In the first article we have seen the three major mistakes
in military resumes that are very commonly made by
military-experienced-professionals( To read, click here) . In this second article of this five article series, we
have highlighted the top three reasons
why the military resumes are rejected by the recruiters even when they have the
potential and required skills for the job opportunity.
Lack of
Keywords- Resume Heading For Trash
Because of the
service constrains during the military career especially in the final years, such as remote
area postings, busy schedule, and no access to internet, we may not be aware of
the latest trends in the constantly changing job market, where new methods and
processes are introduced very frequently. One of the reasons for the rejection
of military resumes is the lack of awareness on the latest trends about the
resume writing among the about to retire or recently retired military
professionals. Though many will not use the military jargon and instead use the
corporate terms, they will still miss upon the right job specific keywords that
give edge over others.
Receiving thousands
of resume for a job opening, Many MNCs use Applicant Tracking Software ( ATS)
or internet job boards to shortlist only those resumes which come up with the
job-essential keywords. Similarly, LinkedIn is used extensively by recruiters
to find the right candidate and one of the way to find right fit is by applying
the keyword search method. Even when a recruiter is scanning your resume
manually, recruiter’s eyes are constantly searching for those job specific keywords.
Therefore the value of inclusion of keywords is that they can make or break
your chances of being called for interview.
While some
keywords are general, many of them are industry and job specific. A particular
job description typically conveys what is the position, specific experience
required, skills and education desired from a candidate. A number of job
descriptions ( They can be searched on
various job portals) for the same position will have a number of common
keywords which can be used in context of resume. Inclusion of these keywords
will convey that your experience is relevant to the job, and increase your chances of success for a job
opening.
Resume Left Open Ended- Results Not
Shown
In corporate , You are recognized by your work such as what
growth was achieved by you or what results were achieved with your
involvement and most of the these results are shown with numbers and percentages. With
the availability of data matrix in corporate, it’s even more easy to quantify
the accomplishments. Whereas in military rarely we quantify our work even
though the there is scope to quantify .
By not highlighting the results in
figures, we leave our work accomplishment
open ended and very general in nature.
Every military
training increases operational efficiency and the same improvement can also be
quantified. Every weapon training including firing conducted by an individual
on his team would have improved the operational effectiveness by a few
percentages. Similarly, every innovation or implementation of a new procedure
that saved human effort or that made cost-cutting can be quantified to an
approximate number and percentage. A good way to quantify is by asking a few
questions such as:-
· What was the value of the equipment you managed?
· What was the total budget you were responsible for?
· How much money did you saved?
· How much you improved upon efficiency or what is the percentage difference from before in productivity?
And the results of the questions above can narrate the
work experience, and
accomplishments in a more quantifiable
statements such as:-
· Enhanced operational effectiveness of 60 member team from 65% to 80%.
· Resulted in INR 10 million savings.
· Administered budget of INR 15 million.
· Reduced inventory loss by 10%.
· Developed result oriented training program for a 800 person organization, taking the professional standards from 70% to 80 %.
Cut, Copy, and Paste- The Resume
Sound Too General & Boring
Many a times we have seen the tendency that we ask for the
resume from other veterans who have
retired and are working in corporate, thinking that the same resume will
communicate about us also. The resume is all about highlighting your past experiences and your individual
personality in an effective manner, gaining a call for the interview. Since it’s about an individual’s personality
who has different skills sets based on his or her personality, knowledge and
experience, No two individuals can have the
same resume which highlights each one’s skills distinctly. The traditional
method of cut, copy, and paste does more harm to your chances of shortlist for
a particular opening. Even if a very professionally
written attractive but copied resume is able to fetch an interview; chances are
very high that one will not go cross interview. Guess Why?
The online templates have been copied by millions and the
same content is thus widely seen all around including on LinkedIn . The words and
the content are too general and even if we try to
tweak a few words here and there to make it work for us, The recruiter who must
have seen hundreds and thousands of such resume makes out that this one is
another copied resume. So what? A copied resume generally reflects that the person shies away from work and adopts to
easier methods.
The two most important steps in finding a job post
retirement are preparing an effective resume and making a job hunting strategy.
Resume is the first contact of the
job-seeker with the recruiter and recruiters are a experienced lot .If the
resume has been accepted for the interview call, will one who has copied the
resume will have more confidence during the interview or the one who has taken
the time and effort to put exactly one’s own personality, military skills, and experience
in the resume?
To sum it up, Resume writing is a detail-oriented process and
requires time, and effort as one needs to pen down the career history from
scratch and pull out the ones that exactly conveys the correct picture. By not
copying from other resumes, one will improve the chances of success both during the shortlist
of resume for interview call and during the interview process as what one will speak will go hand-in-hand with what
is written.
The articles in this blog aim at empowering the
retiring/retired military professionals about how to approach successful
transition from military to corporate . M2C is also sensitizing the corporate
recruiters about the business advantages of hiring military professionals. Some
of the articles published in top HR magazines can be seen here, click here .
The Team M2C with the support of military community is committed to create an environment where in
each military-experienced-professional has a respectful and dignified job post
retirement and corporate companies are eager to recruit military professionals
especially in domains other than Security and Admin.
If you think this article can be useful to someone who is
about to retire or have recently retired, Do share generously.
To know more on military specific resume writing, click here