How to Apply Military Skills to Civilian Careers

Read this if you’re ex-military preparing for civilian interviews. Most of my ex-military clients run into the following challenges: >They assume interviewing is easy and don’t prepare enough. >They think civilian interviewers will understand their military job descriptions. >They believe full candor will be appreciated. This can impact their interview performance and hurt their prospects. Why? >Interviewing is hard. You have to understand the mission and prep accordingly. >Many civilian interviewers will not speak military lingo. They will need translation to fully appreciate your experience. >There’s such a thing as being “too honest” when you need to “sell yourself” a bit. What to do? 1) Prepare This means learning all about what to expect in job interviews in your field — including the most common questions. From there, outline answers that will highlight your fit for the role and practice out loud. It may take some time to get comfortable “selling” your skills since you’re not used to it. Look for advice from trusted experts. LinkedIn is a good place to start. If you have friends/family with expertise in hiring, they can help you practice and give you feedback. It may take some time to do the prep work, but it will save you time in the long run because you won’t waste any interview opportunities. 2) Speak their language Military terminology can get lost in translation when an interviewer doesn’t have the same background. Try doing a sanity check with a friend. Ask them to read your resume and describe what they think you did. If it’s not clear, add some detail to better demonstrate the scope of the work for someone unfamiliar with the environment. Also, analyze job descriptions thoroughly so you can learn more civilian job description terminology. This can help you with translation while also giving you insights about what skills are most important in the role. 3) Embrace diplomacy Honesty is still the best policy, but too much can hurt you. *This doesn’t mean you should ever lie in an interview. You need to show enthusiasm for the job, even when you’re not yet sure it’s right for you. You must avoid negative talk about others or yourself. Interviewers view negativity as a red flag, no matter how truthful your statement is. So, even if your squad leader was terrible, keep it neutral and focus on what you learned from them. Finally, avoid self-deprecating comments or minimizing your achievements. In the military, the culture rewards being a great team member. It’s about the mission and not about you. Still, self-promotion is needed in interviews, especially with people who don’t already know you and your reputation. Hope this advice helps ease your transition to the corporate world! Feel free to reach out for personalized help or get my newest book for in-depth help on job seeking: https://lnkd.in/eTR9mvs4

I was a Military Intelligence Sergeant Major that spent most of my career doing Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Tell me how that translates directly into a civilian occupation 🙄 🤔 #quinnsights I mean - there are law enforcement aspects of investigations and then there was the option of going back into the Defense or Intel Community (which is totally fine) Pretty much direct translations But I wanted different (a new ladder) So I crafted my resume to the best of my "nerdy" ability (I can write and tell stories 😊) "I lead the operations for 17,000 people in 45 countries" it proudly stated along with a collection of other impressive-sounding accomplishments only slightly translated from my evals & awards over the years Know what I found? None of it made sense to someone outside of our community #quinnsights The things I had done didn't automatically fit on a resume, BUT THEY LAID THE FOUNDATION for me to excel once I filled some gaps out here I needed to figure out what those gaps were (which differed depending on career path) So I needed to figure out what I wanted to do (needed to talk to a lot of people) And I realized that I did have most of the requirements for several different career paths (sales, HR, business analyst, operations management, the dreaded PM, training management, etc) Took a first job that gave me access to learn the #business and get more involved in government contracting That led to a big promotion as a consulting Senior Manager at EY 😎 Which built on it all and enabled me to found HireMilitary #militarytransition The problem? Everyone seems to be looking for an MOS-translator The "you were this, so you can be this" in the private sector 😔 None of them work unless you do exactly what you did in the military BUT YOU CAN DO ANYTHING!!!! It might not come through on the resume initially, but if you network and put in the work to add it to your resume (like my first job)...THE SKY IS THE LIMIT Thoughts? Questions?

As a safety professional on a job site, I find my job is very similar to being a 1SG in the Army. I walk around the job site looking for problems, kind of like being in the motor pool while in the Army. Where are your gloves Private? Where are your safety glasses Private? I ask the same questions daily on the job site without the "Private". This got me thinking about the military transition. Many service members struggle with how to translate their skills in the military to what companies are looking for in job description and resume. Never once did I think that correcting Privates in the motor pool would directly translate to a job in the civilian sector, but here I am doing exactly that. When building a resume, think about everything you have done in the military and how even the most "military" thing could potentially translate over. We have skills, figure out how to apply them! #vetsos #veteran #veterans #veteranshelpingveterans #veterantransition #military #militaryspouse #militaryspouses #militarytransition #transitioningmilitary #transitioningservicemembers #transitioningveterans