Making the move from military IT to the public sector can be a daunting career decision, and the key is making sure you communicate your skillset in a clear way.
Are you leaving your military IT role to return to civilian life and embarking on a job search? If so, you need to know that the transition into a non-military work environment can be daunting.
As a former military person, you are no ordinary job hunter. You are a transitioning veteran and have experience not often seen on other resumes. The good news is that you're going to be a welcome addition to both the public and private IT workforce. With your unique background, skills and knowledge gained during military service, you possess technical expertise most people don't have.
The bad news is that you likely have to do some work on your resume as military job descriptions and lingo are typically not familiar terms to recruiters or hiring managers.
The first step to translating your experience into a civilian resume is to understand your talents, skills and abilities and how those attributes relate to business and industry.
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Many recruiting professionals agree that former military personnel typically make excellent leaders. Once given a specific task, a majority of veterans are decisive, resourceful, and disciplined team players who perform well under pressure. In today's high-stress IT workplace, these traits can prove invaluable to an employer.
Yet recruiters and hiring managers often overlook well-qualified veteran applicants. First, they may not be able to understand the description of skills from the military resume. This is because the language and buzz words do not equate to their customary civilian terminology. Sometimes hiring professionals don't completely understand the acronyms used or even the basic hierarchy of the military.
If a recruiter is forced to interpret too much military jargon, he or she may not be able to see the value of the applicant. When trolling online job banks, the job-search engine may prove useless because military-type job words are often not part of the key word database. On the flip side, a military-worded resume won't show up on hiring managers' candidate searches as it won't have the key words they're using to find prospects.
That's why your resume must be straightforward and easy for non-military types to comprehend. A professional resume writer could be a good investment as they can strategize your qualifications and experience and demilitarize your career—translating your experiences into a highly effective resume presentation.
Once you've got a good civilian IT resume in hand, it's time to start looking for opportunities. Government jobs are a good place to start -- government agencies tend to be partial to veterans. With the recent focus on homeland security, defense companies within the private sector are also good to target for employment opportunities.
Many of the job search practices used by employment hunters will work for you as well. Online searches, networking, job fairs, and newspaper postings are the most common tools in current employment quests. To make your search easier, there are military friendly job sites for veterans that you can find through numerous search engines:
If you're considering starting your own IT services or consulting firm, there are government organizations that offer grants to veterans.
If you are ready for something entirely different and need new skills, it might be time to go back to school. Check your VA benefits for availability of student loans. You may have the option of splitting time between work and school, or even attending school on a full-time basis.
A big step to moving into the non-military sector for work is to be prepared and think positive. Your skills are in demand. You'll be back in rush-hour traffic before you know it.
Vicki Slingluff-Andrews is a staff writer for Career Services International, which assists executives win desirable new jobs. Vicki hosts a TechCareers blog, Career Chronicles.
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