This is the first rule of resume preparation. You undoubtedly have all sorts of awards, honors, badges, medals, and commendations that you're dying to display prominently on your resume.
The trouble is, your prowess in handling Stinger Missiles has little, if anything, to do with that sales job you wishes to land.
Regardless of how proud you are of your awards, remember rule number one-target your accomplishments to your market! This rule is simple, but hard to follow. It generally gets overcome by vanity, pride, and an attempt to sell your skills based on the glory of your experience. Instead, you should be trying to sell your skills based on your ability to perform a task.
Let's look at a former military recruiter applying for a job in the human resources field. Sometime during his career he served in a mechanized infantry company as a midlevel NCO. Once when his unit had just completed the annual general inspection, the motor pool had failed. The sergeant was sent to take over the motor pool and get it ready for a re-inspection within three weeks. He did a tremendous job, and the motor pool not only passed the re-inspection but received an outstanding rating. His commander was so impressed with his performance that he awarded him the Army Commendation Medal. This NCO feels so proud of the award that he wants to feature it on his resume.
The question most corporate recruiters would ask is, "What does this medal have to do with this individual's ability to perform in human resources?" The award was a tremendous accomplishment, but it is not relevant to human resources. But look at this veteran's background again. We see that he was selected as the Recruiter of the Year a few years later in his career. A major function of human resources is recruiting.
Now we have an accomplishment to review that is directly related to this man's ability to perform the job, an accomplishment directly related to his capabilities. It should absolutely be prominently featured on his resume.
Your Experience to Your Market
The second major rule of resume writing is related to rule one, but looks at the problem a little differently. Most military people have diverse backgrounds. Few, if any, remain in the same position throughout a single term of service, let alone an entire career. Normal advancement dictates that most will spend some time in hands-on kinds of positions, some time in staff positions, and, of course, some time in leadership or supervisory positions. Many wind up serving in two or three general fields before leaving the service.
In the job search, it is critical to focus on specific experience in order to compete effectively for vacancies. It is not necessary to tell an employer every bit of experience you have, only that experience related to the job he is trying to fill. If we currently have a vacancy at our hospital for a brain surgeon, we need someone who can perform brain surgery right now. The candidate must also have performed it successfully within the recent past. We don't have time to wait for the candidate to graduate from medical school, because we have patients awaiting surgery all over our hospital. We will train the surgeon in some things, such as how to complete our paperwork, and how our hospital operates in relation to other institutions, but we need a functioning brain surgeon right now. In reviewing resumes, that is the experience we are looking for. If you are applying for the job, we're not interested in reading about your truck-driving experience! Your resume should only address your brain-surgery experience and anything related, such as teaching or supervisory background in the field. You must be able to show us that you are qualified to perform the duties expected of a brain surgeon. The experience must be of a practical nature (hands-on), or a theoretical nature (academic training).
Mastery of this technique of carefully selecting and targeting your background to your precise market can be the key to an effective job search. You must focus on a single career goal and then write your resume to support the goal. The candidate who decides on "Administration, Finance, or Management" as a career goal will never write a resume effectively demonstrating his qualifications in all three areas. We believe there are many people in uniform today who are fully qualified to perform in more than one career field. If you are one of those people, you should write several different resumes, each focused on a specific functional area.
The best resumes are written based upon the known qualifications for a specific job. It's not necessary to depict every task you have ever performed, only those that the job itself requires.
