Military Resume Tips

The following military experience resume tips are from the following resources.

A sample of the following advice follows:

Technical Expertise: Especially for engineering and technician careers, a rule of thumb is that the more technical aspects you can include on your resume the better; this applies to engineers and senior Non-Commissioned Officers as well as more junior technicians.

For enlisted service members, leadership and supervision are important, but one must not forget to emphasize hands-on experience. A technical expertise section makes it easy for hiring managers to identify the types of equipment and tools that you have managed, fixed and operated. Think big picture (i.e. hydraulics, pneumatics, ladder logic, boilers, generators, etc.) rather than military-specific systems and terminology.

(Example) Technical Skills

Mechanical Sysems
AC & DC Circuits
Technical Manuals
Frequency Counters
Electronic Cooling
Electrical Theory
Solid State Devices
Electronic Theory
Multimeters
Fluid Mechanics
Quality Assurance
Scheduled Maintenance
Troubleshooting
Schematics and Diagrams
Electromechanical Systems

(Example) IT Skills

Operating Systems: Sun Solaris (6 yrs), HP-UX (5 yrs), Linux (4 yrs), Novell (5 yrs), Windows NT Server (2 yrs), Cisco IOS 9-12 (5 yrs)
Software: HP Openview (4 yrs), CiscoWorks (1 yr), Microsoft Exchange (2 yrs), Side Winder Firewalls (2 yrs), ISS (2 yrs)
Hardware: Pargain T1/E1 modems, Cabletron switches, Cisco 2500, 4000 and 7000 routers
Media: 10Base2 (BNC, COAX) 10BaseT (UTP)

Experience

List your military experience in reverse chronological order, start with the job you have or had most recently. Functional resumes do not allow you to properly chronicle your accomplishments and often make it difficult to understand your current duties and responsibilities.

Note: Use active language and vary your verbs. Avoid the phrase “responsible for”. It is passive language and takes up valuable real estate. “Responsible for training 20 soldiers” is better stated “Trained 20 soldiers.”

Keep in mind that many clients actively recruit military-experienced leaders for your extensive project and resource management experience, ability to plan long term strategic goals and execute short term complex strategies, manage mid-sized to large groups, and deal with highstress situations

Put your responsibilities in terms that civilian hiring authorities are likely to understand. “Commanded an Infantry company” is not as effective as, “Led 240 soldiers in the maintenance and safe operation of $20 million worth of weapons and transportation equipment.”

Note: Try to avoid using little known military-specific acronyms and jargon and use plain language to describe military-specific equipment, systems, and programs.Finally, write to your level of experience. A CEO doesn’t need to mention his or her ability to file
paperwork while a recent college grad probably hasn’t orchestrated multi-million dollar projects.

Accomplishments

Remember, an employer is looking for indicators that a candidate has a track record of success. Read your resume from the employer’s point of view:

Is there evidence of above-average performance indicated by quantifiable accomplishments and results?
Are you explaining what you did and how it made an impact on the organization's productivity, efficiency and/or service objectives?

Remember that the private sector is to a large extent bottom-line and profits/savings-driven. Companies want to know that you can make an impact by saving time, increasing efficiency (by training people, performing quality assurance, reengineering processes, etc.) and succeed in doing more with less.

Because the military is mission-oriented, relaying the fact that you have previously impacted profits can be tricky. But the military is a customer service-oriented organization in that each unit usually works to support/compliment another. You have probably improved operational efficiency, expanded an organization’s production capabilities and enhanced customer service –all accomplishments that typically drive profits in the corporate world.

Understand that this is an important tone for your resume to possess. Under your responsibilities, put up to three bulletized accomplishments and if listing rankings, consider only listing those where you were ranked number one or number two in a large field of competitive peers.

When formulating accomplishments, aim to state the impact of your actions first when applicable e.g., “Saved $250K in maintenance costs…” followed by specific action “…by creating a parts refurbishment and reclamation program.”