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Veterns - Effectively Present Your Military Skills

“It is a special kind of employee who steps forward and takes responsibility to get the job done,” says Col. Allen Weh, retired US Marine Corps reserve officer, and president and CEO of CSI Aviation Services Inc.

Weh, who founded CSI in 1979, employs former military personnel and is often asked for advice from veterans seeking to transfer their military skills to the business world. Here’s how he thinks vets can best present their skills in resumes and job interviews.

Employers Appreciate Veterans

“My manager of special operations, Vincent Nulk, a former Air Force Captain and helicopter pilot, oversees one of CSI’s sensitive contracts,” says Weh, who goes on to describe the type of workers veterans typically exemplify.

Nulk’s mission is to provide the client with large aircraft that fly all hours of the night. “My man will work a 60-hour week, including weekends, and does not have any problem getting up at 2 a.m. to bird-dog a maintenance issue. He’s a hard worker and a valuable asset to the company.” Nulk shows leadership, stamina and willingness to go the extra mile — traits that are valued and rewarded in the workplace.

Interview Tip: Describe a military operation where you pushed yourself to do more than was required and show how that project was successfully completed due to your efforts or the combined efforts of your team. Teamwork is often encouraged in the workplace and can be an easily translatable job skill.

Proudly Display Your Military Experience

Weh has received some of the best resumes from veterans who include their billet title and military rank. “People who don’t acknowledge their military careers are not helping themselves,” Weh says. “I saw a retired lieutenant colonel’s resume that simply listed vague managerial skills, and the only reference to his military career was that he served in the US Air Force. An employer could have mistaken his military career for one at IBM.”

Employers cannot glean a complete understanding of your work potential if you disguise your past. Given that a typical HR manager won’t comprehend the significance of title and rank, veterans should also include an equivalent civilian title. For example, a commanding general can list the equivalent civilian title as chief executive officer.

Resume Tip: Don’t disguise your rank to civilianize your resume — that discounts your military faculties. As a veteran, you can help the civilian sector understand more about the military. And if companies understand, they might feel less intimidated.

What Does and Doesn’t Belong on a Resume?

Everyone in the military works in an occupational field, and according to Weh, “you have to translate how you’ve evolved in your military career.” However, some of your daily duties are not applicable to the civilian workplace. For example, if you were an infantry or artillery officer, shooting cannons does not apply. But if you’re an air traffic controller, there’s an actual counterpart civilian job, and you should list the skill set that relates to the position.

Resume Tip: Some job seekers will have an easier time adapting their skills to civilian jobs, but for those whose qualifications aren’t directly transferable, you’ll need to start thinking about how you’ve used your skills to achieve tangible and measurable results.

Don’t Embellish Your Military Skills

“There’s nothing wrong with giving credit where credit’s due, but embellishing is wrong,” says Weh. Some career coaches encourage veterans to decorate their resumes in civilianese. For example, a veteran might claim that managing millions of dollars for the military is similar to someone doing the same in the private sector. “Money management in the military is totally different than money management in civilian life,” Weh says. “People in the military have a budget, but they didn’t earn it, and it’s often spent by consensus.”

Resume Tip: Acknowledge skills like the ability to organize, analyze or lead. Emphasize time management, communication skills and conflict-resolution capabilities. Match your skills with those required in the job you’re applying for.

Search for hundreds of thousands of jobs now at www.military.com/careers

We have all heard the saying “Seek and You Will Find”. The truth is, what are you looking for was actually never lost. It was right in front of you the entire time.

For example, you think your boyfriend is cheating on you. So you start “looking” for proof. You search his pants pocket, you find a telephone number. You tap into his voicemail and you hear the other woman’s voice. The fact of the matter is the proof has been there the whole time. You didn’t actually “find” anything you didn’t already know.

The same applies with a job. Do a search for any type of position on any online job board. I guarantee your search will return one or more jobs. Go buy a Sunday newspaper this weekend. I assure you that the classified ad section will be full of job listings. In spite of the current state of our economy, many businesses continue to thrive and need employees.

I understand, you are out of work and you need a job. I want you to get one! But to accomplish that goal, you have to stop wasting your time “looking” for a job and invest your time on true results, getting the job.

Identify your strengths and opportunities. What type of work are you good at? Are you skilled enough to convince an employer to hire you? That is a talent in and of its self. What capabilities do you have to offer a company? What sets you apart from your competition? Do you know what the current unemployment rate is? If not, check it out by visiting the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. To call it competition is really an understatement.

Realistically if a company offers you a job at $50,000.00 a year, they really want to know if you can produce them $100,000.00 a year. What will be the true return on their investment in you? If you can not answer that question today, again I urge you to stop “looking” for a job, and spend your time and energy developing a marketing strategy for yourself that will put you in a position to convince your next employer to hire you. Employers need to know what you can do for them. The jobs are out there. Well prepared, qualified candidates with something to offer is what is hard to find.

Ricklyn Woods is the founder of Career Development Network, LLC, and is committed to helping others succeed in their careers through ongoing coaching and education. For information, career advice, and upcoming workshops please visit http://www.grow-your-career.com

Why is it that one man or woman’s job search produces a dream career while another’s turns out to be a nightmare? The often overlooked reason is personality mismatches with the chosen career.

If you want to find the right career, firstyou must look inwardly and identify your personality traits. If the career you are thinking about matches your character analysis, you’ve hit the jackpot. The result? The best job in the world, right in your own back pocket.

Too many artists and musicians were steered into accounting jobs. Too many potential athletes are laying concrete. Are you in the right job for your personality?

If you’re living a spiritual lifestyle and you want practical career guidance in finding the career your Soul longs for, then let’s make sure you are on the right track.

I will show you how to find the job that best matches your personality.

Let me give you an example of a big mismatch and perhaps it will seem familiar to you. One of the worst jobs I ever had was when I desperately needed a job to help support my marriage and baby. My cousin encouraged me to apply at her manufacturing, assembly-line-type company in North Hollywood, California.

The pay wasn’t very good. I was standing for very long periods of time and the work never changed.

The reason this was not the best job for me was because my personality and the position were mismatched. They needed someone who wanted and enjoyed repetitive, quiet work and I thought it was akin to jail.

If I’d only known my own needs before I took that job, I would have chosen better. We do better when we know better. What I really needed from any job was an exciting career that would not add to my family problems.

This job was a total mismatch because:

I missed my baby and felt guilty for leaving her with a baby sitter. This job pulled me away from home for nine hours a day.

I love people and am quite a talker. Those I worked with were great, but we were encouraged to work quickly and quietly. I needed regular social interaction.

I am naturally curious and like to try new things. Assembly line work at this company only provided repetitive work. I thought I would go crazy!

After only working one month, I quit and began a job search for one that better matched my personality.

It’s imperative that if you are going to find work you love, that you define your own personality and look for the spiritual gifts (these would be skills, talents, values, interests and hobbies) you were born with. Once you know this information you can go out and get the career of your dreams.

Begin with these simple questions:

Which do I prefer, mental work or physical work?

Which do I prefer, working indoors or out?

Would I rather work alongside others in a group effort, or work alone?

When you answer these 3 simple questions, you will have begun the journey of Discovering Your Life’s Work. Why would a “social butterfly” work at night in a back room alone? Why would an insomniac work days? Why would an idea person pull weeds?

The journey of Discovering Your Life’s Work will be thrilling and life-fulfilling. Begin by asking yourself those 3 questions and start a good business plan. The career match for your personality is just around the corner.

For updates on how to find your best career/personality match go to Life’s Work Career

For further information on the Spiritual application of this subject go to Applying Spiritual Principles

Certified Behavioral Therapist and Spiritual Career Counselor, Kathi Calahan, helps others find the work best suited to their personalities. Her background includes teaching at two different California community colleges, a business representative at the Camp Verde Chamber of Commerce and for many years developed her spiritual side by working as a Professional Psychic. Her work centers around helping others discover their life’s work.

After you read this short article you will have learned how retained executive recruiters can jump start your search for senior management.

Since senior and executive level candidates generally do not post their resumes on popular job boards, sourcing candidates with specific industry skills and proven leadership talent may take more time than projected. Even with on-going departmental budget cuts, outsourcing executive search can be a wise decision.

Did you know that an executive recruiter works for the corporation not the job seeker? As a result a professional executive recruiting firm will align with your goals and objectives to fill senior leadership roles. The number one purpose for hiring an executive search firm is to have an experienced and professional resource to search, screen and interview highly qualified candidates for your organization.

Since the executive recruiting industry is fragmented, you may come across a number of small firms that offer the services you are seeking. While you may find a greater degree of comfort by working with a large company, hiring a small retained search firm can have its advantages. In fact, both large and small executive recruiting firms will assign a consultant to work with your account. Therefore, as long as the consultant has experience, you can safely choose a small and possibly even more personable executive search firm to manage your recruiting needs.

When evaluating an executive recruiting firm for your next high-level management opening, ask these questions.

* Have you ever worked with companies in our industry?
* Ask for references; were your previous clients satisfied?
* What are the industry standard rates?
* What is the average time to fulfill an assignment?
* Aside from the candidates’ credentials, will you learn what really drives a candidate?
* If we choose not to hire your candidate, what are the next steps?

In today’s economy, business decisions must be evaluated. While an unexpected expense can be difficult to justify, some unforeseen expenses can save time as well as frustration. If your recruiting efforts bring in unqualified candidates, then the cost to hire an experienced executive search firm will definitely outweigh its expense.

For critical or major positions why not evaluate retained executive recruiters in your area? Their services can be used to supplement in-house recruiting efforts and to attract the right candidates for your leading management positions.

Written by Carlos Aguilera. This article is brought to you by BlueBridge Group, an Atlanta based executive recruiting firm that provides boutique level executive search services nationwide. Visit us at http://www.bluebridgegroup.com for more information.

So you’ve been lucky enough to get an interview, now how can you make sure that you can lock in an offer and get the job? I am going to keep this really simple: RESEARCH (learn) and PRACTICE.

First, So your RESEARCH and learn about potential companies and employers. The more you learn about the company you are interviewing for, the more interactive the interview will be and the more likely you are to stand out and rise above the competition.

Tap Network Resources

Start by seeing if there is anyone you know that works at the company you are interviewing with and ask them for key insights. Tap into the social and professional networking tools and get connected or re-connected. Next, do your job search and career planning research.

Top Websites for Company and Industry Research

Hoovers Online

A quick one-stop reference for business information: industry overviews, company directories, Fortune 500 lists and more.

BusinessWeek Online - Company Research

Search and research over 42,000 public and 322,000 private companies worldwide. Find stock quotes, news and press releases, financial data and key competitors. Research compensation, biographies, and board relationships of key company executives.

Forbes -Lists

Lists of everything imaginable - best small companies, best big companies, fastest growing, top private, world’s biggest and more.

The Inc. 5000

Quickly get information on the top 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. With a quick click on Top 100 Lists you can drill-down and get all sorts of statistics on the top 100 fastest growing private companies.

Newslink

Easily search for news articles on the web on any given company, industry or topic. The site also has state and market links to every major media outlet: magazine, newspaper, TV and radio for easy access and on news with the U.S. and beyond .

Find Articles.com - Now Super-Powered by BNET

Another great news and article search tool that allows you to search by most popular topics, publications or by key categories and industries.

In summary, maximize your career planning time with these best career websites for research and learn all that you can about potential employers. Remember … you can never be too prepared.

Lisa Duncan is the Owner and Publisher of http://www.HotCareerSites.com With the underlying premise: Life is short. Love what you do! … the site is designed as a job search and career planning gateway developed to help people find the perfect job that is right for them.

Be remarkable, be amazing, be brilliant, be the very best at what you do!

Life is short. Love what you do!

The training process is a good gauge for your new job
The senior guy was supposed to get me up to speed on the company processes. Things started off well enough until this guy ran a few practice sessions with me in which I didn’t do very well. I feel that was mainly because this guy has a high-handed attitude and I got a bit nervous.

But as far as projects go, I did what was expected. This went on until about three months back when this guy was on vacation and we had a production emergency. I was on call and tried my level best to figure out what the issue was. But I was unable to do so, because there was a lack of documentation on the process involved. Anyway, long story short, the guy got back that evening, and we had the situation under control.

After this incident, the guy refuses to assign me work or involve me in the goings on, in spite of several emails asking for work. He has completely cut me off, and behaves rudely when I go up and talk to him.

We have a manager who we report to but he is kind of hands off and doesn’t really know that this has been going on. Should I go and approach the manager and let him know about the situation? Or should I inform the HR department? Or should I just look for a new job? Please help!
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If you’re like many people you may have had a period of time in your Career where you had too many job changes. You feel that you may be perceived as chronic job hopper, a negative to many companies who perceive a stable job history with a dependable, quality employee.

Selling Point number one is to consider your job hopping as paid training for this new position, paid for by past employers.

Selling Point number two is that with your diverse experience you will bring many other Skills, Knowledge and Abilities to the table none of their other candidates could possibly bring.

Selling Point number three is that by being new you have no preset habits and you can update your training by participating in all of the newest courses which will benefit the Team immediately.

Selling Point number four is that you bring new and fresh insights from a diverse set of employers and industries.

It is important that you begin with understanding the Selling points, often those who have been job hoppers tend to feel inadequate. They tend to look upon their Career as having some problems, due to the lack of stability. When in fact your job hopping is your value, however you need to believe in yourself, and you need to know how to sell yourself, because if you don’t believe in yourself no one else will either.

When discussing your previous positions observe how you describe that experience. When asked about it do you complain, or criticize your former employer? Do you defend yourself? Did you get hurt by the experience and feel disgruntled enough to complain about them? If you do any of these you need to stop IMMEDIATELY because your doing yourself great harm. Even if you were fired you still have immense value to thousands of employers, employers who are hungry to higher people just like you.
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