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How to Make a Great Civilian Resume
When it comes to transitioning from the Military to the Civilian employment sector, the most important step is to make sure your resume is outstanding and world class. It needs to showcase that your military skills are transferable. In other words, it needs to make it clear to the target Human Resource Manager that your skills fit what they seek.
Civilian Resumes are more than just a list of qualifications and experience. They are sales tools aimed at selling your abilities and skill sets to our world class employers so that you are welcomed and invited for an interview.
There are few things you need to take into consideration when writing your Military Transition Resume:
1. Use Civilian Speak: Be mindful to the terminology. You must submit your resume in civilian terms, not in military terms. Your Resume must be written in a Military-to-Civilian conversion format. The Military Transition format is a bridge between the military way of speaking and doing and the civilian "Regular Joe" business world.
2. Target Your Resume: Your resume must be focused. Highlight the skills, abilities and accomplishments that you have, which fit the job you are applying to. If the information does not relate to the position you are applying to, simply do not include it. In other words, target your resume.
3. Make Your Resume Interesting: Your resume has to be written in an interesting manner so that it captures the attention of the reader. It should also be written in a way that makes it stand out: Make your resume different from the rest while maintaining professionalism.
4. Make it Perfect: Spell check and proof-read your resume. The one sure way to lose an Human Resource Manager's attention is to have errors all over your resume. Command on the English language demonstrates intelligence which helps you win friends and influence people. With today's spell checking, this makes all things easier. Use it often and then of course, learn as you go.
5. Be Professional: Send a Cover letter and a thank you letter. Cover letters show professionalism and a thank you letter always shows courtesy and civility. Human Resource Manager's always lend credence to the civil, polite and well-mannered.
6. Make it Easy for Employer to Contact You: Leave a direct phone number and make sure your voice mail greeting is professional sounding (no long sound clips or slang). Also, do not use a military e-mail address or an e-mail address featuring inappropriate content. The former is for security and respect reasons, the latter for obvious civility reasons.
* Important: Assuming you have a personal social networking site e.g. MySpace.com, spruce it up and always make sure it represents you appropriately and within good taste. The first thing a sharp HR Director will do is Google you and MySpace you. Hey, it's the new thing. Get with it!
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