How do you prepare your civilian and federal resumes to set yourself up for success?

Hi SGT Joseph Gunderson - Great question. A few of our top transition & talent acquisition experts might have some helpful advice on the civilian resume front. Michelle Titus Stevan Richards Joseph Wong (Join to see) Danielle Gray CW3 Dylan E. Raymond, PHR SGT Jason Noma Brigit Freedman SSG Arron Daniels SMSgt Terrence Gonzalez Jennifer Farley LTC Paul Turevon LT George Bernloehr

Translation is the first step as SSG Pete Fleming recommended. Once you are able to translate your military experience to represent your skills, you need to make sure that you are applying that translation to the appropriate position and telling a compelling story. Take a look at the job description you are interested in. Read through it and highlight the required and desired skills set in the job description that are relevant to your experience. Now, make sure that you list each of those required and desired skills that you have in your resume in order to show that you do indeed have the proper experience to do the job. This will also set you apart from many other applicants who do not take the time to do so and are immediately rejected as not meeting the requirements because they did not include them in the resume.

Example: Your AFSC is 64PX and you are listing weapons quals on your resume, you may turn off prospective employers. However, if you tailor your resume to translate your experience as a Contracting Officer for weapon systems to reflect a position in, say, supply chain management you will be far better off.

Taking the time to tailor a resume to a few positions will be far better than applying to a hundreds of positions with the same, generic resume. There are two things to consider:
1 - There are likely 50-100 (or more) other applicants for the position. How do you set yourself apart? Take the time to have your resume demonstrate the required skills as they are listed in the job description
2 - With all of those applicants, recruiters and hiring managers do not have the time to translate for you. Some may have served in the same MOS, or be able to recognize what your military experience entails based on where you were stationed. Don't count on it though!

In regards to a civilian resume, there are a lot of tips out there but I tell people to remember is that the resume is a representation/extension of you. I'm not saying that it always has to be a standard or boring template, but just keep in mind that your resume will be getting to the manager before you do.