SPECIAL EDITION DEDICATED TO DFAS EMPLOYEES

Introduction by Kathryn Troutman, President of The Resume Place Inc:

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving Week to everyone. I hope that you have a wonderful and safe holiday with your family and friends wherever you are. And especially, let's remember our Veterans who are working throughout the world to protect our nation.

Photo printed with permission by photographer, Joseph Castillo.
The photo above is the Koochie Nomads Girls School. The Reservists provide school supplies for the students as good will services. Joseph is a Reservist fulfilling U.S. Army Reserves Active Duty in Afghanistan. When he is a civilian he is employed by a power company, American Electric Power as a senior IT Architect/SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) Engineer. Joseph is working on his Resumix for future positions in the government as a civilian when his tour of duty ends in Feb. 2006. He will soon have a new Military Federal Resume that will follow the lessons taught to the DFAS employees.

THE DFAS RESUMIX STORY
by Kathryn Troutman, Resumix Trainer

Thousands of employees at DFAS are writing their resumes now preparing for reorganization and closure of many DFAS locations throughout the U.S.! Last Winter, I spent five months traveling to 20 Defense Finance & Accounting Service sites throughout the U.S. I was training Vendor Pay Accounting staff how to write the best possible Resumix and how to sell themselves for promotion, lateral move, new agency, database searches and even career change!

I trained more than 900 Accounting Technicians, Accountants, Administrative Staff in writing an outstanding Resumix that would be:

1.) Successful in the Resumix system with the right keywords for human resources queries so that the resume could be referred to the supervisor; and;
2.) How to write a resume that will STAND OUT at the supervisor’s desk through accomplishments that would result in an interview or job offer!

Please feel free to forward this email or send this web address to your friends and co-workers!

During my classes I take notes on the computer as the participants speak about their accomplishments.

GOOD AFTERNOON DFAS SAN ANTONIO 1/3/05

Accomplishments:
I was a member of the team that received the TEAM EXCEL AWARD for past fiscal year. We did not loose one discount for the entire year and earned $1 million discount funds. Completed Client capitalization of financial records. Traveled on-site to implement EDM to 13 sites U.S. Wide. Trained more than 60 accounting professionals in the new system.

GOOD AFTERNOON DFAS COLUMBUS, 12/6/04

How many Hats to you wear at work? Accounts wear alot of "hats" at work. Read the list of Nouns and Skills that the accountants brainstormed during class. All of these nouns could be added to some resumes. And these could be keywords and skills for target positions! Accounting Technicians can use all of these nouns in their resumes, which represents their work for military and government customers:

Researcher
Analyst
Problem solver
Reconciliation
Coordinator
Fact-finding
Investigator
Trainer / educator
Compiler
Customer service / customer care
Database maintenance
Systems knowledge / systems implementation
Team member / team leader
Communications
Supervisor
Project Coordinator / project leader
Liaison / briefings
Project manager / team leader
Operations manager and supervisor
Computer skills: access, Powerpoint, excel, Word
Writing, editing, correspondence management
Policy and procedures interpretation
planning
Prioritizing
Knowledge of policies, procedures and regulations
Knowledge of systems
Customers: vendors, contractors, internal, external, government agencies

COMPETENCIES:
Work well under pressure, keep calm
Creative, resourceful, resilient, initiative

GOOD MORNING FORD ISLAND, HONOLULU DFAS Thursday, 03/16/05

Brainstorming about Nouns, Skills and Accomplishments:

TEAM MEMBER Share knowledge, serve as a technical expert, provide case expertise with team members. Since we are divided by system access, I share knowledge and training in the area of payables, obligating, and quality control.

INCREASED EFFICIENCY AND TRAINED CO-WORKERS. Learned new systems, including DTIMS. Provide technical assistance and training on DTIMS. Developed a newly hired employee through cross-training.

GOOD AFTERNOON OMAHA DFAS, Thursday, 03/01/05

CUSTOMER SERVICE EXAMPLES
Problem solved
Researched invoices
Where’s my money? Examples!
Trained on new systems
Internal customers and teams
Provided documentation efficiently
RESULT: Demonstrate THAT YOU care about customers and their challenges.

TEAMWORK
Why? What do you contribute?
Cross-training, sharing knowledge
Completing projects
Improving processes
Completing workload with team members absent
What value to you bring to your team?

LEARNING NEW SYSTEMS
WAWF
DTIMS
Learning new systems to improve customer services, increase information for customers
More efficiency?

PERFORMANCE AND PRODUCTIVITY QUOTAS that come with evaluations
Include these in your Resumix to demonstrate your performance.

Desirable competencies:
Soft skills or competencies
motivated self starter
ability to work multiple projects simultaneously
possess good interpersonal communication skills
the ability to work with numbers and to systematically and analytically solve problems
strong organizational skills
and the ability to work independently or in a cross-functional team environment

GOOD MORNING PENSACOLA DFAS Thursday, 9/12/05

CUSTOMER SERVICES:
Pay tuition assistance, payment certification provided by military processing, training facilities. Customers / schools send invoices for military personnel. Resolve problems with pay certification which may have errors. Process and pay in a timely manner. Paying invoices – more efficient time frame.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
Improved system for paying Troops to Teacher program increasing bonuses and incentives to military personnel by more than 2 weeks with improved invoice training.

Developed improved systems for paying invoices for telephone services for military bases through out the SE, reducing interest payments for more than $25,K payments per month.

GOOD AFTERNOON ST. LOUIS DFAS Thursday, 02/08/04

ACCOMPLISHMENTS Why are they important?
Accomplishments are important so that you will stand out above your competition with your outstanding accomplishments for customers, your organization’s mission, your customer’s mission, solving problems, becoming more efficient, working with change, working under pressure. You need to STAND OUT with your outstanding service.

Types of accomplishments:
Customer Services
Where’s my money?
Where are my billings?
Increase timing for payments – decrease interest paid, increase discounts
How do I submit invoices to EDM?
Training customer in preparing invoices
Researching invoices

Automated Systems
Continual learning, updating to improve efficiency

Becoming more efficient – increased workload, downsizing of staff, restructuring projects, increased volume of business, increased vendor pay and other accounting activities due to war-time activities, increased budget, more spending

Teamwork – why is a good thing?
To become more efficient, cross-training in each other’s work, to complete organizational missions, share knowledge, provide technical assistance for team members,

Change – have things changed around here?
YES … increased business, new mission objectives, more clients, more workload, new systems, new methods. WE have to continually change our priorities and projects to meet mission and client/vendor objectives. Work under pressure ..

Why accomplishments?
To stand out, get an interview, look different, be unique, impress the reader, lead them to wan tot meet you, get them to see that you will be an asset to their organization.

KEEP A LIST OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS on your computer all the time
Be aware of challenging customer and work situations where you can write about them … demonstrating your above and beyond service to customers, meeting deadlines

WHERE TO INCLUDE ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN THE RESUMIX? After the DUTIES section in the resume
Write your ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

DO NOT USE THESE WORDS IN YOUR RESUMIX:
Responsible for
Duties include
Other duties include
Tasks include
Helped with
Worked with
Assisted with

Remember Your Message when writing your DFAS or Federal Resume:

DFAS is the largest Accounting Firm in the world
Business is growing due to the Defense Budget, Wartime activities and military services I am focused on paying invoices and ensuring the contractors, soldiers and components are paid in a timely way so that they can continue to provide services for their Defense activities.

GOOD AFTERNOON SAN DIEGO DFAS, 03/04/05

TEAMWORK AND INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

What is your value to your team?
Building morale? Follow-up and taking over cases for team members? Sharing expertise in electronic accounting systems? Sharing knowledge of past cases?
Organizing agenda? Keeping case lists? Follow up?

CHANGE ACCEPTANCE – establishing new systems to become efficient and effective in a changing work setting. Due to changes in EDM – manual to automated accounting systems; decreased staff availability; increased workload due to the Operation Enduring Freedom. It is important to set up more efficient systems to perform work, including Excel tracking systems, a daily work goals plans, daily productivity reports (that I develop for myself), organization of cases for higher production, and carefully managed problem-solving, so that the problems are resolved efficiently and with follow-up.

New technology – received training and implemented the new Electronic Data Management system for online invoicing by vendors. Also learned and implemented the WAWF program. Extensive customer/ vendor education, problem-solving on the new system. Sharing knowledge with team members and internal accounting customers.

GOOD MORNING INDIANAPOLIS DFAS 2005

Use a quote from thank letters in your Resumix – add the person’s name and title to the quote.

The Typical DFAS Resumix is 3 pages, 11,000 characters

Customer Service Accomplishment: Managed a rental car company account: Enterprise rental car. Documents had been here, had been input into the system, but were lost. The customer kept calling, but was having trouble with full information on the accounts and payment. The invoice is not prepared correctly. I took the call and asked for faxxed documents to process the documents. I forwarded the request to the right person, who input the invoices and certified the payment. The customer was very pleased to be paid. I was glad to go the extra mile to the customer paid.

Customer Training Accomplishment: Provide customer training for correct invoicing and documentation for efficient payment. We provide continuous customer training to facilitate timely payments with new systems. Our training includes VPIS, where customers can review status of payments.

Prompt Payment Act – (could be a keyword)

Member of a team – share knowledge, expertise, cross-training, discuss complex cases, share experiences, train member on automated systems that are not known.

GOOD AFTERNOON SAN ANTONIO DFAS, 1/03/05

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
Counsel and advise small business owners and managers to ensure timely payment, ensure quality services and continuance of small business and set aside businesses.

Trained activities on new systems Trained MAJCOM activities Medical Command on wide Area Workflow system WAWF. Implementing e-commerce initiative for electronic submission of invoices by vendors. Electronic invoice submission system. Registration is required by customers.
Include that you are a team member, team leaders, Member of the WAWF team, or implementation team for problem-solving.
Train and troubleshoot problems with the WAWF system for vendors to improve payment processing, timely payments and submission problems.
EDM – converted from transferring all paper documents into EDM. Extensive effort for Air Force and Army. Internal system.
Completed Air National Guard capitalization of their financial records. Paying bills, records, EDM, training in systems, traveled on site 3 of them to implement. 13 sites U.S. wide. Trained more than 60 accounting professionals in the new e-system. Additional services for Air National Guard, 25% to 100% percent of Air National Guard. Manage a new and expanded customer base to include …
Provide cost effective services
Processing efforts enabled field site to exceed established goal of $100 per million paid out.
Exceeded DFAS standards by 10% for performance.
Performance numbers for quotas were consistently achieved.
Volume of business has gone up with the European workload – Medcom – new Clipper system for foreign currency. Generic description: entitlement system account payable system for overseas and international vendors multiple foreign currency changes.

In summary:

Good luck DFAS Vendor Pay jobseekers!

If you have questions, comments or job search success stories, write to me at Kathryn@resume-place.com.

This curriculum was based on the text from the Electronic Federal Resume Guidebook & CD-ROM. This book is out of print, but there are "Seconds" of this book at a great price available at www.resume-place.com. This book includes chapters on Nouns, Hats & Skills; Accomplishments; Keywords; and the all-important recommended Resumix format that is readable and impressive to sueprvisors. It also has samples of Resumix resumes in Word -- so that you can write your resume with a Template!

If you have requests for Resumix Training courses which teach employees how to write about their technical skills, accomplishments and value-added competencies in an electronic resume format that is suitable for all Defense Dept. Resume Builders …
write to Kathryn@resume-place.com.
The Resume Place, Inc. is now on the GSA Schedule for this Resumix Training Program and many other off-the-shelf training programs.

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Thank you for reading! Have a great Holiday!
Kathryn Troutman, Federal Career Coach™ and President, resume-place.com

Federal Career Corner™ is published by The Resume Place, Inc., 89 Mellor Ave., Baltimore, MD 21228 (410) 744 4324
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