October 2018 |
Transition-e-news Volume 4 Issue 147 |
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Transition Insight
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Targeting a Defense Contractor Job
by Barbara Adams, Federal and Military Job Transition Expert If you want to land with an excellent defense contracting position after your separation, the best time to start targeting companies is before you leave the military. Networking is still the absolute best way to get an inside track with employers. Chances are good that you interact and work with with defense contractor representatives on a regular basis. Tapping these resources is a good starting point for learning about the specific positions that you'd like to target. Ask your contacts to introduce you to others in their organizations and find out what positions fit your military background. Meet lots of people. It's not at all unusual for even large companies to create a position to accommodate a valuable candidate. Of course, you'll also need to do some homework. Here are a few tips to help you with the process: 1. Research – You'll want to know as much as you can about the companies you target. Most defense contractors are publicly traded, so there's a wealth of information. Check the websites and look in the investor relations section for annual reports or do an EDGAR search with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You'll find financial results and a lot of insight on company goals and direction. 2. Check the Culture – Talk with your contacts and take a Look at glassdoor.com for company reviews. Get a sense of the organization's ethics and work environment. There's more to a career than compensation and a comfortable "company fit" is important for your success. 3. Refine Your Resume – The days of "one size fits all" resumes are long gone. Your resume should be tailored for the job and the company that you're targeting. You'll have to squeeze your military career into a tight 2 page format that encapsulates your achievements and stands out from the competition. 4. Mention your security clearance – A current security clearance increases your value for many defense contractor positions. The federal government's processing backlog for security clearance stood at over 700,000 earlier this year. Processing times for Defense Department contractors now extend to a year and a half.4 If you have a current military security clearance, it's generally good for 2 years after your separation. Current clearances are also comparatively easier to reinstate, so make sure to include this information on your resume. 5. Practice - Anticipate the conversation and practice before you interview with a prospective company. If you've done your homework ahead of time, you'll have some allies inside who can provide insights about the process. Military Transition Assistance from CareerPro Global If you're planning a military transition, your timing for finding a great career in the defense industry couldn't be better. But, even with high demand for qualified candidates, the process of targeting positions, making contacts, and sending out resumes can be daunting. CareerPro can provide lots of assistance with your job search, including overseas contractor resumes, veteran transition coaching, and military-to-contractor resumes. It's easy to get started. Just give CareerPro Global a call for a free career consultation. |
Veterans can help STEM the tide of unfilled jobsBy DEREK HORTON | Reprinted with permission All rights reserved ©2018 Stars and Stripes Workers specializing in science, technology, engineering and mathematics can help businesses retool, compete and thrive in the 21st-century economy. Far too many companies in America’s leading industries are struggling to fill crucial STEM positions. Employers should turn to highly skilled military veterans who increasingly leave the military with advanced technical expertise but are too often overlooked for STEM jobs. STEM jobs comprise a diverse range of positions across a wide range of industries, including civil engineers, financial analysts, software developers and even accountants. However, what ties this assorted group of jobs together — and makes them difficult to fill — is the need for a very particular set of skills, including mathematical proficiency, analytical reasoning and research capabilities. Last year alone, nearly 3 million STEM jobs went unfilled, despite being some of the best-paying and most rewarding positions in the job market. Each year thousands of military members leave the service with the skills needed to be successful. The military has expertly adapted to an increasingly digital world. Openings for “electronic warfare specialist,” “cryptologic cyberspace intelligence collector” and “geospatial intelligence imagery analyst” are now commonplace with military recruiting sites. That’s because the crux of the armed services no longer consists of infantrymen operating in remote corners of the planet. Instead, much of our security operations today are managed by bright scientists and mathematicians, sitting in bunkered bases throughout the world. Members of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard regularly engage with some of the most advanced technologies available; and the need for a deep understanding of these sophisticated processes has become a fundamental requirement for most servicemembers as warfare shifts to the cybersphere and military devices increasingly replace boots on the ground. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats illustrated the shifting nature of the times when he testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence earlier this year and named cyber threats as the top worldwide threat to our national security. Moreover, in a race for technological superiority, the military’s adoption and integration of advanced technologies will only accelerate in coming years. Meanwhile, the STEM field in the United States is facing a significant skills gap. According to a Ranstad North America report released in 2017, the U.S. has a 3-million-STEM-job surplus. As a result, some of the most lucrative and impactful jobs available on the market today are unfilled, and the gap is only growing — in North Dakota, for example, there are currently 87 STEM job openings for every qualified worker. The consequences of this skills gap are even more troubling. With so many vacant openings, tech giants have begun outsourcing STEM jobs overseas to competitors like India and China. In the process, the U.S. risks losing its standing as the world leader in innovation and as a hub for technological breakthroughs. Meanwhile, every year, over 200,000 veterans retire from active duty to transition back into civilian life. Of these, a significant portion has worked in highly technical fields and are distinctly qualified to excel in STEM jobs in the private sector. The problem is that they are rarely presented with a chance to demonstrate these skills because of their lack of traditional college degrees or general job experience. As a former Marine who was hired by Sallyport, a Reston, Va.-based global logistics and security contractor, the skills I bring to my job every day as director of Information Technology are directly based on my military training and experience. Sallyport values the experience and expertise that veterans like myself bring to the table, mainly when looking for talented people to fill STEM-related positions. The niche with technical skills that I learned while in the military prepared me for a successful career at Sallyport. The understanding of military members’ skills should be considered by companies who are outsourcing their hiring overseas. The STEM workforce shortage in the United States is a rare problem with an easy answer. Our veterans can fill these jobs — and fill them well — if only given a chance. Derek Horton served in the Marines from 1990 to 1998 (four years active duty, four years inactive) as a communications watch officer before joining Sallyport. |
3 Reasons You Are Not Getting Job Offers© Copyright, 2018, Susan P. Joyce. / Ronnie Ann | Work Coach Cafe | All rights reserved. Technology has dramatically changed recruiting, particularly in the last two or three years. And, changes in recruiting impact successful job hunting methods. So, job seekers must modify their approach to land a new job. If you aren’t currently having much success in landing a new job, consider changing your approach to be more effective. (More: Beat the Technology Traps for Job Seekers.) Why You Were Not HiredJob seekers are ignored or rejected for countless reasons, but what I’m hearing from recruiters and employers now focus on these 3 themes. 1. You apply too often, too quickly, and too carelessly.With no paycheck on the horizon, panic sets in. Understandable! But, in response, many job seekers spend hours clicking on the “Apply” button – on every job board they can find and for every job they see. Regardless of appropriateness or location (oops, that job requires a PhD and is in Paris?). Applying as quickly as possible doesn’t leave time for careful job targeting, writing, or proofreading – ALL necessities in today’s job market! If you are in panic-stricken job search mode, you look desperate, as well as sloppy and clueless. None of those characteristics are sought by employers in new employees. So, those rapid-fire applications are, best case, a waste of your valuable time, and, worst case, training employers to view you as a “resume spammer.” Instead – Rather than applying for every job you see, follow the guidance in Before You Apply: Answer 4 Important Questions. Target your best employers and your best job titles. Then, step away from your computer to do some F2F (face-to-face) networking, spending no more than 1 hour a day working the job boards. 2. You avoid all social media.Yes, we have all seen many stories about people who destroy their chances at jobs by using social media stupidly, posting sleazy photos, bragging about drinking too much, or discussing their “recreational” drug habits, etc.. Consequently, many job seekers choose to avoid the situation by ignoring all social media, unfortunately including LinkedIn – a very bad solution to social media hazards. Instead – Set up a complete, public LinkedIn Profile, including a nice headshot photo (of you). Connect with at least 100 people, join appropriate LinkedIn Groups, and work on networking to a new job using LinkedIn. It’s a gold mine of information for job seekers as well as a “happy hunting ground” for recruiters. A public LinkedIn Profile also helps you pass employers’ are-you-up-to-date test. Employers screen job applications using search engines (see Why Submitting a Resume Isn’t Enough, and What to Do). When nothing about the job seeker is found, that job seeker is not contacted because they look out-of-date and, too often, they ARE out-of-date. Demonstrating that you don’t understand how to use social media is particularly deadly in fields like sales, marketing, public relations, human resources, and recruiting where social media skills are key components of daily operations. A good LinkedIn Profile plus appropriate LinkedIn activity should address that problem with most employers. 3. You seem disinterested in the employer and the job.Employers have the impression that many – if not most – job seekers are just “going through the motions” and not really interested in the job they are applying for (see # 1 above). Particularly in job interviews, job seekers can quickly destroy an opportunity by not having a good answer to the “What do you know about us” question. Instead – Rather than simply hitting that “Apply” button over and over, as quickly as possible, research the employer before you apply. Check out the website, and do a Google search. (See So What Do You Know About Us for more details.) Then, customize your responses based on the information you discover – drop the names of their products and services, name their competitors, refer to their locations, and/or their latest announcements. Show the employer that you are NOT in spray-and-pray resume mode. Note: If Google shows you only links to job postings, that’s a good sign that the employer is bogus and the job is a scam. If you are invited to interview, be sure to review your research and also do more checking, like the LinkedIn Company Profile and the LinkedIn Profiles of the people interviewing you. Even if you have only 30 minutes for research, those 30 minutes will be time very well spent. Updating Your Job Search Methods WorksEffective job search now is very different that effective job search in 2010 or earlier. The older methods seldom work now, and learning this new approach should make you more effective in your new job, too. I have worked with many job seekers who have learned and succeeded in this new world of job search. For More Information on About Not Being Hired:Why Submitting a Resume Isn’t Enough, and What to Do Dang! Not Hired! Again! What You Can Do Not Hired! 10 Reasons Outside of Your Control Not Hired! 10 Reasons You Can Control Not Hired for a Job You Really Wanted? How to Recover Beat the Technology Traps for Job Seekers Build Your Confidence in Less Than 5 Minutes © Copyright, 2018, Susan P. Joyce. All rights reserved.
About the Author… |
Amazon welcomes first graduates of program to turn veterans into technologistsBy MATT DAY | The Seattle Times | ©2018 Stars and Stripes | Reprinted with permission, all rights reserved. SEATTLE, Washington (Tribune News Service) — Mike Cooper and his four colleagues in Amazon’s inaugural class of veterans-turned-technologists won’t make a dent in the company’s roughly 17,000 job openings. But the five former armed service members represent the lengths the Seattle giant will go to satisfy its insatiable appetite for workers. Cooper, a 31-year-old Coast Guard veteran, and his colleagues are — after a brief ceremony on Wednesday morning — Amazon’s newest hires, the first graduates of a program designed to shepherd veterans into careers in in-demand technology jobs. The cohort join Amazon Web Services as cloud support associates, helping customers who use the cloud-computing platform to troubleshoot problems. “This is just five,” said Ardine Williams, a vice president who oversees human resources for Amazon’s worldwide operations network, herself a former Army captain. “It’s just the beginning.” Another beginning was in 2016, when two members of Williams’ team suggested the company look into veterans’ apprenticeships to fill jobs at fast-growing Amazon Web Services. They secured certification from the Department of Labor, a necessary hurdle to receive government support for such job training programs, and unveiled the new initiative in January 2017. The program, announced amid a White House push for companies to hire more veterans, also coincided with the technology sector’s own initiative to increase the pool of employees with the skills to fill fast-growing job roles in areas like cloud computing and data science. In Washington state, meanwhile, Gov. Jay Inslee, who spoke at Amazon’s event on Wednesday, has pushed apprenticeships as an important tool to better train the state’s workforce. Amazon enlisted Apprenti, the partly federally funded apprenticeship program overseen by the Washington Technology Industry Association, to help manage its own training. Recruits spent three months in the classroom before going into a paid, 12-month apprenticeship to develop expertise on-the-job. Cooper, who also worked as a paramedic after leaving the Coast Guard, figures the apprenticeship saved him tens of thousands of dollars in tuition he otherwise would have paid to get the same experience and certifications. “It hasn’t always been fun,” Cooper said of the program. “At no point has it been easy.” Clarifying his quip — to many, also a pretty accurate description of life at famously demanding, fast-paced Amazon — Cooper said he wasn’t taking a swipe at his new employer. “There are far worse places” to land, Cooper said. “And few better.” Amazon says about 175 veterans are currently pursuing apprenticeships at Amazon offices around the country. ©2018 The Seattle Times Visit The Seattle Times at www.seattletimes.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
(c)2018 the La Crosse Tribune (La Crosse, Wis.) |
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