When you make the transition back to a civilian after any amount of time there are gonna be some adjustments. The biggest adjustment I had to make was to think like a civilian and not a military member. What do I mean by this? EVERYTHING you do in the civilian world is about MONEY, in the military, EVERYTHING is about the MISSION.
2 keys to securing a job before separation are:
- A Strong Resume
- A Strong Digital Presence
Resume
You have to make sure that your resume is simple yet flawless because it is most times the first thing that a recruiter or potential employer may see. A common misconception about writing a resume is that you have to include all of your past experiences and list everything you did on that job. This is a huge NO when it comes to resume writing because it tends to make your resume very long and cluttered. What you should do instead is narrow or resume down to 1 page with your education, experiences and contact info, also, if you are a developer you will need a list of clickable links to your projects. Also make sure that your job descriptions for each job you’ve had has no more than 3 Bullet points with a short description of your primary helpful duties. If you want to go over all of this in more detail book a session via the BOOK NOW link on our home page.
Digital Presence
A strong digital presence is way more that just having social media accounts that you barely post to or having an account that you post nonsense to. A huge mistake veterans make is not filtering what a recruiter or potential employer may see on their social media profiles. They may not think your dark military humor is as funny as your military buddies. This will hurt your chances at employment so it is best to have a social profile for work/professional and one for pleasure. I would suggest that you focus on LinkedIn and only LinkedIn as your work/professional social media platform because it is the largest job network out there and can shorten your job search. Recruiters use LinkedIn as a tool to find and connect with potential employees all across the county so building a solid network of connections will definitely expose you to the people you need to talk to for a job. Lastly, you want to make sure your LinkedIn profile is flawless and recruiters are impelled to message you with every available job they have. Checkout my LinkedIn profile for an example: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinjmosley