July 2016 |
Transition-e-news Volume 3 Issue 120 |
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Your Award-Winning Résumé© Tom Wolfe, author; all rights reserved; excerpts from Out of Uniform: Your Guide to a Successful Military-to-Civilian Career Transition; used with the permission of the author and publisher, www.potomacbooksinc.com. A winning résumé presents your experience in a way that indicates your future potential. It grabs and holds the attention of the reader and makes him or her want to know more. To know more requires a conversation and that conversation is an interview. Simply stated, a résumé is an interview-generation tool and, like any tool, it must be well-cared for and appropriate to the task. How well does your résumé measure up to that standard? Answer these nine questions and modify it accordingly. 1. Is it easy to read? When first viewed your résumé must send the signal that it will be easy to read. This signal involves length, format, font, borders, margins, and white space. It must pass the seven seconds test, specifically the reader will pay close attention for that amount of time, at which point he or she becomes either interested enough to keep reading or loses interest and moves on the next one in the pile. White space, i.e., the absence of ink, is critical. Edit out all unnecessary words; choose a font style and size that is easy to read; minimize the use of text boxes, borders, and other graphics; dump personal pronouns; cut out adjectives and adverbs whenever possible. Consider using bullets, a technique that will not only make the information easier to find but will also make it easier to read. Make sure it is free of military jargon, acronyms, and phraseology. 2. How long should it be? Up for debate but here is my take: you get one page for every ten years since high school or college but no more than two pages. If you go to a second page, make sure the most important and/or relevant information is on the first page or the reader may never turn to page two. If two pages is impossible, consider using a stand-alone résumé supplement or addendum. A well-written cover letter can often eliminate the need for a third page. 3. What style is best for you? There are three styles from which to choose. A chronological displays the information in reverse chronological order and grouped within sections, the most common of which are contact information, objective, education/training, experience/achievement, and additional/personal information. The functional focuses on consolidating specific and similar skills under functional headings, independent of the timeframe in which they occurred. Typical functional headings include Project Management, Command and Control, Operational Leadership, Customer Service, Quality Control, Training and Development, and Process Improvement. The hybrid chrono-functional version is good for military personnel with more than ten years of service. Use the functional format and add an abbreviated reverse chronological experience section, listing only the primary job titles and the years in which these assignments were held. 4. Should you include an objective? Yes and no. Yes, you should include it if it focuses on a specific, targeted position for which you are qualified. You must be reasonably certain that the opening exists. No, if you are expressing your objective in vague or general terms. Consider having two versions of your résumé. Use the one without an objective when you also include a cover letter that expresses your interest in a specific job. In the alternative, take advantage of the powerful signal that can be sent with a specifically worded objective on your résumé. An objective that takes up more than one line is not specific enough. 5. What signal are you sending? You will be hired for one of three reasons: your experience, your potential, or a combination of both. To be hired for your experience, you must be the square peg that fits the square hole. It is the combination of jobs, training, and certifications on your résumé that generated the interview and got you the job. You are selling your past, not your future. Hiring you is low risk, your value-added is immediate, and your starting salary will be higher. However, you may also sacrifice career and salary growth. Being hired for your potential means the employer believes in your future and will train and develop you accordingly. Your past experience means little and you are basically starting over. Hiring you is risky and your future is unknown. Since your value-added is downstream, your starting salary will be lower. The employer is investing in you way beyond your paycheck. For most military personnel, neither one of those first two reasons is acceptable. What to do? Compromise. Go to work for an employer who cares about both your past and your future. To pull this off, make sure your résumé focuses not only on what you have done but also on how well you did it. Achievement in past endeavors is a great indicator of your ability to succeed in the future. 6. Will it also succeed as a writing sample? Most jobs require the ability to compose and present information in written format. Many companies will ask for a writing sample as part of the evaluation process. Whether you are faced with that requirement or not, you will automatically be providing every interviewer with a writing sample—your résumé! That document is a direct reflection of not only your writing skills but also your preparation, thoroughness, attention to detail, and accuracy. It must be letter perfect. No misspelled or misused words. No typos. No grammatical or syntax errors. Take the time to proof read it several times, frontwards and backwards, and ask others to do the same. 7. Have you employed key words? Many companies use key word scanning software to select résumés. If you have a specific job in mind, make sure your résumé contains position- and industry-specific terms. Take them directly from the job description. If your target is a company rather than a specific job, then visit the company’s web site and look for key words in the mission statement or core values. If you have no particular company or job in mind, then choose key words that best reflect what makes you tick and what matters to you in your job. Once you have selected your key words, position them prominently and repeat each one if possible. 8. Include personal information? Your name and contact information must be on the resume, but how about additional personal information? You should not include vital statistics, health, religious, or political information. Any reference to marital status and children on a résumé is tricky. Some companies prefer to hire married people and some jobs put a severe strain on families. If unsure, omit it. Including things like community service, volunteerism, second language fluency, travel, hobbies, and interests can pay dividends because they add a human element to an inanimate document. They also give the interviewer icebreaker material and conversation generators. 9. Did you make any of these mistakes? The words References Available upon Request are a waste of space. Do not include a list of references; that is a separate document. Listing date of availability for employment is a bad idea unless it is immediate. Expressing a willingness to travel and/or relocate is fine, as long as it also happens to be completely true, otherwise you are at best wasting space; at worst being misleading. Do not include your military rank or rating with your name on the résumé. If appropriate, you can mention it in the experience section. Your résumé is the most important tool in your transition toolbox. Physically, it is one or two sheets of paper with 400 to 1000 words. Figuratively, it is the bridge that connects your past to your future. There is no such thing as one size fits all when it comes to résumés. I have written, reviewed, edited, or tweaked over 4,000 résumés during my career and have experienced first-hand what works and what does not. Follow the guidance above and your resume will help you win that coveted award—an excellent civilian career opportunity. Visit www.out-of-uniform.com for a more in depth discussion of this subject and more about the military-to-civilian career transition process. Thank you for your service and good hunting! © 2016; Tom Wolfe, is an author, columnist, career coach, veteran, and an expert in the field of military-to-civilian career transition. During his career he assisted thousands of service members in their searches for employment, placing more than 3000 in their new jobs. Prior to civilian life, he graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy and served as a surface warfare officer. He teaches transition courses, gives seminars on career and job change, writes about the career transition process, and continues to counsel current and former military personnel. His book, Out of Uniform: Your Guide to a Successful Military-to-Civilian Career Transition, was published by Potomac Books in 2011. Tom lives on the North Carolina coast with his wife, Julie, and their Chesapeake Bay retriever, Maggie. |
Athletes of Valor aims to turn military veterans into college athletesby Daniel Roberts - Yahoo Finance - reprinted with permission Former U.S. Marine Corps. sergeant Alex Stone wants to help young veterans catch the eyes of college athletic recruiters. And he's left his job at Under Armour to make it happen. Stone spent five years at Under Armour as a development and product line manager before leaving last month to focus on his startup Athletes of Valor, which aims to connect recent military veterans who played a varsity sport in high school with college coaches and recruiters. The web site is in beta and launches in full around Veterans Day in November. Stone, who played hockey and football at Swampscott High School in Swampscott, Ma., enlisted in the Marines after graduation. Once he finished his four years of service, "I struggled to find purpose and also struggled to find employment," he says. "One of the only regrets that I have in life is that I never went back and played sports and earned my degree. I want to make sure that everyone similar to me has that opportunity to go back and play, and they understand how to do it." Most young veterans have no idea that they still have their NCAA eligibility, Stone says—and he expects educating them on this fact will be Athletes of Valor's biggest challenge. But the bigger challenge could be convincing college coaches to take a chance on athletes that haven't played their sport in years. "The coaches I've talked to," Stone says, "they want these players. They have stories about having a veteran in their locker room before, and how great an experience it was, not only from an athletic standpoint, but from a leadership standpoint. And they say the biggest challenge is that they don't know how to find them. Athletes, and service men and women, they don't fully understand how to market themselves to coaches when they're 22 to 26 years old. So what we're doing is connecting those dots." Marketing the platform will help, and sparking the interest of coaches ahead of time will help. For those efforts, Stone has the support and financial backing of Jordan Fliegel, an entrepreneur who has invested an undisclosed amount in Athletes of Valor, along with Boston VC firm Accomplice. Fliegel is Athletes of Valor's chairman, while Stone is CEO. Fliegel has some key experience in creating a marketplace-style listing platform. In 2011 he founded the company CoachUp, a platform that sets up private coaches with a listing page so young athletes (or more often, the parents of young athletes) can find them and book lessons. The company raised $10 million in funding, grew quickly, and managed to get Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry on board as a brand ambassador and equity stakeholder. Think of CoachUp as a Yelp for private coaches—and Athletes of Valor is basically looking to do the same for young military-veteran athletes. "The main thing with CoachUp was I really wanted to help kids, through sports, be the best they could be," says Fliegel. "And here, again, I was really moved by the mission. I wanted to help veterans. It just doesn't make sense to me… So many veterans are transitioning out of service, they really should go to college, they should be part of a sports team, we could use sports as a vehicle to help them transition from sports to career." Fliegel left his day-to-day role at CoachUp in January (but is still on the board) and is focusing on his role at Athletes of Valor and on other tech investments. A former professional basketball player in Israel, Fliegel has connections in the sports world that he can bring to help Athletes of Valor. A handful of military veterans went on to play professional sports, some of them with great success—David Robinson of the NBA comes to mind, and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach. Athletes of Valor would be wise to find such a figure as a representative of the platform. Stone's past at Under Armour won't hurt either; it's easy to imagine that Under Armour founder Kevin Plank, who went to a military academy high school and has been more actively investing his wealth recently, might take an interest in Athletes of Valor. Another advisor on board is Jeremy Levine, a fantasy sports entrepreneur who founded StarStreet and sold it to DraftKings in 2014, then created the pick-up-and-play daily fantasy app Draft. Athletes of Valor's grand vision of the future is to have one veteran on every college sports team. "I thought it was an incredible mission, a great idea, and something that should exist," Fliegel says. He expects that the platform can catch on in large part due to the positive nature of the concept. Who wouldn't want to help American military veterans? "We've been very fortunate to have great people not just from sports, but also from the military and public office, who have reached out to us and said they'd love to help," he says. Stone tells Yahoo Finance that some 50 college coaches are already involved and testing out the web site. One of Kevin Plank's favorite business mantras is something that will fuel the company, Stone says: Find a way. "Kevin says that all the time," Stone says. "The reality is, there are men and women out there today that want to go back and play sports, and right now they don't have a streamlined option to do that. The reason why I started this business was: We need to find a way." Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite. |
To Be Hired, Use Email Effectively© Copyright, 2016, Susan P. Joyce. All rights reserved. Job search today often requires communicating with employers and recruiters by email. It’s easy to send email very quickly, and a fast response often feels like the right thing to do. You want to — and need to — respond as quickly as possible, but… 9 Steps to Better Email for Your Job SearchTake care not to give the impression that you would be someone best ignored or eliminated from consideration. 1. Do NOT send a message when you are angry.I’ve seen so many job seekers blow future opportunities by responding angrily to the thanks-but-no-thanks message when they don’t get a job offer. Most of us understand how disappointing that rejection is, but before you hit the “Send” button on the I-hope-you-go-out-of-business message, take a few minutes (hours or days) to “chill out.” Then, don’t send a nasty message. Burning bridges is never smart in the business world. Bonus tip: I’ve also seen many job seekers move to the head of the line for the next job with that employer when they respond positively and politely to the thanks-but-no-thanks message, expressing their appreciation for the opportunity to learn more about the organization and meet the people. 2. Remember your message may be shared and stored (for a long time).Be very professional and careful in what you write related to your job search and career. Don’t trash anyone, don’t make threats, and also avoid making promises you can’t keep. An unprofessional message may haunt you for many months or years. See # 1 above, and don’t send an angry or nasty letter. 3. Send TO one person; CC others if appropriate; use Reply All very cautiously; avoid BCC and read receipts.When sending an inquiry or follow up to the recruiter or hiring manager, put their email address in the TO field. If other people should also receive the message, add those addressees to the CC as appropriate. Using BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) can backfire badly because someone BCCed is able to reply-all to the message. If someone needs to see the message, include them in the CC list or forward the sent message to them later. Avoid using read-receipts on your out-going messages. They may be considered hostile — I don’t trust you, so I’m going to check to see if you opened this message. Avoid giving that impression to anyone in a potential employer’s organization, even if it is true. Bonus tip: When you send your thank-you email messages, don’t TO or CC everyone you spoke to in one message. Send a unique message to each, and don’t BCC anyone, not even the recruiter or hiring manager. 4. Send job search messages from a good email address.A message from ImKool@whatever or HotMama@whatever probably won’t be opened by someone who isn’t expecting a message from that email address, particularly if the subject isn’t relevant or interesting (see # 5 below). For a job seeker, a trashy email address can be the kiss of death. The best email address includes your name in it so that the message can be found in an email system when someone searches on your name. Bonus tip: If you are worried about age discrimination, do NOT include your birth year in your email address. Guess how old BillSmith1965@whatever is? If you must use a number, pick the telephone area code or the Post Office Zip Code for your current or target location. 5. Make the subject short, clear, and relevant.Often the subject and the sender are the only parts of the message that get read. On smart phone screens, only the first 35 to 40 characters may be seen, so put the most important words at the beginning of the subject. When people the subject provides an obvious reason to open the message, they are more likely to read it. Or, at least, to save or forward it. Example 1: “Admin Assistant Position Applicatio|n, Job #12345” is short, clean, clear, and obvious. Although it is longer than 35 characters, the first 35 characters (Admin Assistant Position Applicatio) describe the contents and provide the reason the message should be opened. Example 2: “Thank you for Opportunity to Interv|iew for the Admin Assistant Position” is longer, but the first 35 characters (Thank you for Opportunity to Interv) make it clear what the message is about. 6. Keep messages and paragraphs short, clean, and clear.I’ve seen numerous studies that indicate long messages are seldom read or are read only partially (first paragraph or two). This is why it is smart to put the most important information in that first paragraph. Avoid the “wall of words” effect — opening up a message and seeing only one or two long paragraphs. Include plenty of “white space” in your messages:
Example: Dear [person specified], I am interested in applying for the administrative assistant position (# 12345) open in your Boston office. My experience includes three years providing administrative support to a group of life insurance sales people. My responsibilities include:
These responsibilities closely align with the requirements for your position… 7. Don’t attach anything, unless an attachment is expected or requested.Unless they have requested that you send them your resume as an attachment to a message, avoid including attachments. Otherwise, sending an attachment can almost guarantee that the message will be ignored, deleted, or automatically dumped into the junk mail folder. These days, few people open attachments they haven’t requested or aren’t expecting. 8. Include a “signature” at the bottom of your message.The signature should contain your full, professional name and your current (or target) job title. Also include some of your relevant professional accomplishments like Employer ABC Sales Person of the Year (2015) and professional certifications. Do include your LinkedIn Profile URL so it will be easy for the employer to find. They will most likely want to compare your resume or application to your Profile, so make it easy for them to find the correct Profile. Don’t make your signature longer than the message — 6 lines should be the maximum. Bonus tip: Double-check the content in your application or resume compared with your LinkedIn Profile to be sure they match. Employers will compare them, and they will assume that the LinkedIn Profile is accurate. 9. Be sure to include a phone number in your email signature so you can be reached quickly if necessary.This is a separate tip because it is SO important to recruiters. Put the phone number immediately below your name. Often, recruiters are in a hurry, and they prefer to call you directly for the quickest response. Bonus tip: If you are employed, do NOT include your work phone number! Your employer will not be pleased to discover you are job hunting. Use a personal cellphone number or a Google Voice number. When you are employed, follow these steps, above, to be more effective in your job. More About Being HiredTo Be Hired, Be Found Where Recruiters Look To Be Hired, Be Found: Your Best Keywords To Be Hired, Be Focused and Clear About the Job You Want To Be Hired, Be Referred for the Job About the Author… Online job search expert Susan P. Joyce Online job search expert Susan P. Joyce has been observing the online job search world and teaching online job search skills since 1995. Susan is a two-time layoff “graduate” who has worked in human resources at Harvard University and in a compensation consulting firm. In 2011, NETability purchased WorkCoachCafe.com, and Susan has been editor and publisher of WorkCoach since then. Susan also edits and publishes Job-Hunt.org, is a Visiting Scholar at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a columnist on HuffingtonPost. Follow Susan on Twitter at @jobhuntorg and on Google+ |
Former medics find themselves on bottom rung in civilian field
By:
Heather Druzin - © 2016 Stars and Stripes - Reprinted with permission NORTH CHICAGO, Ill. — In four deployments as an Army combat medic to some of the most dangerous corners of Iraq and Afghanistan, Joe Carney had seen the worst of war — bullet wounds, severed limbs, shrapnel. He saved lives amid bombs and gunfire, his emergency room often a patch of dirt in the desert or a rocky mountainside. None of that mattered when he left the Army three years ago. “I think the services should do a better job because at the end of the day, your last day in the Army, the last day in the Navy, you’re out, no one cares about you,” he said. “What I tell people who are planning to get out is, you have to have a plan.” Like many medics and Navy corpsmen, the U.S. military’s front-line medical professionals, Carney’s skills translated to almost nothing in the civilian world. He grew up watching “M.A.S.H.” and “ER” with his parents and was drawn to emergency medical work as a young boy. That led him to join the Army at 19 and serve as a combat medic for 10 years. Nearly half of that time was spent deployed in war zones. But despite his extensive training, he lacked state licensing certificates and he struggled to find a job at his skill level. He settled on a job as an emergency room technician, where he was allowed to do little beyond administer oxygen and take blood pressure readings. “It was a good reality check,” he said. “You know you’re not in the military no more. The hard part was standing back when you’ve got these trauma situations.” It’s a common story with medics and corpsmen, who have long had difficulty finding civilian medical work that matches their training. “It is an asset that’s being wasted because they’re highly skilled in what they do,” said Dr. Michael Bellino, an emergency physician who mentors Carney at the Capt. James A. Lovell Federal Health Center in North Chicago, Ill. “I’d trust him with taking care of my family.” Carney, 32, doesn’t have to stand back anymore. For the past two years, he has been working in a fledgling program that offers medics and corpsmen appropriate health care employment and at the same time, builds up the ranks at the Department of Veterans Affairs — which is struggling mightily to keep up with demand. He and about 45 other veterans are working as Intermediate Care Technicians, a role invented for the VA program. Carney is also in a pilot program to prepare ICTs to become physician assistants, a more advanced, higher-paying job. State standards According to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers, post-9/11 veterans have a slightly higher unemployment rate than their civilian peers and veterans as a whole. While there are no specific unemployment numbers for medics and corpsmen, they leave the military with very specific barriers to employment in the medical field. Despite being trained to tend to bullet wounds and severed limbs in the harshest conditions, under fire and on helicopters, most leave the service without a certificate for the lowest-rung medical jobs. They face months of redundant training, and many leave the medical field. “We do a little more than what people may understand,” said Scott Garbin, a 15-year Army veteran who works as an ICT in Detroit and is the unofficial senior technician in the program, acting as a liaison between the veterans and the VA. Congress has passed legislation to allow the federal government to recognize military training for some civilian jobs, but health care licensing is generally done at the state level, and efforts have been uneven across the country. Some states have made efforts to recognize military training; in California, former medics and corpsmen can take an equivalency exam to speed the process of becoming EMTs or paramedics. A small program at Lansing Community College in Michigan, which was lauded as a model at a recent military credentialing conference in Washington, fast-tracks former medics to get paramedic licenses and placement in a nursing program. “One of the major roadblocks those separating from the military face in their transition to the civilian job market is the fact that many professional licensing and credentialing standards vary from state to state,” Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, said in an email. “I urge states to adopt standards that will fully recognize veterans’ experience, and I will continue to support VA’s programs putting these professionals to work helping their fellow veterans.” Undervalued experience Medics and corpsmen are exposed to more trauma than just about any other occupation in the military. They get an up-close view of the carnage and often must work to save the lives of their friends. Some civilian employers who don’t understand what they’ve been through penalize them for their experiences. “I even had one hospital’s emergency room (official) ask me, ‘How damaged are you?’ ” Carney said. The civilian reaction to combat experience has been one of the most difficult changes to make, said Ed Davin, an analyst with the research firm Solutions Information Design, who has spent three decades studying military-to-civilian career transitions and helped develop government programs to aid veterans as they leave the services. “What the civilian folks can’t get their arms around is, ‘How do I put a value on two tours in Iraq?’ ” he said. The medical community has made strides in recognizing military training, and the military has improved its credentialing, but the vast majority of medics and corpsmen still come out facing the prospect of a pay cut or redundant training. “We have large numbers of medics and corpsmen who, when they come out, can’t get a job to support a family,” he said. ‘They relate’ When Aaron Rice left the Army in 2009, he was 25, a veteran of three violent deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as a combat medic. He was struggling to find his footing in the civilian world. Seeking solitude, he moved to Alabama, far away from friends and family. “It was kind of like looking in a broken glass mirror,” he said. “Your sense of self is kind of lost because your sense of self was your unit.” His colleague, Conrad Siat, had a similar experience after a year in Ramadi, one of the most dangerous corners of Iraq. He had to quit a construction job because the loud noises bothered him, and he was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Both got help, and now they work together as technicians at the John Dingell VA Medical Center in Detroit, one of 15 VA centers affiliated with the ICT program. On a winter day in that hospital’s busy emergency department, they attended to patients, including an ill elderly Korean War-era veteran and a young Iraq veteran with a gaping wound in his arm. Rice and Siat say the job has become a calling. “I’m a veteran, I’m here for the veterans — they’re my brothers,” Siat, 44, said. “He who sheds his blood with me shall forever be my brother.” Far from seeing war experiences as liabilities, VA officials say having veteran medical professionals interact with their patients is an obvious benefit. Doctors who work with the technicians say they have a special rapport with patients and can often calm combative patients who might not respond to civilians. “They relate,” said Dr. Bassam Batarse, the Detroit VA hospital’s chief of staff for integrated clinical services, who says the program has gone so well he’s requested additional technicians. Positive response The ICT program began in 2012 after prompting from then-Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki. When the VA central office began accepting applications for 45 spots, they received about 400 applications, said Karen Ott, director for policy, education and legislation in the VA’s Office of Nursing Services. “We knew we were on to something,” she said. Now there are 45 ICTs working across 15 VA hospitals, and the program is set to grow to about 270 slots. Pay for technicians can range from $31,000 to $52,000, depending on experience and location. The pilot program to help technicians prepare for physician assistant school while on the job, called CAMVETs, has just started. . Navy Lt. Cmdr. (Ret.) David Lash, the director of the Corpsman and Medic Vocation Education and Training Program and a civilian physician assistant, said the job matches well with the skills of medics and corpsmen. It will also be open to those interested in other health care jobs, including physician. The physician assistant position was created in the mid-1960s partly in response to Vietnam veterans who returned with skills in treating trauma. As the profession has become more popular, it has become harder for medics and corpsmen to get into school. Lash, who helped create the ICT program and the Lovell Health Center-based CAMVETS, bridges the divide between civilians who run those schools and the technicians. “A lot of schools don’t want to accept what they did in the military as health care experience, which is crazy,” he said. He has gotten a positive response from schools he’s worked with, and he hopes to be able to tailor the program to veterans interested in using the ICT job as a stepping stone to other medical jobs. Lash said interest in the program from veterans has been overwhelming, and he wants to take it national. “How can you go wrong if you have veterans becoming the people who are taking care of our veterans?”
druzin.heath@stripes.com |
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