Without a strong “federal style” resume, a returning veteran can be overlooked …
New Military to Federal Career Guide 2nd Ed., walks them through the resume writing process
Baltimore, MD, August 6, 2010
In a speech Aug. 2 to a veterans organization, President Barack Obama announced that our combat mission in Iraq will conclude as promised by August 31st. He also noted that 90,000 military service members will have returned by then. Since the government emphasizes hiring vets, the federal job market is one of the best for vets leaving the military. However, few vets are familiar with writing a federal-style resume, let alone one that stands out. Thus they often apply for government positions with private industry resumes that are too short, too dense, too filled with military jargon, and too lacking in an emphasis on the skills and experience federal HR needs.
“No matter how much the government emphasizes hiring vets, or what job fairs present, or what jobs are open on USAJOBS.GOV, veterans still must have an excellent, targeted federal resume that demonstrates their best qualifications,” notes Kathryn Troutman, author of the Military to Federal Career Guide, 2nd edition (released in June). “That’s why I wrote this book.”
The new 2nd edition of the Military to Federal Career Guide has been streamlined with fewer pages (136 pp. down from 400 pp.), an easy-to-follow step-by-step format, non-complex writing, and a reasonable price ($18.95 paper, $14.95 ebook). Both the books and CD-ROM feature six case studies that provide inspiration and models for proper federal resume writing. (The case studies in the book are based on actual people, with names and some details changed.)
Jeremy D. Dutton’s case study is an excellent example of how a vet’s resume can come across as unimpressive without having sample resumes to study. Dutton had served as a Helicopter Crew Chief in Iraq without a loss of life or aircraft on any of his missions. When he wrote his “before resume,” he had been out of the military for two years, had gone back to school for a degree in Government & Public Policy under the GI bill, and was working as a bartender. Troutman notes that his original resume (which is on the CD-ROM for comparison) left out Jeremy’s new college degree, which he did finish, his 3.7 GPA average, all his honors and awards, his training and certifications in the military, his accomplishments, and crucial details of his work as a Team Leader in the Marine Corps. Troutman says that “his original resume was so generic and typical that he would never have stood out as a good candidate for a management position in government.”
“It can be difficult to find a job while still stationed overseas, especially in a war zone,” notes Resume Place spokesperson Diane Hudson Burns. “Even so, there are things that they can do as they anticipate coming home from Iraq and leaving the service.” For instance, she says that they can start thinking about what types of federal jobs they want to apply for when they return to the United States. They can put an alert on their account at USAJOBS.GOV (the federal government’s official job site) so announcements will be emailed to them related to sought-after job categories. They can study the announcements for keywords and other language to use in their resumes. They can write a list of their “Top 10 Accomplishments” (explained in the book) to integrate into their resumes. And they can start writing their federal resume with the help of the eBook version of the Military to Federal Career Guide. That way, once they get home, they’ll be ready to jump into their job search campaign. (Some military service personnel have friends and family back home send in the resumes ahead of time.)
