Writing a Civilian Resume After Leaving the Military
Every year thousands of people exit the military and begin looking for work in the civilian job sector. I know, because I was one of them. This can be a difficult transition, but knowing how to write your resume properly will make it a lot easier.
When I first started looking for jobs, I didn’t know what to say on my resume. There are so many things that I just can’t place in any of those categories. I was clumsy and good positions that I really wanted started slipping through my fingers.
I couldn’t pinpoint what it really was until I saw a professionally written civilian resume and realized that mine is everything but. I saw that mine wasn’t even close to that.
As soon as I could find some alone time in my crowded house, I sat down, rewrote my resume and submitted it to a few positions I eyed for a while. I later got interview invitations from all of those companies.
Make It Civilian Friendly
A career summary is the first thing a hiring manager sees, so make sure it’s written in a way that’s understandable to civilians. Include the keywords from the job description. Anticipate questions the hiring manager could have after reading your resume and provide them either in your resume or cover letter. You will have to put more thought into this because your military experience will probably result in more questions than the average applicant’s experience.
Work Ethic
If you’ve served in the military then you’ve definitely picked up a solid work ethic, and that is a quality that applies to any job. Emphasize it in your resume. Discuss how you’re used to hard work, long hours, and working weekends and all hours of the day and night. Consider describing a mission that required especially hard work and determination, one where you and your team went beyond what was expected to get the job done. Just make sure you don’t cross the line into embellishing your skills and work ethic.
Use Simple Language
You’ve probably become very used to using military jargon during your years of service. “When you’re writing your resume, be aware of the fact that military terminology will confuse a hiring manager, and is not an effective way to describe your experience and skills. Go over your resume and make sure you translate any jargon or abbreviations into terms the average civilian will understand,” advises Dwight Garrett, resume proofreader at Academized.
Talk About Your Abilities
Just because you’re no longer in the military, it doesn’t mean the skills you learned are no longer useful. You’ve likely picked up and refined abilities such as critical thinking, communication, teamwork, and time management. Those skills are also important to many jobs in the civilian sector. Your challenge is to pull those skills out of specifically military terms and operations and present them clearly to the hiring manager. Think about some training and operations your participated in, and then extract the individual abilities you used during those operations.
Highlight Accomplishments
Accomplishments are a major part of any resume, and the military is a great opportunity to rack up some accomplishments, so use this to your advantage. The best achievements are the ones you can provide hard numbers for, but not all are like this. In these cases, give some context to explain why it was important. Once again, translate your achievements in to civilian terms. Use action verbs such a ‘develop,’ and ‘trained.’ Action verbs are more impressive than using adjectives to describe how well you did a task.
Access Online Tools for Resume Help
Writing resumes can be difficult for some people, so don’t be afraid to get some help from the experts. Here are some good resources to get you started:
1. ViaWriting and WritingPopulist
These are grammar resources you can use to go over your resume for grammatical mistakes.
2. Resumention
Check out this helpful resume service to improve your resume.
3. UKWritings and BoomEssays
These are online proofreading tools, suggested by Revieweal, you can access to make sure your resume is polished and free of errors.
4. MyWritingWay and SimpleGrad
Check out these career writing blogs for tips and suggestions on how to improve your resume. You’ll find posts here by people who have properly included military experience on their resume.
5. Assignment Help and EssayRoo
These are editing tools, recommended in Bigassignments.com review, you can use to check over your resume for typos and other mistakes.
6. StateofWriting and Let’s Go and Learn
These are helpful writing guides you can follow to improve your resume. Even a good writer can benefit from some extra writing tips.
Conclusion
The transition from military life to working as a civilian can be challenging, but knowing how to translate your military experience to a civilian resume makes it a lot easier. Your military experience has given you a lot of assets, you just need to properly translate them into terms a hiring manager will be familiar with. Use these tips to write a good civilian resume after leaving the military.
