Chris Villanueva 00:42
Now, I am by no means going to tell you that this episode is only for folks who are making military transitions. If you are going through some sort of transition, I will try my best to make this applicable to you as well. I know a lot of folks listening in have not been in the military, but I do think it is very important to do an episode like this. So our folks who have been in that position before can make a successful transition As many resources that there are available online, I believe that there aren’t enough really to help folks who’ve been in the military make this sort of transition. So I hope that this episode serves them and I hope that it helps them to make a successful transition.

Chris Villanueva 01:26
Alright, I have a quote from one of our recent clients here at, Let’s Eat, Grandma I was just really inspired by this. It says, I am retiring from the army on April 30th. I’m looking for someone who can take the time to listen to me when I present all the different aspects of my many jobs during the course of my army career. I want the resume writer to stop me when necessary and ask targeted questions to gain a better understanding of what I did and then translate it into civilian speak. I love this question because one of the biggest hangups of having this military experience and applying to these private positions are the jargon and making sure that it’s not too hard to understand for someone who has not been in the military. So we’ll cover that with my third point today. But the first thing I want to do here is just I want to run it back to my conversation with Steve Arango, who was a former Marines officer and has just led this amazing career helping folks transition. So let’s hear from Steven real quick. He’ll talk about what not to do when making this transition.

Chris Villanueva 03:30
I know a lot of military commanders have junior officers or junior enlisted marines or whatever write their own letter of recommendation and then they put the type of language or they kind of make it sound how they would write down the road. So with all that said, do everything you can to translate your skills that you gain to the civilian world and don’t undersell yourself by any stretch of the imagination,

Chris Villanueva 04:48
Some things to focus on are your leadership ability and experiences, perhaps process improvements you had in a department? Was it the impressive volume you dealt with, or improvements to team performance as a whole? These types of stories are going to show communication, leadership, hard work, as well as affecting improvement as a whole. All things that you can do and all things that you can use in a resume. Now, after you’ve gotten all these achievements down, the second strategy I’m going to steer you towards is making sure to include relevant skills, certifications, and duties on your document. I was working with a person who was transitioned from work. He was working IT positions in the Air Force, and he was having a hard time transitioning into these non-military experiences. The balance you really want to strike is including some of your specific callouts on this military experience.

Chris Villanueva 05:49
You can put things like army, marines, officer, whatever it may be, some jargon, that’s fine. But the number one thing want to focus on above all else is including the right types of skills, keywords, and things to show that you know what you’re doing here. So when I’m thinking about this person who we helped rewrite the resume and eventually they got noticed for a position that they got rejected from previously, and the reason why they ended up getting their dream job for this amazing huge company in it was because we took the resume and we whittled it down to the most targeted experiences and skills. Really, I think it was the skills that we were including on the document front and center that got the resume noticed. Now, this was a one page document. You don’t need this big elaborate document with tons of text.

Chris Villanueva 06:46
This is typically why I advocate for a targeted approach when it comes to your resume, but we weren’t focusing very much on the military things. That was something that was sprinkled, I think tactfully within the document. But the important thing was to include and get targeted for those cybersecurity keywords that were required of the job postings. So one stat I’ll bring out is that 41% of recruiters are looking for skills on a resume first, according to McKinsey and according to a Glass Doors statistic, hard skills are the focus for 88% of hiring managers when reading resumes. So if you don’t necessarily have a professional experience that speaks perfectly to the job posting, one thing you might want to consider is including your skills section, just a clearly labeled skills section with say 10 to 15, maybe just start with 10 hard skills that you can include to target the job postings and then after that, go into your professional experience in the military.

Chris Villanueva 07:52
So the whole point of this section I’m trying to make is, doesn’t matter, don’t focus too much of the military versus non-military thing When it comes to the resume, just number one thing really to focus on is relevant and making sure to include relevant skills and relevant keywords. Alright, so we’ll talk about verbiage here in a second because I promised I would do that. Your professional experiences section, I think this is where a lot of folks coming from the military get tripped up because they will include professional experiences and then somebody reading it. And I have been one of those people will look over these bullet points and be like, you did what? Why? It just comes across as of course, impressive. I’m sure what you did was impressive, but it’s so difficult for me to understand because of not only the jargon, but the way that you’re phrasing these things.

Chris Villanueva 08:44
So you have to transition your resumes using civilian terms as much as possible and removing any sort of jargon. If an employer doesn’t know what a certain thing that it means, then that’s a bad thing. So if I could steer your attention towards simplifying the language and focusing on how you can explain certain things in civilian terms, the key things that companies are often looking for are, can you help the company make money, save money, or improve a process somehow? And oftentimes our leadership and the things that we’ve done, those are ways that we can affect it. But dumb down, and I’m sorry to use such prai like that, but I would just say really simplify some of the phrasing and put it in just plain English so that people who are making decisions know exactly what you’re talking about and how it can affect a department as a whole.

Chris Villanueva 09:44
So if that’s something that you’re having trouble with, I’ll try to link a few resources that can be helpful. But you’re always welcome to of course, submit your resume for review, and we’ll be honest with you, if you’re including too much military jargon here. The fourth thing I will suggest for those who are crafting a military resume and really putting their job search truly on acceleration, is don’t be afraid to steer towards military friendly companies. In fact, I’m almost positive the job that that guy got who I referenced a second ago that was a military friendly company, it was a Fortune 50 company, but there are so many organizations out there that are going to be focusing on hiring veterans. So put your experience front and center. As I mentioned earlier, yes, you want to focus on the relevant skills and keywords in the document, but you can mention within the summary at the top, especially if you are applying to military friendly companies that you served X amount of years in Y capacity in the branch that you were a part of here.

Chris Villanueva 10:48
So I’m going to drop a link. The URL really is, it’s plain and simple, militaryfriendly.com/employers/ So within this list here, in my opinion, a really strong list of companies who have a good history of hiring folks who have come from the military, you have companies like Northwestern Mutual, old National Bank, you have Walmart of course, but you have companies that you’ve probably never heard of as well. So I’ll make sure to link that within the description. And I think probably prioritizing these companies first with this resume is going to give you a good shot here. I think that should be useful. Alright, a few other stats here to help our veterans. Again, just to focus on making sure that the resume is relevant. Make sure that it’s strong is 40% of recruiters say that they have hired a candidate based on their LinkedIn profile alone.

Chris Villanueva 11:42
This comes from the Harvard Business Review. Make sure you have a LinkedIn profile, and that is such a great way to use it as a networking tool to add your military experience in a way that doesn’t focus too much on that. You can keep the focus on where you’re going, not where you’ve been, but I think this is a nice way to put that on the document. Put that in your job search. Another thing is that 63% of recruiters like to get resumes that are personalized to the job position. This comes from Glassdoor. So make sure to include a resume that is truly targeted. So this doesn’t mean that you have to change it completely. I’ll have to overhaul your resume every single time. But again, tweaking those keywords here and there as you are applying to the job can be very useful. All right, this was episode 361, how to transition your resume.

Chris Villanueva 12:39
If you have military experience, I really want to make sure that folks feel like they’re supported, that they’re getting the support that they deserve. So feel free to reach out to us by going to letseatgrandma.com You can sign up for a free resume review or speak to one of our friendly representatives. Thanks so much for tuning in and I’ll see you next time Career Warrior Podcast. And before you go, remember if you’re not seeing the results you want in your job search, our highly trained team of professional resume writers here at, Let’s Eat, Grandma can help head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast/ to get a free resume critique and $70 off any one of our resume writing packages. We talk all the time on the show about the importance of being targeted in your job search. And with our unique writing process and focus on individual attention, you’ll get a resume cover letter and LinkedIn profile that are highly customized and tailored to your goals to help you get hired faster. Again, head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast/ Thanks, and I’ll see you next time.