So if you are among this group, you may be wondering how to better your chances of landing a coveted MVE career. The following steps will lead you in the right direction:

Step 1. Get inside their heads.

What motivates MVE and other companies to consistently dip into the military talent pool? Why do military-experienced employees mesh well into these organizations? According to Eric Salzman, Executive Consultant at Bradley-Morris, Inc., the nation’s largest placement firm focused solely on military-experienced talent, “documented leadership experience” sparks a company’s initial interest in military-experienced candidates. “Military leaders have been pushed and tried earlier and harder than most of their civilian counterparts and they are not easily overwhelmed,” he said. When asked what keeps his clients coming back to Bradley-Morris, Inc. for their hiring needs, Salzman replied, “Because hiring military works… companies see a return on their investment.” Understanding what drives companies can go a long way in helping you to sell yourself.

Often, a company-specific answer can be uncovered through a little networking and research. Before applying, research the company of interest online. Pinpoint defining core values by analyzing the company’s history, reputation, products and services, and vision statement. Without asking for a job outright, connect to military-experienced employees through professional networking sites. Seek to understand what they bring to the table as individuals and as a group, gain insight into the company’s corporate culture and hiring needs, and discover your potential value-add.

Coming up empty-handed? Many military-to-civilian executives attribute their corporate success to leadership traits acquired unequivocally through military service, including excellent communication skills, a deeply rooted sense of ethics, the ability to calmly make sound decisions under pressure, defining a goal and motivating others to achieve it, organizational skills such as strategic planning and the effective use of limited resources, and adaptability. I think it’s safe to say most companies value these traits and most military leaders possess them.

Step 2. Target your sales pitch.

Through research and networking, let’s say you’ve uncovered a company’s penchant for loyal workers who work well as a part of a team, inspire healthy competition and goal attainment, and can maximize resources/manpower and minimize waste/downtime. Simply stating your ability to minimize waste, for instance, in your military resume or in an interview is not enough. You must prove it. Always backup something intrinsic, i.e. “cost-conscious”, with something extrinsic, i.e. “…saved $30k quarterly by developing and managing a first-of-its-kind parts reclamation program…” According to Salzman, “Companies want to see quantifiable data attached to experience such as number of people led, total value of a project or budget, and cost avoidance… that’s a big one.”

Step 3. Don’t make a you-know-what out of you and me.

Just because a company has a track record of hiring military experienced job seekers, don’t assume a military jargon-laden resume copied straight from your performance evaluations is going to do the trick. Salzman warns, “Your résumé should be easily understood by everyone from the HR specialist to the CEO.” As the former director of MilitaryResumes.com and a current recruiter at Bradley-Morris, Inc., I’ve seen hundreds, if not thousands, of military resumes. However, I have yet to master the meaning of every acronym or understand the purpose of every command, program, system, or specialty for every branch of service.

Briefly describe your command (mission, services, “customers”, etc.), the technical makeup and capability of military-specific systems/equipment (if applicable), and the scope of your duties to establish due context, no matter the target company. Focus not on your formal, DoD-approved job descriptions, but on the skills derived from each job with respect to the company and job opportunity at hand instead. Finally, add plenty of individual accomplishments to make you stand out as a top-notch performer worthy of corporate recruitment.

 They Will Know What I Did

While recruiting for a technical engineering position, an account manager became frustrated with a comment made by a talented, job-seeking engineer.  The said comment, “anyone familiar with my field will understand my resume… they will know what I did,” caused the recruiter to end the call and throw her arms up in frustration.   She was fielding resumes for a client who was very particular as to the keywords he wanted to see in applicant resumes.  The candidate refused to update his resume with the appropriate keywords, instead defaulting to laziness.  Inevitably, he did not get the job opportunity. 

 On another occasion, a veteran candidate heeded the advice of the recruiter and adjusted his resume to reflect specific experience the organization needed.  He eliminated reference to “combat, anti-terrorism tactics, and weapons” replacing them with “inspection, tools, and measuring equipment”.  This candidate landed an initial interview for the position of Quality Inspection Engineer.

 For job seekers, civilian or military-experienced, the lesson is: make your resume and interview dialogue relevant to the position you are applying for.  Although it may seem silly to spell out your accomplishments and experience in detail, knowing the hiring manager is familiar with the military and will understand your qualifications, the fact of the matter is the resume may not get to the hiring manager.  In order to get to the hiring manager, it must pass the initial screening process… and that process may be conducted by people not “in the know,” or worse, an electronic resume scanning system.

 A job posting is typically advertised via the Internet and will contain keywords the hiring team is looking for.  For example, an engineering job posting may reference Lean principles, Six Sigma, design, AutoCAD, etc.  A job posting for a purchasing manager may reference ERP/MRP, enterprise, inventory control, DoD, etc.  Tweak your military resume for each job you apply for, incorporating appropriate keywords and phrases.  

 Once military resumes are deposited into a database, recruiters perform quick electronic or manual searches for keywords.  Typically, the hiring manger will not be the first person to peruse the hundreds of resumes received for each open position.  So if keywords are not spotted quickly, your military resume could be overlooked.  Resumes that reflect the experience the job posting calls for are sent to the hiring manager for consideration.  View the job posting and description as an answer key, with the resume as the test.  Make sure the test has the answers from the answer key within it.

Professional military resume writing services and recruiters help military job seekers perfect their military resumes to ensure they are relevant to their target positions.  Recruiters have a relationship with the organization they serve and are able to prepare candidates for what the employer expects to see on a military resume and hear in an interview.  Seek advice on the presentation of your marketing materials (your military resume and cover letter).  The job market is competitive and those who are prepared rewarded with opportunity.

I would like to add that a good military placement firm will offer the assistance of a professional military resume writing service to candidates who qualify for their program for free.  I know that this is the case at Bradley-Morris, Inc. who relies on MilitaryResumes.com to polish their candidates’ resumes.  Once a military resume is in fighting shape, a Bradley-Morris recruiter will assist the military job seeker with highlighting experience requested by the target employer and adding relevant keywords form the job opening.  

Judy Navarrete, SPHR is an accomplished Human Resources Professional.  She is a civilian advocate for veteran placements, sharing her vast experience in recruitment, talent selection, and leadership development in commercial markets so that veterans can assimilate into civilian job market to compete for today’s jobs.  For more information and similar articles from Judy, please see portablementor.com or some of her previous posts on MilitarytoCivilian.com (keyword search “Judy”). You may reach Judy at judy@portablementor.com

Judy’s passion for educating and cultivating effective employees and leaders, and writing for www.MilitarytoCivilian.com, has influenced her to develop her own career mentor blog site, where she provides insight into (civilian) career transitions (see www.portablementor.com). To see all of Judy’s acclaimed articles, keyword search MilitarytoCivilian.com for “Judy”.  You may reach her for comments and feedback at judy@portablementor.com.

 Resourcefulness

 By: Judy Navarrete, SPHR

Recently, while interviewing a veteran of the U.S. Navy, I realized the extent to which civilians take the ease of obtaining items stateside for granted, and the resourcefulness of deployed servicemen/women. Easily obtainable “comforts of home” are often shared with deployed servicemen via care packages. But to sustain complex military operations in austere environments is a different story. It is increasingly challenging for deployed service members to get their hands on both comforts and necessities while on foreign soil. 

I was recently introduced to a former naval storekeeper transitioning from the service to the civilian work after a deployment in Iraq. This veteran had logistics and financial administration experience and a military resume drafted with the assistance of TAPS (transition) counselors. To be quite honest, his resume was difficult to read and appeared highly inflated, that is, until I dug deeper into the breadth of his experience overseas.

His title was “storekeeper” – “supply chain manager” to us civilians. Despite less than 4 years of military experience, the government entrusted him to manage an inventory valued at well over $10 million, a government credit card, and the distribution of resources only experienced supply chain managers would be allowed to handle in civilian business units. He received financial training and described the level of authority over funds and valuable assets he was afforded. He expedited inventory and consumables to global environments (in his case, other bases in challenging locales such as Africa, Japan, the Middle East, and the United States).

Although he lacked experience with state-of-the-art an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, a computerized system designed to manage inventory, and software programs such as SAP, Oracle, Enterprise, WPS, or AS400, he did manipulate spreadsheets using Excel and Word to track inventory and balance a budget. Systems can be taught and quickly learned; resourcefulness cannot. He explained, “When we [service members] are in a foreign country, we learn to be resourceful. We are in the middle of a desert, in the middle of nowhere, and if we don’t have something, we have to find a way to get it.”

I was so impressed with his selling points that I offered to place his military resume in front of the hiring manager at a leading aerospace company for a senior supply chain management role.  Usually, civilians are required to have a degree in business or accounting plus a few years of experience under their belts to be considered for this position. Yet, I was confident that his military experience and training were equivalent to the qualifications requested by the hiring manager.   

Prior to meeting with the manager for a face-to-face interview, the naval storekeeper will be coached on translating his military speak to civilian terms. For example, “financial administration” simply means accounting for and tracking expenses against budget constraints.  Combat/anti-terrorism training will be softened to describe “conflict resolution, resourcefulness, and interpersonal skills” and “government credit card” is better described as “purchasing authority”. 

When applying for civilian work, a military job seeker must keep in mind that the recruiter may not completely understand how to translate military terms. Furthermore, if the military job seekers cannot articulate their meaning during a phone interview or on a military resume, they may never have the opportunity to share their vast experience and sell themselves at the interview. So put the resourcefulness the military has ingrained you with to work  in presenting your experience in terms the business world can relate to… and demonstrate to potential employers that you actually have it.

At Military Resumes, we understand military experience and how to effectively “translate” it into terms civlians not only understand, but are actively looking for. For more information on professional military resume writing services custom-designed to market your unique attributes, please visit www.MilitaryResumes.com.

The method behind the madness:

• A lot of interviewers open with it as an icebreaker or because they’re still getting organized, but they all use it to get a sense what you think is important.
• Many interviewers want to see how articulate and confident you are to determine what type of impression you would make on the people with whom you would come into contact on the job. 

The wrong response:

• DO NOT, under any circumstances, ask, “What do you want to know?” This tells the interviewer that you are unprepared for the interview and, potentially, the job. Have a plan and rehearse it.
• Avoid rambling, recapping your life story, or digging into ancient work history or personal matters. Understand that, as harsh as this may sound, the interviewer really doesn’t want to know about you as a person. Not yet anyway.

The correct response:

• The interviewer wants to know that you can do the job, fit into the team, are ambitious and accomplished in your prior positions, and how can you help their organization. Start with your most recent experience and explain why you are well qualified for the position. Sell what the buyer is buying.
• Hiring managers don’t want to look unprepared by reading your military resume in front of you, so provide them some topics to ask you about. Properly answered, this question can put you in the driver’s seat and steer the interview in a positive direction.
• Be brief – offer two or three interesting things that may be useful to the interviewer. Your answer should take about one minute.

Rather than dread this question, embrace it. Prepare an answer and practice it. With a well-planned strategy, it allows you to set the tone for the rest of the interview, setting you up to answer the questions you most want to answer.

Hanson offers funny, real-life responses heard by various hiring managers from around the country, such as “brownies“ and “I am bipolar.” If your military resume is good enough to land you an interview, do yourself a favor and prepare to discuss your weaknesses well in advance to avoid on-the-spot answers like the aforementioned. Practice your response by running it by your friends and family and solicit their gut reactions.

One popular method of overcoming the “most dreaded” interview question is to flip a weakness into a strength. However, as Hanson explains, there is a tendency to over do it when using this method. “I am so well-loved around the workplace that it is hard to get honest feedback and constructive criticism from my coworkers” is likely to illicit a silent groan from a seasoned interviewer. A better approach is to pick a weakness that won’t obstruct your job performance (for example, fear of public speaking might work for an accountant but not for a teacher) and then describe the steps that you have taken to recognize and overcome your challenge. Your goal should be to demonstrate self-reflection, innovation, and problem-solving skills.

Based on my experience at www.MilitaryResumes.com, working with hundreds of transitioning military job seekers and writing a military resume for them, I’ve noticed that military job seekers are generally modest. If talking about your accomplishments makes you just as uncomfortable as discussing your weaknesses, prepare a response to the interview question: “What’s your biggest strength?” Anticipating key interview questions and preparing accordingly can go a long way in helping you to land your next job.

Consider the benefits:

• Volunteering looks great on a military resume. It compensates for gaps in your work history while you are transitioning from the military into a civilian career. It shows potential employers passion for work without regards to reward and diversifies and expands your experience beyond the military. It also shows initiative in that you have not been idle during the military job search process.
• Volunteering increases networking contacts. It allows you to put in face time with community leaders – people who have the contacts you are seeking and who may be willing to recommend you or have the power to employ you themselves.
• Volunteering is excellent for self-esteem. The military to civilian job search can be emotionally and mentally taxing. Volunteering makes you feel connected and appreciated. Military job seekers with high self-esteem tend to market themselves more effectively and interview well.
• Volunteering can also help you determine if you’re seeking employment in the right field. Many transitioning military job seekers have a difficult time finding their niche outside of the armed services. Volunteering can give you enough exposure to a line of work to help you make the right career decisions.

Select volunteer activities you’ll enjoy. www.volunteermatch.org is a great website that allows you to search for volunteer opportunities by keyword (e.g. mentoring, veterans, environment, etc.) or location. Think outside of the box! Offer to assist non-profits with projects such as designing brochures, organizing fundraisers, or building a website. List this experience on your military resume in a creative way. (For professional military resume writing services, visit www.MilitaryResumes.com.) Then at your next interview, show off samples of your work being used in the real-world.

The more you volunteer, the more people you’ll bring into your networking circle. Just be sure to do enough quality work for each organization so they get to know you, and that you are gaining knowledge from the experience. Solicit feedback from the organization you’re volunteering with about your job-search process. And let people at all levels within the organization know you’re looking for full-time work. You never know who will have the contact you need to land a job.

Use volunteering to establish credentials, gain real-world experience, and broaden your circle of contacts. Studies have shown that volunteering can be a direct route to employment, so add this profitable tool to your military to civilian job search strategy kit.

“The problem is that acting with military bearing during an interview is that it can be interpreted by the untrained eye as a tendency to be “overly robotic” or “personality-less.”  To someone who hasn’t served, this type of behavior can often be judged incorrectly.  The paradox is that the Service Member may be exhibiting the highest level of respect for the interviewer, however the interviewer may perceive this as being disrespectful or “guarded”, “stoic”, or “as if they are hiding something.”

Justin Henderson, an Account Executive (and a former Marine) at Bradley-Morris, Inc., a leading military-to-civilian placement firm, responded with some great advice for military-experienced job seekers on how to properly adjust their military bearing during interviews.  I’m posting his response in full here:

“Thanks for your post. I find this article very interesting as I am also a former Marine, and I currently assist transitioning veterans who are seeking new careers throughout Corporate America. We at Bradley-Morris, Inc. help introduce employers to the military-experienced talent pool via our recruiting services, and in the process, we offer veterans free assistance with military resume writing, company research, and interviewing techniques.

The main interviewing advice we give to military job seekers is 1.) Translate your experience into civilian terms and 2.) Stay away from military jargon (whether writing your resume or during the interview). Related to this, I also have faith that your military training has taught you when to put on your Drill Instructor Cap and when to relax and be more open. As such, we remind military job seekers to adjust to the demeanor of the interviewer, and/or the position. Some companies prefer to recruit level-headed individuals. Production companies, for instance, want someone who can stay focused during the demanding process-oriented environment in a production facility. On the other hand, candidates for sales roles must adjust their “bearing” to highlight their personality and people-skills.

In short, if you stay away from the “yes sir”s and “no sir”s after every statement, and customize your delivery for the specific position, you will do well. Above all, relax and be cognizant of who is interviewing you.

I’ve helped hundreds of civilian companies recruit military candidates for their civilian positions and have rarely if ever heard a negative comment regarding our candidates’ military bearing.

Thanks again for bringing always appreciated attention to the value of military job seekers in Corporate America!”

Semper Fi,
Justin”

If military bearing has been an effective tool in interviewing or a detriment to your career search, let me know via email or leave a comment.

What would you do if you were asked, “What is your service connected disability?” or “Which religion do you practice?” After the initial shock wears of, you might wonder why it matters. Should you answer for amicability’s sake or refuse to answer based on legality? According to Military.com, if you find yourself in this scenario, here are three ways to handle this situation:

1. Answer – If you choose to answer, be succinct and clear.
2. Refuse to Answer – Explain that you don’t feel comfortable answering the question. Avoid using the word “illegal” as it might escalate the friction.
3. Tactfully Sidestep –
   • Personal life, you might respond with, “I prefer to keep personal and business matters separate.”
   • Children, you might want to ask, “Are you concerned that I won’t be able to travel or work overtime?”
   • Disability, your response should be, “If you are concerned that I won’t be able to perform the duties of this job, I’m sure I can.”
   • Country of origin, you should say, “If you are going to ask next whether or not I’m authorized to work in the States, I am.”

View the entire military.com article here.

Illegal interview questions are illegal for a reason. Answers regarding religion, race, etc. could pin you to an unjust stereotype and lead the interviewer to make a biased decision on something that should have no effect on your ability to do the job. For these same reasons, I advise military job seekers and clients of MilitaryResumes.com to drop any and all personal information from their military resumes, including underlying sources such as volunteerism within a church and age descriptive statements such as “retired military veteran with over 25 years of experience”.

Because personal information has a way of sneaking its way into a resume, consider assistance from military resume writers. A little forethought, a planned response to illegal interviewing and a review of your military resume will ensure that your military transition does you the justice that you deserve.

Your resume, more often than not, is going to make (or break) your first impression, so we’ll begin with some tactics for military resumes. The temptation for most retiring military job seekers is to list everything they have done in the last 20 years. But hiring managers really only want to see the freshest 10 years of experience. Remove older experience from your resume because it dates you and is likely to be considered irrelevant anyway. Also remove older dates on degrees, etc. and drop phrases such as “retired military officer” and “over 20 years of experience”.

Retired military leaders are renowned for wearing many hats throughout their careers. But when it comes to the job search, I suggest wearing just one. At MilitaryResumes.com, we believe that military resumes should say “I have 20 years of experience” vs. one year of experience times 20. However, only the master copy of a resume should be considered “multipurpose”. A resume should be finely tuned for each position applied for. Represent only experience that lends itself well the job requirements, emphasize your track record of performance in the targeted area, and merely mention or summarize the rest. This will give resume filters less of an opportunity to toss your resume out. CEOs care about return on investment, cost savings, how you are going to help them increase revenue, not necessarily how you are going to train people in your department.

Finally, think like a salesperson, even if you are not. Prepare to deal with objections prior to encountering them. Potential obstacles are age, health issues, and unusually high salary requirements. Don’t pull a suit out of your closet from the 80s. Update your business attire. If asked in an interview how your weekend went, mention the fact that you enjoyed mountain biking with some friends. When asked about salary requirements, make it clear that you would accept an offer within the highest range of what they would offer a more junior employee with the understanding that it will be reevaluated in six months because you are confident in your ability bring more to the table than the company thought possible.

With the proper know-how, an extraordinary military career, and the mindset that age is an asset, anyone can conquer the job market.

The best defense against ageism is information. For information about the Age Discrimination and Employment Act (ADEA), check out the Age Discrimination Fact Sheet on AARP’s website. For more information on professional military resume writing services, visit www.MilitaryResumes.com.

“I ended up paying more than $400 to help find me a job and to no avail. I was now out $400 and no job. So I continued to look on my own… I received a call stating that [a company] had seen my resume on a job board and would like to come in for an interview. Well this would be the answer to my prayers… Now I love my job, I get to help people by finding them jobs after they transition and the best part of it is that the people that I find jobs do not have to end up like I did and fork out an arm and a leg to find nothing. Check out veteran job boards, you have nothing to lose.” Submitted by Mrs. Sharleene Davidson. View the entire entry.

Veteran job boards are a safe and effective job search avenue, especially in a tough economy. But be weary of anyone who is willing to take your money in exchange for the promise of finding you a job. Any reputable transition assistance resources (recruiters and job boards) are free to transitioning military job seekers.

CivilianJobs.com is a company dedicated to helping introduce military-experienced job seekers to employers specifically seeking military-experienced talent. Sign up for their services and your resume will be posted on a veteran job board routinely searched by companies already sold on the value of military experience. CivilianJobs.com also hosts military job fairs in cities across the country, allowing you to sell yourself to potential employers in person. Best of all, these services won’t cost you anything.

While job boards (such as the one hosted by CivilianJobs.com) and the services of a reputable recruiting firm (such as Bradley-Morris, Inc. (BMI)) are free, your resume is one tool in your arsenal that may be worth investing in. My company, MilitaryResumes.com, offers professional resume writing services specifically tailored to the unique needs of military job seekers. Your resume can make or break a first impression… and you only get one chance to make a great first impression as it is impossible to apply for most jobs twice.  A great resume will also get you a greater rate of return on job board searches.

These are the top three reasons that MilitaryResumes.com customers point to as to why they think it was beneficial to have their resume professionally written:

1. Modesty can be a roadblock to adequately playing up one’s knowledge, skills, ability, and accomplishments.  Professional resume writers who specialize in military resume writing have the know-how to make military-experience shine.
2. Portraying military experience to a civilian audience in a meaningful, attention-grabbing way is daunting for many military-experienced job seekers.  The MilitaryResumes.com team not only consists of professional resume writers with years of specialized military resume writing experience under their belts, but is managed by a team with decades of military-to-civilian placement experience.
3. The job market is more competitive than ever. There is a glut of resumes crossing hiring managers’ desks and filling their inboxes. Our customers realize that they only have one chance to make a first impression and aren’t willing to risk that perfect opportunity by presenting a less than perfect resume.