Resumes and Applications
Create an Effective Resume
Marketing Your Resume
Resume Formats
Sections of a Resume: Experience
Identify Your Skills and Accomplishments
Creating Accomplishment Statements
Writing Accomplishment Statements
Translating Military Experience to Civilian Terms
Military to Civilian Skill Translator Resources and Websites
Skills and Experience – Military to Civilian
Sections of the Resume: Employment History
Sections of the Resume: Education/Training
Create an Effective Resume
Objectives
- Review key elements in the resume writing process
- Write career objectives and descriptive accomplishment statements
- Construct a draft resume
Marketing Your Resume
Basic Job Search Principle = Market Yourself!
Purpose of a Resume
- Marketing Tool – sells YOU!
- Summarizes how your skills and abilities can contribute to their company
- Helps get you a job interview
- Employer screening tool
The Importance of the Career Decision--Making Process
To write the most effective resume, you need to know what career field you want.
Research:
- The career field you would like to pursue
- Where the jobs are and who is hiring
- What qualifications and credentials you need to attain
- How to best market your qualifications
Resume Formats
There are several resume formats to choose from which include:
- Chronological
- Functional
- Combination
- Targeted
Chronological Format
- Focuses on your work history with most recent position first
- Easy for employers to follow your career history and career progression
See example Chronological Resume (Word doc or PDF)
Functional Format
- Focuses on your skills and experience. Skills are grouped into functional areas
- Used most often when changing careers or if there are employment gaps
Example Functional Resume (Word doc or PDF)
Combination Format
- Combination of the Chronological and Functional Resume formats
- Highlights skills and provides the chronological work history that some employers prefer
Example Combination Resume (Word doc or PDF)
Targeted Format
- Customized to a specific Job
- Written specifically to the employer’s needs
- The Objective Statement is important and must specifically refer to the open position. The resume will then be directly related to that position.
Other Resume Formats
- Federal Resumes – See sample on Page 60 in the TAP Manual – Be sure to sign up for a Federal resume writing class at your FSC or ACAP office if you want to pursue a position in the Federal Government.
- Curriculum Vitae – Used primarily for candidates in medicine, academia, and some senior level positions.
- Hybrids of several styles – Modified Combination Resume formats tailored to specific openings
Resume Comparison Chart (Word doc or PDF)
Sections of a Resume: Experience
- Lists your results and/or achievements that relate to the position desired
- Not a job description!
- Employers want to know: “What is this individual going to do for me?”
- Use numbers, percentages, statistics, examples to illustrate your achievements
Identify Your Skills and Accomplishments
- Use the Transferable Skills Inventory (TAP Manual-Page18)
- Select the skills that relate to the job you want
- Sell your resume by highlighting your major accomplishments and achievements
- Remember…Employers want to know… “What skills can you offer me?”
Creating Accomplishment Statements
Step 1: Think of this as a story with a title. Identify the Scenario. Some topics (titles) may include:
- A task you performed alone.
- A project you worked on as a team member/team leader.
- A challenge you overcame in the job setting.
- A problem you solved.
- A goal you set.
Step 2: Identify the action you performed to tell the story. Use the skills you identified on pages 18-21 and page 74 of your TAP Manual. (Also see page 28 of this Supplement.)
- Planned, organized and directed a four-day training exercise…
- Troubleshot, disassembled and repaired mobile over 300 pieces of mobile communications equipment…
- Recorded, documented and tracked daily, weekly and monthly reports…
- Formed, created and lead special security force…
Step 3: Which resulted in: End with a positive and measurable conclusion.
- …which reduced accidents from 30% to fewer than 2% in two weeks.
- …which enabled constant communication in four different states.
- …which increased the training rate of employees by 45%.
- …that provided search and recovery support for disaster victims.
Here is list of action verbs to describe accomplishments (Word doc or PDF)
Writing Accomplishment Statements
- Use civilian terms
-
Start with an action verb
- Don’t use “Responsible for”
- Write in past tense for previous jobs
- Present tense for current job
-
Quantify results when possible
- Use numbers
- Percentages
- Statistics
- Examples
Example Accomplishment Statements:
- Inventory Control: “Managed company’s 500-item, $10M stock inventory warehouse with 100% accountability.”
- Logistics: “Processed over 700 annual shipments of personal property and household goods valued in excess of $30M.”
- Security: “Supervised the security of $100M of highly sensitive equipment with zero loss.”
- Management: “Developed and managed an annual budget of $50M meeting department’s profit goals.”
Translating Military Experience to Civilian Terms
- One of your biggest challenges
-
Employers may overlook a military member because their resume is:
- Filled with military job titles and military skills not understood
- Written using military jargon, acronyms and awards
- Not targeted to job
- It doesn’t matter how qualified you are if the employer can’t understand your resume
Military to Civilian Skill Translator Resources and Websites
O*NET
Web Site: http://online.onetcenter.org
The Department of Labor's O*NET website helps you to translate your military skills by providing common language and terminology to describe your military occupational specialty.
To use O*NET you will need to know your Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), Navy Rating or Air Force Military Occupation Code (MOC).
- Enter your MOS, MOC or Navy Rating. The system will provide a summary report of your job duties. O*NET can also help you browse civilian occupations by occupational group, high growth industries and by education required for the job, i.e., Chemist.
Army COOL and Navy COOL
Web Sites: https://www.cool.army.mil or https://www.cool.navy.mil
These websites were developed in coordination with the Departments of Defense and Labor. They catalog and define comprehensive information on occupational credentials correlating with military ratings, jobs, and occupations.
- Go to the COOL website
- Click on the tab to “Search for Credentials”
- Enter either your specialty Code or search by your military job title, and a screen will appear with civilian equivalent jobs, common associated certifications, etc.
- Then, by clicking on the civilian equivalent job titles, you will be redirected to Department of Labor’s Occupational Outlook Handbook, which lists the nature of the work, job outlook, earnings, related occupations, and more
Verification of Military Education and Training (VMET)
Web Site: http://www.dmdc.osd.mil/vmet
America's CareerInfoNet
Web Site: www.acinet.org/moc
This is a military to civilian occupational translator that provides a wide range of information such as occupational outlook by state, wage information and other job-specific resources.
Jobsaurus, The Jobs Thesaurus
Web Site: www.taonline.com/jobsaurus
Type in a job title and this site will provide you with a resume objective and industry-standard terms to help you describe a job(s) you have held.
Military.com Translate Your Skills
Web Site: http://www.military.com/skills-translator/mos-translator
This site provides very basic information on the civilian job that relates to your military specialty.
Mil-Skills Translator
Web Site: www.taonline.com/mosdot
Enter your MOS, MOC or Navy Rating and this site will provide you with a very brief description of your job in civilian terms.
Skills and Experience – Military to Civilian
Military Platoon Leader, Leading Petty Officer, Section Leader, etc.
=
Front Line Supervisor in the business world
- Supervised & evaluated up to 75 employees
- Conducted high quality training for groups up to 25 employees
- Improved staff productivity and efficiency by 30%
- Planned and executed logistical support for team with outstanding results
- Enforced 100% of company policies and procedures
- Submitted comprehensive and timely reports to supervisor
- Worked under pressure, multi-tasked, and met tight deadlines
Sections of the Resume: Employment History
- Chronological Resume - Dates, position, location and experience
- Functional Resume - Does not include an employment history
- Combination Resume - Dates, position and location
- Targeted Resume - Will use any of the above formats but will be specifically tailored to the Objective
This portion of the resume is probably the most important. Depending on the style you select, it will dictate where and how you will organize the information. To make this process easier to understand, there are several examples of each format in the TAP manual. There are many books that provide example resumes. See the transition website for specific recommendations.
To begin exploring your employment history, write down everything you can about what you did in a specific job. Include:
- Skills
- Accomplishments
- Machines you can operate
- Computer software you can run
- Improvements you suggested or made in a process or system
Try to include specific and quantifiable data. Once you have written a paragraph or pages of information, find qualifications relating to the job you are seeking. If the job you are seeking is an entirely new field, but uses a lot of the specific skills from your past experience, consider putting information into categories. An example would be if you have been a Military Police Officer and want to go into private investigation, you could group bullet statements under categories such as investigation, case management, and security to create a combination resume. Or, if you were an electronics technician for the past four years in the military plus worked in the same field for two years prior to joining, and want to go into the same field of work, then you would write a chronological resume to show stability and progressive job responsibilities.
WHAT NOT TO INCLUDE
These items are not recommended on a resume:
- Marital Status - Hobbies
- Age - Height and Weight
- Race - Salary
- Photograph - References
- Religious or Political Affiliations
- Names, ages and number of children
Sections of the Resume: Education/Training
- Include all degrees awarded beyond high school
- List special honors you achieved such as: graduated Cum Laude, with Honors, or possibly list your grade point average (GPA) if it presents you in a positive light
- Include certifications, licenses and course work relevant to job applying for
- List only military schools that support your job goal