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My name is Holly Justice and I work here in the Career Services office.
Today we're going to talk about Warrior Skills in the Civilian Workforce.
Basically what we're trying to look at is how veterans or active duty who might be looking at opportunities outside of the military can make themselves stronger candidates.
A lot of that has to do with translating their experience into something that civilian corporate recruiters truly understand.
We're going to talk about a successful transition. There's a lot of pieces that go into a successful transition.
Those who are transitioning out of the military are similar to mid career changers because they've had a career in the military.
One of the big pieces is establishing goals, getting the education, job searching skills, and skills and strategies for excelling.
There are strategies that are different from the military you need to be successful in corporate america.
There are a lot of pieces for transitioning, I'm going to focus on job searching.
For me, there's a lot of pieces that come into play.
First of all is creating your personal brand. Assess what you want, who you are, and from that, create a personal brand.
Then is your professional materials. You need a resume, need to know how to write a cover letter, how that's going to come into play.
Job searching strategies, because there is a whole skill to looking for a job and a lot of strategies that can go into it because sometime it can be challenging so we need a plan to handle that.
I have a lot of ideas about that, but that can be a whole discussion workshop onto itself and I'd be happy to talk about that.
Interviewing for the job. You really need to become a story teller, which is really different than anything we might think of.
So if we're not used to interviewing, it might be a whole other piece we might have to learn.
For what I want to discuss today because I want to get down to some specifics. We're going to talk about assessing yourself and creating a personal brand, and youre resume.
Those are two key pieces. And we can certainly have a whole series of discussions on the other pieces.
Creating your personal brand. Now one of the things that I found is there is a site called hiring our heroes.
It's a newer site, there's been a lot of sites opening up, a lot of resources and this is one of the fairly newer ones.
A piece of it is about personal brand. Obviously, Toyota is partnering with hiring our heroes to talk about how to do a personal brand, which is great.
These are some of the steps that they discuss which is defining your brand, creating your brand toolkit, promoting your brand, and protecting your brand.
One, defining your brand. It's all about communicating what you're all about to the potential employer.
This is that assess part. You need to assess what have you done, what are your skills, what are your qualities and how you're going to put that all together in a few brief statements to communicate that to someone else.
Your brand tool kit has a lot of pieces. Your wardrobe, how you present yourself, business cards.
and I have a lot of students who ask me 'do I need a business card?' and you may want to go ahead and have one because you're going to want to take that to networking events and its easy to say I'd love to talk to you again.
Sometimes we run into people or go to specific events to meet people and you can pass that on.
Absolutely. The business card piece doesn't have to be costly.
Some students I talk to are still unsure about how to create it, and there's a resource on campus. There's a printing office, they have a whole template.
And we can talk about that certainly more if people need help, but that's a piece.
Obviously, resume, cover letter, references. So, putting those pieces together, so you can use them.
And what I think is very important in this day and age is your online image. So, social media comes into play. And that can help us or hinder us depending on what our image is.
You want to figure out what you want to create around it. Particulary things like LinkedIn, it's definitely a place to be.
And what you have assessed what your personal brand is, it'll help you to write a very strong summary which is a key component.
You're going to have a picture, again that goes with the wardrobe, and a summary on LinkedIn, along with a list of all your experiences. So that's going to be key.
Of course, pretty much everyone is on facebook, so you want to manage your image online that way.
Depending on what direction you want to go with your career, having a personal blog, or a personal website, in addition to LinkedIn online image, may be important.
Especially if you're looking at Marketing, or some arena in Business connected to Marketing could be important.
And then twitter, and other social media sites depending on where youre headed - Twitter can be a marketing piece for you as a candidate.
It also may be a place you want to be on since there are a lot of companies giving a lot of advice and inside information that's sort of 'this is what we look for in a candidate, these are how are interviews go'
And they do give a little information about that through their tweets so sometimes it is good to follow some companies.
Promoting your brand. Once you've got all those pieces in play, it's reaching out to people. Obviously we have friends and family.
make sure everyone does know what you're looking for - if you're looking for an internship, or a full time job. Make sure they do understand what you're looking for, what you bring to the table.
Again, your friends and family, they know you but they know you as a brother or sister, or uncle, or my friend that we hang out with so you want to make sure they understand if youre in school, or finishing school, or what your brand is.
A couple of those taglines about you, keep it brief, but so they say 'oh, that's what you're studying, i didn't realize that's what you were interested in'
And that helps them to understand, oh I do have a friend, maybe it would be a connection for you, and yes, you want to follow up, so that's all about the networking piece.
But I also mention associations, getting involved, so there's a lot of different ways to put youself out there.
Of course, protecting your brand. Just remembering, we're in the business going into the corporate environment and it takes a lot to build your reputation.
But you can make big dents in that very quickly. An angry email goes out and that can really be damaging, so a lot of things you want to be careful
What is my online image? How do i make sure to take care of that? You know, just being very conscious of that.
This is a very short snapshot of what is in that website on hiring our heroes. What they gave is a whole discussion about creating personal brand, and gave nice examples.
They gave a section on military experience, and a few examples. They discussed it as from a military perspective, how you might write it out. If you describe what you did in work. An
And then, my personal brand. So, on the civilan side, how you might discuss it to help you get a sense of how you might start changing the language.
And there's a bunch of discussions about that and it's a nice easy, printable, PDF brochure and they've got 4 or 5 different example brochures.
I thought this was a really nice piece about putting things together.
So, I want to get down to the resume piece.
So, the purpose of your resume, the really brief piece for me is, it's all about getting the interview.
When you get the interview, then you go in and hopefully you have a really nice conversation and sell that you're the best cadidate, and then hopefully, get hired.
Now, the other piece I want to explain is, the resume in order to get you the interview is there to paint a picture about your background.
So there's a lot of applicants typically for one position these days, it's very competitive.
So when that employer, that recruiter looks at your information, they need to understand it and get a visual picture about you and your capability right away.
So we're going to talk about how you do that effectively.
So, there's some challenges and I want to note that there's a lot of information out there and basically it boils down to the same message for those transitioning out of the military.
Is, they are not sure how to write their resume and explain what they've accomplished.
There's a lot of ways to write it, but it's basically, a lot of the civilian recruiters, they havn't been exposed to the military
or very minimally, they don't truly appreciate what the military personnel have accomplished
And the responsibilities that they've given very quickly.
In the military, you get a lot of responsibility very fast, that in the civilian world, would basically be unthinkable, practically,not without years of experience.
So you get a lot very quickly.
There's certainly a lot of news articles that are going to be talking about the same thing.
The challenge. And a lot of the unemployment rate issues that love to be splashed all over the newspapers- 'unemployment rates for veterans are terrible, they're higher than everyone else'
It depends on how you splice it. The news loves to cut the numbers a variety of different ways.
But it does come down to yes, the unemployment rates are worst and how do they get in the civilian job market. One, the market is tough so that is a factor for all job candidates.
Two, there is a lot more resources out there and I think that is starting to become one of the challenges now because there are so many resources
which is great but it can be overwhelming for a veteran as well.
I want to focus on a very specific piece and then we can certainly move from there.
When you're going to write your resume, one of the first things is Who are you? and how do you express that in your resume.
I talk all the time about how you need to assess yourself before you write your resume, and that plays right along with personal brand.
If you really think down, what are my qualities, what are my skills, what are my values, then you're going to start to express that in your resume.
In a very concrete way, I'm going to ask what you've done in your military career.
I think one of the challenges is, a lot of military personnel, if you ask what did you do, many of the times they won't even say I did stuff.
Because it was our team that accomplished things. so they dont always take ownership, or things that were on a regular basis, 'we always did this, it was just a part of my job'
Well, part of the job was in civilian language, I supervised 12 people on a regular basis, or this equipment that costs milions of dollars.
So depending on what your responsibilities were, there was a lot that you were handeling, but it was just sort of like
'well that was just day to day' and thats the sort of stuff we want to get down to, and i want to get down to specifics and numbers.
Whether it be monetary, or number of people, those kinds of things.
That connets with the keywords piece. Keywords, numbers, and we want to bring in what is some more civilian corporate words and shift it to the military language.
We'll talk a little more about that. Remember we want to demonstrate achievement, things you have done, things you have completed.
So your bullets in your descriptions about what youve done as a part of a certain position is really key.
So your bullets in your descriptions about what youve done as a part of a certain position is really key.
So I want to talk about sell it to me dont tell it to me. Selling it is a little stronger. Telling it is just describing.
I often have a lot of people that I work with that even in the bullet will say 'duties included', 'responsibilities were', that's telling it. It's okay, it's a start.
I'd like you to move from that to an even stronger place describing benefits, describing specifics. What you did - saved x amount of dollars or how many people you worked with, very specific.
So that what and how you did it in a very specific way, the selling it is including the results. so what you think back on what you did, as much as possible in doing that.
A little bit more on writing the resume, there are some basics. Sometime there is a military resume style. Your civilian resume style is going to be one page, maybe two. If you're in a business realm, it's going to be one.
Engineering, computer science have a little bit of flexibility in their field but you're going to want to talk with the career services personnel to figure out it should probably be one unless I really feel like it should be two.
some basics : you need to have your name on it. I do still see people who come to the career services office to get their resume critiqued and it just says resume on the top.
I need to know your name and how to get in touch with you, so email, phone number, if youve got one address - sometimes I work with students who say I have a home address, a school address.
theres a variety of ways to manage that sort of information
The education section, so we're going to be looking for the name of your school. So here at UB, the university at Buffalo, The State University of New York, the whole long name.
I used an engineering example here, it's the bachelor of science, industrial engineering. so what we're looking for is whatever you're degree is, bachelor of science, bachelor of arts, and your program.
And then were looking for expected graduation, the month and year you expect to graduate.
If you have a strong GPA, we'd love to have you add that. We can certainly talk more about GPA and where yours is at. Deans list, if you've done well, you can certainly add honors.
You can just add it, it may make sense for you to have a whole honors section depending on the kind of awards you've gotten.
You can just add it, it may make sense for you to have a whole honors section depending on the kind of awards you've gotten.
A lot of times in the military there is recognition, so you may be looking at having an honors recognition section
Course work related to your field. There's a lot of ways to cut that, because again if you've gone through a military career but now you're back in school
there may have been courses or training you want to bring into play but you things that are related to where you're heading for the next career especially if you're making a transition
Some people who are in the military they were doing something and they were good at that and maybe it was a technical role
and now are going to school and getting an MBA, and going into the business environment, some of those skills are going to come into play but the relevant coursework is going to be business oriented, or in this case, engineering oriented
I am looking for experience, that's where it starts to get even more challenging. So we're going to look for a company name, location, position, and dates of employment and details.
Professional experience, or work experience, there's a variety of ways to name that. This example is system controller, we got dates of when, and look at these bullets and they are very specific.
I was very specific in the language here, I took this example out of a book we have in the career service library - expert resume for military to civilian transitions. very affordable and you can get it online.
You can also use it from our career services library.
Again, this is another example cause I think it's important to see some examples about this. So US Navy, with the location, position title, years of when we were there and a lot of specifics.
Oversaw 10 personnel, so very specific about what we're doing. I like this piece, it gives us a sense of worked outdoors in severe weather conditions - with that I like because it is painting a picture.
So it wasnt a simple job, depending on what kind of work this individual is going for next
whether it's another technician role - and if it is a technician role and they want to shift from this to verizon, or at&t and working out in the field
So as a recruiter, they're going to say alright, we're going to send them out and work for National Grid or an electric company
and say that you're a field technician, you've dealt with that before by saying I need you to go out you understand.
Especially if I need the technicians to go out after an emergency, a major storm, this individual will be able to handle that.
Your resume should be individually designed, so there's a lot of different type of section headings that may come into play.
When I'm talking to transitioning military or students depending on their background, for the military - they may have additional training, certifications, education.
So you're going to want to look at what the best way to format it. You may want a certification section, an awards section to show the accomplishments.
I know a lot of times we're going to talk about working in teams, but you as a job candidate are competing so youve got to show what you've accomplished.
There's a lot of pieces that sometimes people when i work with them want to leave off but employers sometimes want to see it. so volunteering, community involvement
some people are very busy as students and may have families and a lot they are balancing, but if there's something where you've been involved
I've had people who are like 'oh, i've coached a little league team' ..the employers want to see the rounded picture about you. whether it's the military, or the classroom, the whole picture. so go ahead and add that in.
Again, they are maybe reasons you end up pushing towards that second page and you have to take a really strong look at what difficult cuts you might have to make.
If you're going for a corporate America job and you want to work at companies on Wall Street, you have to keep it to one page and it may be challenging.
There's a lot of resources out there so I just want to roll through a few things so you have a sense of where I gathered some of this information so you know some of the resouces that are out there.
That hiring our heroes website is looking pretty good, I like what im seeing in that.
Developing your career objectives, we didn't go into that a lot but you really want to plan what your career goals are.
For some people, if you don't know at this point, writing a resume, having a focus in school can be very difficult.
There are resources, the career services office is happy to help you with 'well, i did this job in the military, and now i'm out, there's so many options, and i dont know where to go'
Certainly talking with the career counselor, we have assessments if thats something youre interested in. We also have a meet a mentor program so if you want to talk to someone we have resources for that.
A mentor database that you can access readily so we can help you connect with other people, and there's O'Net and in O'net there's somethign called the military crosswalk.
If you're trying to find something that's 'well i did do this job in the military and i want to see what might be a civilian counterpart to that'.
The only challenge there is sometimes there isnt a civilian counterpart there but we can work on that.
This is a part of the O'Net, the military crosswalk just to give you a few webshots to give you a sense of what that looks like.
Find careers, like your military jobs, obviously just looking at industries and different careers.
One of the books, expert resumes for transitioning it seems to have a lot of good information, its pretty straight forward.
Has a good sense about creating your personal brand, assessing and then working on it on your resume.
Theres a lot of information out there online of course if you do some google searches about creating resumes. One of this big ones that comes up is Bradley Morris.
if you do enough searching, you're going to come across Bradley Morris which is a major recruiting firm, a staffing firm and they do speciailize with working with military.
Because of that theyve got a lot of good information about writing resumes, I will caution the information is good but at some point along the line
there information says you can send us your resume for a fairly significant fee and we will write your resume. our office is more than happy to help you with that process.
They do have some good resources and articles so you can get a feel for particular your situation.
Probably the other site i definitely like a lot is the national resource directory. it's got a lot of good military translators and civilian terms so it's a nice resource that way.
Probably the other site i definitely like a lot is the national resource directory. it's got a lot of good military language translators to civilian terms so it's a nice resource that way.
Along with a ton of other information that does seem to be pretty well organized, so depending if youre looking for yourself or how this impact maybe a spouse or a family member because that often comes up into play.
There are some other samples online, so resume samples. There are some in the book, some in this presentation. So AOL jobs does some samples of transitioning military resumes.
Military.com offers some samples so again I think its nice to see some concrete examples of how other people made the transition especially with the language and accomplishments piece.
Transition assistance online, so basically the TAP program online so they are trying to do a good job with the TAP program online.
There's different opinions about the tap program depending on when it came out, but you can go online to reference that information.
Military.com does have good information to check out and then Tap online and GI jobs has listings and again so theres a lot of resources but its important to know that resources are there and to use them carefully so its not too overwhelming.
Theres definitely been a lot of push to hire veterans since its in the news. Theres a lot of companies that are getting on board.
When you look at the hiring our heroes and some other information related to that off of those sites, you are going to see there are numerous job fairs and part of the goal is holding more and more job fairs
I think at this point theyre up to 300 and going so thats a lot of job fairs. Theyre really trying to work at it and for all sort of levels for veterans coming out
if youre looking for a technician kind of position or a more corporate position, so they've got all of that. so theres a lot of good information there.
Theres also a lot of benefits to companies so some perks, so some are more aware. many more companies are jumping on board to the hire a hundred thousand veterans so its a large number.
A certain number they're committed theyre going to hire veterans so obviously those companies are going to be interested and you're seeing companies that are doing special programming.
Home Depot is doing a whole day of open house of special programming to help veterans to transition your language, and make a strong resume, so a general education workshop and was doing a job fair component.
Obviously highlighting their company but all of the opportunities that are there so there are a lot of more companies doing that so it's very positive so you need to know about it to take advantage of it.
I already talked about Bradley Morris a little bit, and again just a little more resources out there.
The piece I didnt talk about - we didnt talk extensively about linkedin, we certainly could. I think people should be there as a job searching candidate.
As well, having a good profile, theres also a lot of groups.
If you're not familiar with linkedin, there are groups on linkedin. as a veteran, theres a lot of groups you can get involved in. obviously, there are networking groups.
Other veterans who are already out there have recognized this importance. Theres a lot of people they already know because theyve served with a lot of people, theyve supervised a lot of people, theyve interacted with a lot of people.
You can make those connections and see where that web goes, its very important to do that now.
Just a quick thank you and recognition. As I was learning a lot in creating the presentation, Ive had a lot of support over the last couple of years.
The NCDA, which is the natural career development association, does have a veterans task force group on LinkeIn which is very active and doing a lot more sessions in their conference and working nationally
to help career service personnel to better understand how to help transitioning military.
So, that was great. Theres also an organization, a linkedin group that I'm with, Career thought leaders, mostly resume writers.
And that is all the information in the formal presentation.