Military Resume Examples and "How To"

(Part Three)

D. EXPERIENCE / ACCOMPLISHMENTS (cont.):

Follow the guidelines on this page (page 3 of 3) to help ensure the military resume you write is similar to our military resume examples.

Accomplishments: First and foremost, an employer is looking for an indication that a candidate has a track record of success. Look at your military resume from the employer’s point of view. Hiring managers look for evidence of above average performance indicated by quantifiable accomplishments and results.

Hiring managers not only want to know what you did, but how it made an impact on the organizations’ productivity, sales, and/or service objectives. Remember that the private sector is bottom-line profits/savings-driven. Companies want to know that you can impact their sales and service objectives by saving them time, increasing efficiency (by training people, performing quality assurance, reengineering processes, etc.), doing more with less, and ultimately, making them more money.

Because the military is mission-oriented, relaying the fact that you have previously impacted profits can be tricky. But the military is a customer service-oriented organization. Each unit works to support another. You probably have improved operational efficiency, expanded an organization’s production capabilities, and enhanced customer service—all accomplishments that typically drive profits in the corporate world. Understand that this is the tone that you should strive for and what you will see in our military resume examples.

Under your responsibilities, put up to 3 bulleted accomplishments. When listing rankings, consider only listing those where you were ranked number one or number two. When formulating accomplishments, aim to state the impact of your actions first when applicable (i.e., “Saved $250K in maintenance costs…") then follow it with the specific action (i.e. "…by creating a parts refurbishment and reclamation program…”).

Example 1:

EXPERIENCE: United States Navy
Navigator – USS Frank Cable (AS 40), Guam – 2005 to 2006
Led a team of 12 in the daily navigation, signaling, and operations of a forward deployed ship. Safely guided the ship over 23,000 nautical miles and through 2 of the toughest ports in the Pacific. Researched and planned routes, identified potential hazards to transit, and prepared nautical charts. Delivered multi-media navigation briefs to the ship’s Commanding Officer and his staff on a daily basis. Maintained navigation equipment valued at nearly $2M.

• Transformed a “lackluster” piloting party into a team of professional experts—earned the Pacific Fleet Submarine Tender Navigation “N”, an award signifying exceptional expertise in navigation.
• Lauded as “my most reliable Junior Officer” by the Commanding Officer—ranked at the top of 11.

Example 2:

EXPERIENCE
Site Maintenance Chief, 11/2005 to Present
United States Marine Corps, Engineer Support Company, Battle Creek, MI

Sole executive-level manager of the Maintenance & Operations branch of an Engineer Equipment Company supporting combat operations. The branch is comprised of 4 teams (Motor Transport, Heavy Equipment, Electrical, and Water Purification) and $40M in heavy, motor transport, and utilities equipment. Oversee and document the maintenance process, conduct quality control checks, reconcile supply reports, and interface with higher headquarters. Not only manage the entire maintenance cycle for 220 end items, but determine what and who needs to go where in order to support missions around the world; develop and execute logistical plans from the ground up; improvise and facilitate operations.

• Handpicked for the Site Maintenance Chief position, a position normally held by a commissioned officer, due to an impeccable performance history and leadership abilities.
• Consistently achieved a 98.7% maintenance readiness rate; the average rate is approximately 90%.
• Extensive experience in orchestrating large-scale logistical and property disposal operations; removed over 275 pieces of equipment from Iraq in one of the largest operations of its kind to date.

II. Odds and Ends

All of our military resume examples are one to two pages in length. Yours should be as well and a one page resume is best. If your resume exceeds one page, make sure that it fills up at least half of the second page.
With the exception of the Heading, you should use no less than 11-point type and no less than ½” margins. Use a San Serif font like Times New Roman. Hiring authorities do not want a resume that is too long or that is hard to read.
Use present tense for positions currently held and past tense for older ones.
Make sure that you are paying attention to the smallest details as they often make the biggest difference. List numbers consistently. If you are going to spell out numbers less than 10, do it throughout your military resume. List monetary figures consistently, etc. Ask a friend to proofread your resume for spelling and grammatical errors.
Spell out all acronyms the first time that they are used and then put the condensed version in parenthesis immediately following the spelled out word/phrase. Use the acronym from that point forward. No need to use an acronym at all if the phrase occurs only once. Again, strive to replace military specific systems, programs, titles, etc. with plain language descriptors. Your resume should read as if you were speaking to your grandparents.
The resume is only one part of the hiring process and can be defined as “an advertisement for individuals.” It is meant to entice. It should not be a “laundry list” of duties. Do not try to include every detail on your resume. During the interview process, you will be able to further describe the details of your career.
Do not put an objective on your resume. Your Candidate Recruiter knows what your career objective is, and will present you for opportunities accordingly. An objective is an antiquated tactic and may hurt you in an interview if it is not 100% in tune with the position for which you are interviewing. Furthermore, why detail your expectations when you can focus on the attributes that you have to offer?
Stop after 10-15 years of experience! If you have 15+ years of experience, you should combine some of your early experience into one summarized section, and focus on your most recent experience.
It is critical that your email address be a “professional” one (e.g., something similar to “firstname.lastname@isp.com”), not a nickname or phrase (“lovetheladies@ispprovider.com” is an actual email address from a resume we received - it is an example of what to avoid). There are many sites such as yahoo, hotmail and gmail where you can set up a free account to use only for business email. Similarly, your answering machine message should be professional in tone and content as well. Potential employers may have the need to contact you at home and you will want to use this opportunity to deliver a positive impression, even with your voicemail message.

Conclusion

Thanks for your interest in BMI's resume guidance pages. We hope it assists you in this important step of achieving a civilian career.

(Back to Part 2)

Military resume examples prepared by Bradley-Morris, Inc. and MilitaryResumes.com .