Tips for Preparing Military to Civilian Resumes

(Part Three)

Follow the guidelines on this page (page 3 of 3) to help ensure military to civilian resumes are considered by top employers.

Personal: The personal section should always be last on your resume, and should be no more than 2 lines.  It should include your hobbies and your computer skills (if you are not an IT candidate).

PERSONAL:  Excellent health. Enjoy golf, basketball, weightlifting. Proficient in all  Windows applications. SSBI security clearance. Willing to travel. Willing to relocate.

Being Concise: Your resume should be no more than one page.  With the exception of the Heading, you should use no less than 10-point type, and no less than ½ margins. Hiring authorities do not want a resume that is too long or that is hard to read.

The resume is only one part of the hiring process.  It is meant to give your interviewer a very quick overview of your background.  Do not try to include every detail on your resume.  During the interview process, you will be able to further describe the details of your career.

EXPERIENCE

1992 - 2003   Deck Watch Officer, USCGC Alert (WMEC-630), Cape May, NJ
    Diligently stood daily Officer of the Deck Watches. Expertly utilized in port and underway watch sections to accomplish unit’s law enforcement and search and rescue missions. Skillfully led Weapons division. Supervised 2 Gunner’s Mates.  Responsible for 15 side arms, 2 .50 caliber machine guns & 3 .50 caliber deck gun. Maintained adequate supply/inventory of all corresponding ammunition. Expertly led Electronics division. Utilized ERPAL to ensure all necessary supplies available. Supervised 3 Electronics Technicians. Responsible for maintenance/repair of all ships radios, radio teletype and radar equipment. Efficiently managed Supply division. Supervised 2 Supply Clerks, 6 Cooks, and a Yeoman. Using LUFS, ensured ship had all necessary fuel, parts, and stores to operate during 7-week deployments.

By combining jobs, eliminating adverbs in front of action verbs, and removing information that the hiring authority doesn’t understand or doesn’t care about, the above job description can be shortened significantly and made to be much higher impact.

EXPERIENCE

1992 - 2003  Deck Watch Officer, USCGC Alert (WMEC-630), Cape May, NJ
    Directed effective operation of 210’ ship & 85-member crew during daily watches. Supervised 12 sailors. Ensured proper maintenance of $7MM worth of critical equipment. Coordinated all logistics requirements for ship.

Do not put an objective on your resume.  Your BMI candidate recruiter knows what your career objective is, and will present you for opportunities accordingly.  An objective could work against you in an interview if it is not 100% in tune with the position for which you are interviewing.

Do not put a career summary on your resume.  A resume is, by definition, a career summary.  If you feel the need to add a career summary section to your resume, you have not been concise enough on the rest of your resume.

If you have 15+ years of experience, you should combine some of your early experience into one summarized section, and focus on your most recent experience.

EXPERIENCE

1990 - 2000 Tank Mechanic, Various Units, Various Locations

Maintained and repaired all mechanical/electrical systems on M-60 tank. Supervised as many as 10 mechanics. Performed inventory audits.

  • Maintained  a 92%+ equipment readiness rating (90% is excellent)
  • Named Battalion NCO of the quarter (1 of 150)
  • Earned 7 Army Achievement and Commendation medals

Pertinent Information: The most important information on your resume is your contact information.  It is crucial that BMI personnel or our clients can get in touch with you on short notice.  Your resume needs to contain all of your contact information.  This includes home and work phone numbers, and all email addresses.  You must keep this information current.

The hiring process can take several months.  If there is a possibility that any of your contact information may be invalid by the end of the process, include a cell phone number or email address that you will be checking often throughout your job search process.

Professionalism: Your resume must be grammatically correct and must contain no spelling errors.  Use the best possible grammar/spell check program to check your resume.  In addition, have someone that is good with spelling and grammar, check your resume.

Your resume must look like it was professionally prepared.  Use the different features (bold, italics, font, underline) to enhance the appearance of your resume.  Hold your resume at arms length.  Does it look well organized? And, does it have a sharp appearance?  If not, ask your candidate recruiter to send you an example resume.  You can overtype your information onto our resume template.

Easy to read resumes get read.

Also, it is critical that your email address be a “professional” one (e.g., something similar to “firstname.lastname@isp.com”), not a nickname or phrase.

Similarly, your answering machine message should be professional in tone and content as well. Potential employers may have the need to contact you at home and you will want to use this opportunity to deliver a positive impression, even with your voicemail message.