5 secrets to getting a civilian...

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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.

http://careerconfidential.com/fastest-way-find-job-registration-2013.php


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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.

http://careerconfidential.com/fastest-way-find-a-job-tip1/

http://careerconfidential.com/fastest-way-find-a-job-series/


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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.

http://careerconfidential.com/how-to-answer-interview-questions-series/

http://careerconfidential.com/how-to-answer-interview-questions-series/


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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/




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