TAOnline Transition Insight Newsletter

The Value of Military Service to the Civilian Workplace

By Barbara Adams, CPRW, CEIP, MFRW, MMRW, MFCA-T
www.militaryresumewriters.com and www.careerproplus.com

Here is great, mostly untapped value in the experience of a military member. In general, military members are the most loyal, well trained, disciplined, and goal-oriented employees any employer could hope to recruit. Not long ago, recruiting military veterans was an option sorely overlooked by corporate America. However, companies have recently begun to recognize their elevated levels of skill and capability and first-rate training. Recruiting professionals uniformly agree that military members make excellent leaders because they are held to the highest standards of performance and operation. They are taught to be decisive, resourceful, disciplined, and devoted t ... Read More

Lockheed Martin is scrambling to hire more young engineers

FORT WORTH, Texas (Tribune News Service) — Amy Hughes clearly remembers the moment she decided she wanted to work for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics. About five years ago, during her junior year at Arlington High School, Hughes and other prospective college engineering students watched a Lockheed Martin recruitment video. It was a high-energy video that appealed to the students’ patriotism, with F-35s thundering across the screen. The message of the recruitment film: Come work with us, and build the machines that defend America from its enemies. “As soon as the video was over, I looked at my dad and said, ‘I want to do that,’ ” Hughes said. “I applied the next day. I just loved it. ... Read More

What Were They Thinking? 30 Crazy Job Interview Behaviors

As challenging as it is for most job seekers to “score” a job interview, the actions of many job seekers in job interviews raise questions about their understanding of what job interviews are or, perhaps, their true interests in the opportunities those job interviews provide. A recent CareerBuilder study of over 2,200 hiring managers and human resources representatives across a wide range of industries and sizes showed some amazing behavior on the part of job seekers. My suspicion is that most (not all, of course) people are not naturally this clueless. On some level, they must understand that they are blowing away the opportunity with their actions. Among the strange actions in the CareerBuilder study: Applicant crashed her car into ... Read More

Job Seeker: Get On Page One

By Hannah Morgan Career Sherpa - Reprinted with permission -

Isn’t it time you get on page one? When you search for your name, does it appear on the first page of search results? Is it the right you and is this the best information about you? You better hope so! Get On Page One The reason this is important, in case you haven’t heard, is because over 75% of hiring authorities ARE googling you. Their perception of you is their reality. I write and present on the topic of reputation management a lot because it is more important than most people realize. Do you have a Google problem? Pete Kistler, founder of BrandYourself did. It was a classic case of mistaken identity. He and a drug dealer shared the same name. Pete sought the help of his friend and SEO wizard, Patrick Ambron, to resolve his problem. ... Read More

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**Corporate Gray Military-Friendly Job Fair * March 29, 2019 * Arlington, VA**

You're invited to interview with dozens of military-friendly companies at the March 29th Corporate Gray Military-Friendly Job Fair at the Army Navy Country Club in Arlington, Virginia. Meet with Lockheed Martin, Newport News Shipbuilding, U.S. Postal Service, Booz Allen, Leidos, Edward Jones, ARServices, KEYW Corporation, KBRwyle, Prince William County Police Dept., Belcan Government Solutions, and many more! Job fair hours are 9 am to 12 noon with an Employer Panel discussion for job seekers starting at 8 am. To see the list of all the participating companies, and to ensure you receive the job fair Employer Directory in advance, pre-register at http://corporategray.com/jobfairs/405. And if you upload your resume to the Corporate Gray website, the participating companies will have early access to your credentials. While especially for transitioning service members and veterans, this job fair is free and open to all job seekers.

**Corporate Gray Military-Friendly Job Fair * April 26, 2019 * Springfield, VA**

Meet face-to face with dozens of military-friendly companies at the April 26th Corporate Gray Military-Friendly Job Fair at the Waterford Reception Center in Springfield, Virginia. Job fair hours are 9 am to 12 noon, with an Employer Panel discussion for job seekers starting at 8 am. To ensure you receive the job fair Employer Directory in advance, pre-register at http://corporategray.com/jobfairs/406. And if you upload your resume, the participating companies will have early access to your credentials. While especially for transitioning service members and veterans, this job fair is free and open to all job seekers.

FREE U.S. Veterans Magazine Subscription for TAOnline Members!

U.S. Veterans Magazine (USVM) Is the premiere resource magazine for transitioning service members, service-disabled veterans, veteran business owners and their spouses and families. USVM is the link between the qualified students, career and business candidates from the ranks of our nation’s veteran organizations, educational institutions, corporate America, and the federal government. Subscribe for FREE today!

The Value of Military Service to the Civilian Workplace

by Barbara Adams, Military Transition Expert – Federal Employment Strategist, Executive Coach
www.militaryresumewriters.com and www.careerproplus.com

Not long ago, recruiting military veterans was an option sorely overlooked by corporate America. However, companies have recently begun to recognize their elevated levels of skill and capability and first-rate training.

Recruiting professionals uniformly agree that military members make excellent leaders because they are held to the highest standards of performance and operation. They are taught to be decisive, resourceful, disciplined, and devoted team players who perform exceptionally well under pressure. Additionally, they are generally conscientious, prompt, clean-cut, accountable, and positive thinkers.

Many military members travel globally managing or working programs and projects, performing logistics, conducting training, and managing materiel, equipment, and inventory, just to name a few of the hundreds of critical functions performed by service members. The competitive military environment demands that they be winners. This winning mindset can be easily harnessed to the task of achieving organizational goals in the civilian workforce.

There are numerous positive traits of a military veteran that make them an attractive option to a prospective employer. These include:

Accelerated Learning Curve—Continuing education and training is a requirement of service; much of this training is at college level and is of great value in the civilian marketplace. One thing is for certain: training is everything and everything is training. Every level of the military hierarchy stresses learning and professional development. Training is designed at the individual level first. The military consistently pursues the question of “What will it take to make a recruit a successful soldier and/or leader?”
Leadership Training: Leaders are developed through experience, education, and self-development. They apply practical methods of managing behaviors for results, even in the most difficult circumstances. They understand the dynamics of leadership as part of both hierarchical and peer structures. Military members are often thrust into leadership roles earlier than private sector employees are. They receive training in management in order to direct subordinates and oversee large budgets. They are trained to succeed in ever-changing environments by influencing others and providing purpose, direction, and motivation.

Advanced Training: Advanced Individual Training (AIT) teaches military members the skills to perform effectively in highly technical and complex fields through hands-on training and field instruction that makes them experts in their specific career fields.

Work Ethic—Military members demonstrate an excellent work ethic.

Change Management: A significant part of the military culture is change and adaptation; military members move frequently throughout their military careers, so they’re accustomed to adapting to ever-changing work and cultural environments.
Loyalty/Longevity: Human Resources Directors contend that veterans tend to stay with companies longer than those without military experience do.
Accountability: Veterans are accustomed to assuming high levels of responsibility for employers’ property. They are responsible for thousands—even millions—of dollars worth of government property. This level of responsibility hastens the maturation of military members and makes them seasoned managers.
Working Under Pressure: Deadlines are regularly met under intense pressure and rigorous circumstances. Military members are taught to stay with their task until it is done right. Working under extreme stress, responding positively, and “thinking on your feet” are key assets in the civilian working world.
Planning: Project-planning and assessment of strengths and weakness, resources, schedules, logistics, and other factors in accomplishing objectives is routine to most service members.
Initiative: Military members are trained to be proactive; to anticipate and prepare for the unknown.
Problem Solving: Military members are taught to make quick, authoritative decisions.
Self Discipline: Military members rely on rules and structure to avoid chaos, a highly useful attribute in conforming to the structure of a new workplace.

Members Leadership and Teamwork—Military members work effectively in collaborative environments.

Leadership: Many military members have held leadership positions in teams or units, demonstrating their ability to direct subordinates and manage programs and projects.
Teamwork: The ability to work as a member of a team, to think of others before self, to show respect for leaders, and to be dependable and responsible, contribute to veterans making excellent employees.
Loyalty: Military members understand that real teamwork grows out of a responsibility to one’s colleagues. They work in team environments and are very loyal to their teammates and units, often sacrificing self-interests for the benefit of the group and achievement of the overarching objective.
Self Sufficiency: Military members are given assignments for which they take personal responsibility and complete with minimal or no supervision.

Additional Value

Diversity: The military workforce is one of the most diverse organizations in the U.S. Military members work side-by-side with teammates regardless of race, gender, geographic origin, ethnic background, religion, and economic status, as well as mental, physical, and attitudinal capabilities.
Technology and Globalization: Military members are able to absorb technical information on a wide range of advanced equipment. They keep current on international and technical trends pertinent to business and industry and can bring the kind of global outlook and technological savvy that companies need to succeed. Their in-depth familiarity and experience with hardware, software, peripherals, and security systems enable them to operate advanced equipment worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Security Clearance: Companies, specifically government contractors, need employees to have special security clearances, which can be expensive and/or difficult if the process has to be expedited. Many military members have undergone background checks and already possess such clearances. With the current backlog in investigating members, this is a tremendous advantage to the civilian workplace.

Today, more than every veterans are earning employment more rapidly as the veteran unemployment rate is currently at 2.7%. Contact www.careerproplus.com for assistance with your military transition resume.

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Lockheed Martin is scrambling to hire more young engineers

FORT WORTH, Texas (Tribune News Service) — Amy Hughes clearly remembers the moment she decided she wanted to work for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics.

About five years ago, during her junior year at Arlington High School, Hughes and other prospective college engineering students watched a Lockheed Martin recruitment video. It was a high-energy video that appealed to the students’ patriotism, with F-35s thundering across the screen.

The message of the recruitment film: Come work with us, and build the machines that defend America from its enemies.

“As soon as the video was over, I looked at my dad and said, ‘I want to do that,’ ” Hughes said. “I applied the next day. I just loved it. I thought, ‘I can make a difference.’ ”

But not all young engineers are attracted to working at a place that requires its applicants to be U.S. citizens, pass a security clearance and work in a mile-long structure with few windows — adjacent to a west Fort Worth military base.

Lockheed Martin aims to hire an additional 1,000 people for engineering and other high-tech jobs during the next year at both its F-35 stealth fighter production plant in Fort Worth as well as its missile and fire control facility in Grand Prairie, company officials said.

At a time when many critics say the Dallas-Fort Worth region doesn’t have enough of a skilled work force to lure the best paying jobs — and that shortage may be a key reason why Amazon didn’t select North Texas as a spot for one of its new headquarters — Lockheed Martin officials acknowledge that they face a challenge in filling those high-tech positions.

But they also say they are finding a good amount of success in recruiting workers such as Hughes, who will be one of the first four people to graduate Lockheed Martin’s Project Lead The Way program when she graduates from Texas A&M University in May.

Project Lead The Way identifies students with good prospects in fields such as engineering while they are in high school. Those students are then offered summer internships beginning while they are still in high school, and continuing each year while they are in college.

Then, upon graduation, they are offered full-time jobs.

“We have been very successful recruiting current college students to either join us for internships or entry-level positions,” said J.D. McFarlan, Lockheed Martin vice president of F-35 test and verification. “We certainly have a brand and reputation that is well-known on campuses. We’re seen as a company you can have very successful career at. I think recruiting entry-level professionals has not been difficult for us. A lot of the things we do before folks ever get to college, and that probably helps.”

The company’s hiring will be for a variety of positions in science, technology, engineering and math fields.

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Hughes, for example, will be working full-time in the combat avionics system, which focuses on the electronics aboard the stealth fighter jets. Her degree is in computer engineering, with a business minor.

While she was still in high school, Hughes worked as an intern in Lockheed Martin’s materials processing lab. After high school graduation, but before her freshman year of college, she moved to the company’s wind tunnel testing area. Each summer, she gained experience in a different area of the company.

During each summer internship, Hughes said her co-workers went out of their way to help her.

“Everyone there is so willing to teach you,” she said. “Any question you ask, they will take you where you need to go to learn the answer.”

Not all of the job openings are for new graduates.

Some jobs require years of experience in related fields, and many of those jobs could be filled at the company’s hiring fairs, which typically draw hundreds and sometimes several thousand applicants.

Lockheed Martin stages recruiting events nearly every day somewhere in the United States. Often, the events are held at colleges.

For example, a recruiting even will be held 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the University of Texas at Dallas Career Center in Richardson. (The event is for UT-Dallas students only.)

Lockheed Martin has 16,400 employees at the aeronautics plant in Fort Worth, and another 3,500 workers at the Missiles and Fire Control plant in Grand Prairie. Of those, about 10,000 workers are in high-tech fields such as engineering, company officials said.

Specific information on salaries paid at Lockheed Martin was not available through official channels. However, on Glassdoor, a crowd-sourced website, the annual salary for a research engineer at the company ranged from $79,000 to $115,000. Another listing showed the salary for an electronics engineer at $59,000 to $84,000.

The need for additional high-tech workers could be exacerbated by the retirement of long-time employees, some of whom have been told in recent years that the company is no longer contributing to their pensions.

But Nicole Green, Lockheed Martin director of talent acquisition, says the issue of retirements is less of a concern than the need for the company to grow its workforce as it ramps up to full capacity on programs such as the F-35 production.

“I would say most of the hiring we’re doing right now is really driven by strategy and growth, rather than a strategy to get out in front of any pending retirements. The attrition has been really steady,” she said. “We made a decision we really wanted to increase the amount of interns and college students. The idea is to bring them in now, so that in five or 10 years we have folks who understand their roles.”

Working at Lockheed Martin is still considered a plum job at places such as the University of North Texas College of Engineering in Denton.

“There is no shortage of students who want to talk to Lockheed, and others,” said Thomas Derryberry, UNT assistant dean of corporate relations.

Derryberry said that when Lockheed Martin has an engineering opening, ”The line will be 50-deep.”

But he also agreed that working for a defense contractor isn’t for everybody.

UNT has 4,071 engineering students and 35 percent are first generation college students, he said. Also, 46 percent of undergraduates students are under-represented minorities, and many of those students seek employment with smaller, more civilian-oriented firms.

“For some students, the smaller companies out there offer a stronger sense of community,” Derryberry said. “And they get to see the fruits of their work output much sooner.”

Antonio Araujo, a senior mechanical engineering student at the University of Texas at Arlington, agrees. Araujo expects to graduate in May, and he has his eye on a job with a comparatively small bio-medical firm in the Fort Worth area.

“My preference is getting to see a lot of things,” Araujo said. “With a smaller company, you can do that, and have your hands in different areas.”

But Araujo also says that Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in Fort Worth is just as desirable as it has ever been in terms of pay, comfortable workplace and ability to achieve long-term career goals. He says the company is “super-involved with UTA,” and has a presence at nearly every campus career event.

“I have several friends who work at Lockheed,” he said. “They’re really smart people.”

—

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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What Were They Thinking? 30 Crazy Job Interview Behaviors

A recent CareerBuilder study of over 2,200 hiring managers and human resources representatives across a wide range of industries and sizes showed some amazing behavior on the part of job seekers.

My suspicion is that most (not all, of course) people are not naturally this clueless. On some level, they must understand that they are blowing away the opportunity with their actions.

Among the strange actions in the CareerBuilder study:

Applicant crashed her car into the building.
Applicants dressing strangely – in a Star Wars costume or in their running gear.
Applicant kept iPod headphone on during the interview.
Applicant checked Facebook during the job interview.
Applicant asked for the receptionist’s name and phone number because he really liked her.

I’ve heard many other horror stories from recruiters and experienced a few myself as an interviewer. Please do NOT do any of these behaviors during a job interview:

Misusing cell phones:

Answering the cell phone.
Texting on the cell phone.
Playing a game on the smart phone while interviewing.
Asking to delay the start of the interview until composing an email was completed.

Demonstrating bad manners:

Arriving late.
Yawning.
Bad breath.
Bad body odor or too much perfume or cologne.
Cursing during the interview.
Arriving too early (more than 10 minutes).
Parking in the employee parking spaces.
Smelling like cigarette or cigar smoke.
Being rude to the elevator operator, receptionist, secretary, or other “unimportant” staff members.
Coughing and sneezing, obviously coming down with a cold.

Being unprepared for job interviews:

Not knowing which job being interviewed for.
Not remembering the title and requirements of the job being interviewed for.
Not having copies of the resume ready to give to interviewers.
Not having a good answer to, “What do you know about us?”
Not having good questions about the job and the organization ready to ask (questions that couldn’t be answered by a Google search or pre-interview preparation).

Acting very oddly in job interviews:

Bringing parents.
Attempting to include parents in the interview.
Bringing a sandwich and soft drink (or coffee and a bagel) and eating during the interview that was not intended to be a meal.
Appearing tipsy or drugged.
Avoiding eye contact.
Dressing inappropriately – usually too informally, but sometimes apparently “in costume”

If you really aren’t interested in the job, don’t waste your time applying for it. Save your time and energy for the jobs you really want so you can bring your “A Game” to the whole process. The applicants in the incidents above wasted everyone’s time.

More About Successful Job Interviews

10 Steps to Successful Job Interviews

Job Interviews: How to Ask the Right Questions

Job Interviews: How to Knock Their Socks Off

Job Interviews: Are You Listening?

©Copyright, 2019, Susan P. Joyce. All rights reserved. About the Author…
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, which Susan has been editor and publisher of WorkCoach since then. Susan also edits and publishes Job-Hunt.org. Ronnie Ann, founder of Work Coach Cafe, bases her real-world advice on her many years as an organizational consultant where she helped interview and hire people, added to a certificate from NYU in Career Planning & Development and her own adventures as a serial job seeker.

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Job Seeker: Get On Page One

By Hannah Morgan Career Sherpa - Reprinted with permission -

Get On Page One

The reason this is important, in case you haven’t heard, is because over 75% of hiring authorities ARE googling you.

Their perception of you is their reality.

I write and present on the topic of reputation management a lot because it is more important than most people realize.

Do you have a Google problem?

Pete Kistler, founder of BrandYourself did. It was a classic case of mistaken identity. He and a drug dealer shared the same name. Pete sought the help of his friend and SEO wizard, Patrick Ambron, to resolve his problem. This is how BrandYourself got its start.

My Google Problem

Maybe you don’t share the name with a drug dealer. My issue is that I have a very common name…Hannah Morgan. Every high school track star shares my name. Plus, a model and a heroine of a book share my name.

So my Google problem is that I am not the only “Hannah Morgan” on page one of a Google search. How can I be sure they are clicking on the right ME?!

Push The Right Stuff

With the BrandYourself tool, I was able to push the best content, about me and by me, up on page one. Whenever one of the links in my search results changes or new search results appear, BrandYourself notifies me so I can be aware.

Managing your online reputation is an ongoing process and these alert emails help me stay on top of where I rank. (*Small disclaimer…I used to contribute articles for BrandYourself, and I truly love what they are doing!)

How BrandYourself Works:

“BrandYourself is the only Do-It-Yourself platform that makes it easy for anyone to improve their own search results.”

Submit any links you want showing up at the top of Google

Use our tools to optimize those links so they show up higher

Track your links as they begin to rise and bury unwanted results

Page One Results Rule

If your name doesn’t appear on page one of Google or other search engines, what does that mean? It means the likelihood that the person searching for information on you will most likely NOT go to page 2, 3 or 100 looking for you. Studies have proven that links ranked on page one (and very highly on page one) greatly increased the likelihood of being clicked.

Do You Understand SEO?

With BrandYourself’s reputation management tool, you don’t need to be an SEO wizard. Their free tool walks you, very effortlessly, through the setup process and then provides suggestions to help you improve the Google ranking of your name.

The BrandYourself Promise

Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to help anyone control their own search results. That means we’ll always answer the phone.

BrandYourself in the Spot Light

You may not have heard about BrandYourself, but they’ve been getting great press. They have also received numerous awards (from the Whitehouse and other organizations) recognizing them as a successful, innovative Start-Up.

The Bottom Line

Go google your name and see what appears on the first page of search results. Can you do better?

Dish up the best and most relevant references to your name. Get on page one of search results.

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