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How to Present Your Army Veteran Experience for Civilian Job? Tips with Examples!

28-09-2022

BrioWorkLife is an educational and supportive platform for job seekers. You can tailor the professional CV, Cover Letter, and LinkedIn resume as per your industry needs. Served various sectors and hosted resume writing help for military veterans.

Being a military-experienced job seeker, you have years of experience in service. Although while transforming from the military to a civilian career, you have to be particular about placing your experiences. In this vast civilian work, many people are not familiar with the Military terms. Bad placement of army experience thus creates understanding problems for civilian hiring managers. Apart from this, transforming from military to civilian is not a cakewalk. Rather, it is vital to identify the value of service in the private organization.

In the blog, we have noted the tips and examples to build a potentially transforming resume. Also, we have highlighted the importance of transforming the experience.

You can also check our professional work and contact us to get help from our professional resume writing services. So, let's get started towards a compelling resume and interview fodder to stand out and get hired.

What is Military Experience?

The most relevant job experience enlisted in the branch of the Army is Military Experience. It includes knowledge, skills, achievement, discipline, duties, and other experiences. Army individuals gain these experiences during active service in the military. In the modern world, many people prefer military experience because of their skills and experience. All these points increase the marketability of the employees. Similarly, the military experience highlights the desired qualities like-

● Strong work ethic

● Leadership

● Discipline

● Discretion

● Respect

● Reliability

● Resourceful

● Team Work Spirit

With these qualities, the military veteran gets priority in all sectors of the world. Now you might ask, then why is the transformation needed? We have listed the detailed importance of transforming the veteran experience in the next part of the blog. So keep reading to know more about the same.

Why transforming Military Experience is vital?

Suppose you have the best skills and accomplishments, but the way you presented them is not understood by the hiring managers. Will it have any value? No right. All your skills and experience will become worthless if the employer does not get your terminology.

So, to build your career effectively in the civilian market it is important to transform your military experience.

Are you a Military Veteran? Looking for a job in the civilian job market? Don't know how you can execute it? These are some common questions asked by army veterans. To answer that we listed the tips to transform a career in the civilian world. You can also think of professional resume writing Services.

How to list the military Experience in Civilian Resume?

Translate the Titles- Titles are the initial part that a reader possibly focuses on. It determines how to relent your Resume is. So], to avoid any cringe, it is better to scrutinize the tiles. It should not have any military terminology or acronym. Avoid using terms like Charge, NCOIC, Chief Petty Officer, CPO, and more. Also, avoid codes or designators like the 11B code for Infantryman, etc. Somehow, use terms like Team leader, CRew Manager, etc.

Reorganize your Timeline- You should organize your timeline every time you have changed your location or job. Too much job change can question your persistent level. To safeguard yourself, you should consolidate your experience in larger time blocks. Some examples are:

-Don't list jobs separately, like Avionics Craftsman, US Air Force, 2018-2019; Avionics Apprentice, US Air Force, 2019-2020; Rather, consolidate your work history in one block, like Craftsman, Crew lead, technical, United States Air Force- 2016-2022.

Avoid clogging the reader- Your readers do not have to know everything about you. Too much information in the resume can overwhelm the readers. This indeed will create a bad impression as no one prefers reading a lot. Use bullet points to highlight your points. But try to make your CV on one page. This remains interesting and also attracts the reader's attention prominently.

List translated training skills- It is obvious that being military personnel you have a lot of skills to admire. However, many readers admire it but don't know what it means. To bring out the relevance of the skills in your resume, translate it and present it in the resume nicely. The readers should know the potential numbers and metrics of your achievements and contributions. For example, list down the number of people you supervised and the dollar value of equipment you managed. Also, you can add percentages to show your improvements.

Bring down the courses- The training and courses on the military campus can be of great help. It is for sure that such training cannot help you in a civilian job, but can add value in the upcoming role. So, don't forget to add the training and courses after proper translation. For instance, you should write the education qualification as a 12-month course in leadership and professional communication.

Don't add military honors- In the civilian job world, military awards are not beneficial. People give a lot of respect but cannot assure a job for this. Instead of adding the awards to your resume, integrate your honors as accomplished statements. For instance, write '#1 team leader of 250 managers and exceeded production standards by 23% and achieved equipment availability rate by 12%."

Some additional tips necessary for the transformation:

Resume proofread- Proofread your resume to avoid any grammatical mistakes. It mainly ensures the documentation is correct and builds commitment to professionalism.

Take your resume to non-army personnel- Before presenting your resume to the hiring managers show it to the civilian persons. Listen and mark their feedback and improve it accordingly.

Avoid complicated terms- Complicated terms can make things complicated. Try to avoid getting attention.

Add keywords- The keywords help you to get the best match jobs. It also saves you from the Applicant Tracking System Software.

Some Examples of listing military experience on your Resume

1. Resume Template for US Marine Corps:

2. Resume Template for US Army

3. Resume for US Navy

Apart from this the example showing how veterans stand out in the civilian market is:

- Correct Example - Achieved 99.5% of average delivery rate on every assignment. Resulting in zero loss of materials and protection of the assets. - Wrong Structure Example - Performed delivery of materials and assets.

Conclusion

Getting lost in civilian-job work is common and convenient. To protect your journey you can choose professional resume writing services. Personalized guidance is always better to overcome any hurdle. You can also read our other blog on Effective Steps to present Army Veteran Experience on the Resume. The above tips and proper guidance are necessary to get the desired civilian job. Start your new life with excitement in the civilian world.