5 secrets to getting a civilian...
TRANSCRIPT
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Transitioning from military service to a civilian job is a challenge…but not an
impossible one. Civilian employers generally want to be supportive of veterans
like you, but they have big concerns about you because of your background. They
don’t understand how your skills relate to their job; they have some preconceived
notions about your military mindset; and they worry that you won’t be able to fit
into corporate culture. You can easily overcome those barriers by practicing good
strategies in 5 key areas of your job search: your resume, your cover letter, your
method of getting interviews, your network, and your interview skills.
Before we dig into these key areas, please understand this basic job search
principle: As a job seeker in the private sector, the burden of proof is on you. No
one’s going to look at your record and decide where you need to be. You have to
decide where you want to be and then go after it. You must translate your record
of accomplishments for your future boss (in civilian
language rather than military terms) and tell them how
you can help them reach their goals. What all that means
is that you must ‘sell’ yourself for the job.
In a corporate job search, you are essentially a ‘product’
for sale. You’re the asset, or solution, they need to solve a problem they have.
You are also the sales rep for that product. The hiring manager (that’s your future
boss) at your potential employer is your ‘customer.’ What does a customer want
to know? They want to know, always: “What’s in it for me?” Your job, as the
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sales rep, is to communicate to your customer all the benefits of your product for
them. What do you bring? How can you be a solution? How can you advertise
“YOU”?
You can communicate everything hiring managers need to know using these
– Write a Resume That Markets You
The first secret to getting a civilian job is writing a very good resume…one that
‘sells’ you, or markets you, to hiring managers. What makes a resume a selling,
marketing document?
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Start With A Strong Objective Statement
A strong objective statement should clearly
communicate who you are or what your goal is. It
should never focus on how the employer can benefit
you. Your objective statement should be able to stand
in for a cover letter, in case they don’t bother to read
the letter. Use a brief sentence or phrase that includes
key words from the job description and possibly
highlight one or two of your most appropriate skills.
Every objective statement should be tailored (written
specifically for) the job you’re applying for.
Bad Objective Statement: To obtain a challenging position where my education,
skills and experiences can be highly utilized and contribute to my growth and
advancement in the company.
Good Objective Statement: Seeking an IT Project Management Role
Use Bullet Points
Bullet points make your resume easier to read and more attractive to hiring
managers because they draw the reader’s eye down the page quickly and easily.
Under each job title, your bullet points should highlight what you accomplished in
the job (not what you were responsible for).
Start your bullet points with action words like these:
o Managed team
o Led campaign
o Organized project
o Improved efficiency
o Reduced turnover
o Won award
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Be specific, be achievement-oriented, and use action words as often as you can.
Quantify Your Accomplishments
Quantifying your accomplishments
means describing them in terms of
numbers, dollars, or percentages.
Almost everything can be described in
some way using numbers:
How many direct reports you had
Production numbers (increased, decreased)
Project budgets (how big a budget did you handle? Did you stay within
budget? How often?)
Schedules (how often did you meet schedule?)
How many projects you handled
Success rate of your projects (How often were they on time? How often did
they work the way they were supposed to?)
Cost of projects (Did you work within a certain budget and stay within
project costs?)
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Accuracy (Did you improve accuracy or maintain a high level?)
Rankings (How were you ranked on your team?)
Time savings / efficiency numbers
Procedures that improved something in some way (Did you create a system
that saved time?)
To see how powerful this is, look at the difference between these three things:
“Responsible for repair work orders” vs. “Managed repair parts requirements for
work orders, averaging 250 per day”
Or,
“Responsible for leading security team” vs. “Led 15-person security team”
Or,
“Responsible for cost containment” vs. “Achieved 30% reduction in supply cost in
6 months”
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So not only did we get rid of “responsible for” and added those action words, we
added those specific numbers to make it more descriptive and more powerful.
Do you see how much better those numbers make that achievement? It’s
specific, it’s impressive and it speaks the hiring manager’s language.
Numbers sell you.
***Get more resume help with Career Confidential’s free
Resume writing app: Resume Review Pro
– Compose a Powerful Cover Letter
If your resume is a marketing
document, think of your cover letter as
the advertisement that’s going to get
them to look more closely at you.
Never use a generic, fill-in-the-blank
template. This is where you introduce
yourself and make your first impression.
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It should demonstrate your professionalism, personality, and communication
skills. Write this letter as if you were speaking to your reader in person, telling
them why they should look at your resume. With that in mind, make an effort to
find out the actual name of the person you’re sending it to, and address it
accordingly.
Opening Paragraph
The first paragraph should grab the reader’s attention, almost like a headline. It
should be similar to your resume objective statement. Make it clear what job
you’re interested in. If someone you know has recommended you contact this
person, mention that up front.
Body
The body of the letter should elaborate on the first paragraph. Give a few details
that support what you just told the reader. Try
listing a few items from the job description and
note how you meet or exceed that requirement.
If you can do this using bullet points, that’s even
better.
If there’s no specific job description (because
you’re sending out resumes to see what comes
up), then just focus in general on what you’re
good at, with proof to back it up.
Don’t forget to mention that you’re transitioning
from whatever branch of the military you’re in to
the private sector.
Closing
Close your letter by summing up why they should talk to you, and let them know
when you intend to follow up with a phone call. You can say something like: “I
am very excited about the potential for this company and this position, and know
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that my skills in x, y, and z will advance your goals for this division. I look forward
to discussing it with you, and I will call within a few days to set up a time to meet.
Thank you for your consideration.”
That’s just an example. Whatever you say throughout your cover letter should be
in your own words. You want it to be direct and aggressive and to the point, but
you also want your own personality to shine through. You want your cover letter
to stand out, and be unique. It’s going to stand out by acting as a selling
document that grabs attention, and it’s going to be unique because you’ve
written it yourself, using the words you would use if you were talking to the
reader.
NOTE: If you send your resume by email, the cover letter should be the body of
the actual email, not an attachment. The resume will be the attachment. The
cover letter will be the email itself.
***For more cover letter writing tips, download Career Confidential’s FREE
Report - How to Write Attention-Getting Cover Letters (includes Sample Letters)
– Contact Hiring Managers Directly, Instead of Applying Online
The biggest thing that will hold you back in
your job search is the very thing that most
job seekers believe they must do: apply
online for job openings. Online
applications turn you into a number in the
system instead of a person with a name.
That anonymity in a job search is
disastrous.
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Your first step in a job search should always be to find and contact the hiring
manager. If you’re not familiar with the term “hiring manager,” that’s your future
boss, or your boss’s boss. That’s the person with the power to hire you.
Even if you see a job posted online, your first step should be to contact that hiring
manager directly about that job. Let them know who you are. If they say,
“Submit your application online,” then OK, go ahead and do that. But now, at
least, they know your name.
It might feel difficult for you to step out of the typical, expected job search path
and reach out to those hiring managers directly instead of following the ‘rules’ of
applying online, but you must. Getting lost in that sea of online applications is the
death to your job search. And I have never, in my 20-year career in sales,
management, executive recruiting, and career coaching, seen a hiring manager
reject an applicant based on being contacted directly. Instead, what happens is
that they are impressed with that level of assertiveness and enthusiasm.
***Learn more about contacting hiring managers directly in Career
Confidential’s Free Webinar, Fastest Way to Find a Job.
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– Use Your Network of Military and Non-Military Contacts
A good network is a powerful job search weapon. One of the most consistent
ways that people hear about jobs and get interviews is through some connection.
You must tap into this resource. Your network is almost certainly a lot more
extensive than you know.
Start with your personal contacts. Tell everyone you know…your friends, your
family, everyone…that you’re looking for a job. If you’re not on Facebook, get on
it and start contacting your high school or college buddies, along with all the
people you’ve met along the way. You never know who someone might know.
Lean on the bond between soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. Get on LinkedIn
and look for folks with your specific military background and contact them. Send
them a message. Ask for their email. Let them know that you’re looking for a
civilian job and what job that is. Those people are going to be more receptive to
you. You should end up with some great job leads.
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***Learn more about how to use networking to find a job in Career
Confidential’s blog article, Fastest Way to Find a Job Tip 1 – Networking. It’s
part of a 25-article series, Fastest Way to Find a Job.
– Polish Your Interview Skills
The secret to a good job interview is communication. You have to make this
interviewer understand that you understand the job, you can do the job, you will
do the job, and you won’t pose a risk to their own continued employment. (They
are judged by the people you hire.) How do you communicate these things?
Research the Job and the Company
There is no substitute for doing your homework before an interview. Use
everything available to you…Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, your network, and
anything else you can think of to find out as much as you can about the job and
the company. You need to know what this company does, what its biggest
challenges are, who its competitors are, and where it’s going in the future. In
addition, you need to know as much as you can about the requirements of the job
so you can explain to them why you and your background are a good fit not only
to meet those requirements, but to exceed them.
Practice Answering Interview Questions
Find a civilian friend or a career coach to role play a job interview with you.
Compose and practice your answers to typical job interview questions like, “Tell
me about yourself,” “Why should we hire you,” and “Why do you want to work
here?” Your goal is to get every answer laser-focused on your fit for this job.
Practicing ahead of time (with some input from your friend or coach) improves
your answer as well as your delivery of it, so that you sound confident. A good
interview conversation helps the employer see that you will be an asset to the
company, and that you’ll fit in smoothly as a civilian employee.
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Write a 30/60/90-Day Plan
There is no better way to demonstrate your fit for the job than to write a 30-60-
90-Day Plan for it. A 30-60-90-Day Plan is a written outline of your actions and
goals for the first 3 months on the job. This is another place where your research
will pay off, because you can’t write a good plan without knowing a lot about the
job and the company.
Here’s what this plan does for you: it shows the hiring manager that you are a
knowledgeable, driven, enthusiastic, self-starting go-getter. It shows that you
know what it takes to be successful.
Even if your plan is not letter-perfect (and
it won’t be, at your first interview), talking
it over with the hiring manager elevates
your interview conversation in
unbelievable ways. It psychologically puts
the hiring manager on your team, because
he’s talking over with you how you’ll be
successful on the job. With this plan, he or
she can ‘see’ it. It eliminates any barriers
that might exist because of the manager’s
unfamiliarity with military jobs.
***Develop impressive answers to interview questions with Career
Confidential’s free blog series, How to Answer Interview Questions: 101 Tough
Job Interview Questions and Answers
It’s been my experience over the last several years that for most people, finding a
job has a lot less to do with the economy than it has to do with how they conduct
themselves in their job search. The truth is, even in the most difficult economies,
companies need work done and many of them are still hiring. The only difference
is that in a difficult economy, they have the luxury of being able to pick and
choose from among the best of the best.
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So if you learn what to do in a difficult economy to stand out from the best of the
best and get hired, when the economy turns around again and jobs open up, then
you are in an even better position because you then have your pick of many great
opportunities.
Overall, don’t be afraid to be aggressive. This is your life, and it matters. Find as
many opportunities as you possibly can, and pursue each one with enthusiasm.
That’s how to keep your job search short but sweet with a very happy ending.
Additional Resources for You:
Job Search and Interview Training Webinars
http://careerconfidential.com/training-webinars/
Career Confidential Products
http://careerconfidential.com/job-search-tools/
Peggy’s Personal Coaching
http://www.phcconsulting.com/WordPress/interview-coaching/
Total Access Club (TAC)
http://careerconfidential.com/total-access-club-product-reviews/