Mike Novitsky ⋅ Wilton , CT ATP ⋅ 45 years experience

Resume should be ONE PAGE. Show ACCOMPLISHMENTS such as
* saved X$,
* reduced time by X days,
* lowered effort by X%,
* increased scores by X%,
* trained X personnel,
* designed and conducted X Workshops, etc.
Showing WOW results that can be duplicated at a civilian enterprise will gain attention and lead to an interview....the only objective of the resume.

Mike
Captain, Retired

Georgann Grunebach ⋅ Norco , CA 21st Century Fox ⋅ 27 years experience

Dear Donald,

Sincere congratulations on your service career. It goes without saying, sincere thanks for your selfless service to us, and your country throughout those years!

Like you, I've worked without interruption for 30 plus years. I began as an engineer in 1978 and have worked in the legal field since 1984. While I'm not currently job hunting, I try to keep my resume up to date. Additionally, I have formally and informally mentored others for the past 15 years.

If I might make a suggestion?

This time is a great opportunity for self-assessment, and personal introspection.

I would look at your overall career as a wonderful series of valuable experiences that are worthwhile and valid to the civilian business world.

The discipline and ethics, pressured accountability, the nimbleness of spirit and logical thought processes that you've had to engage daily in the tasks at hand are most pertinent and needed in today's business world.

For that reason, I would recommend not a single, generic, one page resume, but several.

Each one pager focused on a particular skill, talent or life experience that could be brought to bear on several distinct career paths.

For example, you've had to 'manage' an evolving and continually changing and varied population of individuals over the past thirty years. The skills necessary to bring out the best in those reporting to you, under extremely stressful conditions, could ably apply to any business management position, particularly where large groups of people engage in integrated processes.

On your personnel management resume, don't get bogged down listing one job, or one example of your management experience. instead, describe in functional terms how you brought order and achievement to overall missions.

Instead of listing a series of ships or specific tours, you could paraphrase:

"Five years personally responsible for the success of two hundred personnel coordinating their teams daily tasks, accomplishing specific mission critical goals, while maintaining diversity, respect and the highest level of personnel growth. Mission goals met included:. . . " Here you could list, if possible, within the constraints of clearance obligations, functional highlights of your actions.

In another one page resume you might highlight that you were engaged in supervising training or the education of military personnel. This would be a resume you could use to demonstrate your success at managing instructors or teachers.

Another one page resume might demonstrate your ability to work well with the families of the military staff under your charge. This resume might be useful in job opportunities directed to social services, or the management of social service teams.

I apologize that I don't have more details of your actual experience.

But, in general, I've found for myself, and for other proteges that providing a functional focus to your existing experience will get the greatest response from hiring managers.

Sincere best wishes in your transition to industry.

Georgann

Charles Bonilla ⋅ Chicago , IL PeopleScout, A TrueBlue Company ⋅ 3 years experience

Congratulations on the retirement.

A "job in the engineering field" is pretty broad. Some drill down will be helpful. For example, if you haven't already, sit down and answer these questions for yourself:

1. Where (geographically) do I want to work?
a. I prefer no more than a 20-mile one-way commute from my current location
b. I am willing to relocate to the following cities/states and have no more than a 15-mile one-way commute to the job
1.
2.
3.

2. What are the top five companies for which I'd PREFER to work?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Doing this, in writing, will begin to give you a clear picture of the landscape in which you want to live and work, and the realities that exist there. You may find, during this process, that some locations are eliminated. That in itself will be a time-saver. Eventually, you'll be able to hyper-focus on what remains and proceed accordingly.

And yes, when it comes to the resume, at least for a civilian opportunity, I recommend you aim for a one-page, chronological resume with the most recent experience first, and go back 10, maybe 12, years. Concise is key, and endeavor to tailor the resume to the specifics of the particular position. Do a "side by side," work with the position description on the left side of your screen and your resume on the right. That way you can take the best of your achievements and put them in the context of what they're seeking.

Here are some resources you may wish to consider:

http://www.amazon.com/Deployment-Employment-Military-Veterans-Transitioning/dp/1937129861

http://www.amazon.com/Out-Uniform-Successful-Military-Civilian/dp/1597977152

http://www.amazon.com/Success-Your-New-Mission-Transition/dp/0991561309

https://www.corporategray.com/

Stephen Chamberlin ⋅ San Francisco , CA U.S. Coast Guard, Captain ⋅ 25 years served

Master Chief,

Congrats on your successful career & thanks for your service! In addition (and aligned with) the great replies to your question, I highly recommend finding an ACP Mentor. I retired in June of 2015 and worked with a mentor on my resume, interviewing & she helped me develop a solid professional network (frankly the network is the MOST important piece of the puzzle). Doing this over time and having someone to review the resume multiple times & provide guidance during the process is essential. Mine went through at least a dozen iterations before it was transformed from mil-speak to private sector friendly. It is indeed a process. Best of luck!

James Watson ⋅ San Diego , CA General Atomics ⋅ 30 years experience

Don-

I am retired after a 40 year career in industry where I hired over 100 people. Now I am helping veterans like yourself by helping with their resumes. If you would e-mail me your resume in Word to (drjamesfwatson@gmail.com) I would be happy to comment on it.

Jim Watson

Charles Lewis ⋅ Brighton , MI General Motors ⋅ 40 years experience

I agree with the other guys. I have been a hiring manager in engineering for a while, so if you wish; I am willing to review your resume when you get it finished.
I would add for the resume, also state at start what type career would you like with a company.

Alex Reinders ⋅ Wheaton , IL IBM ⋅ 33 years experience

Donald, One of the things you can try is to boil down some of your duties into the tasks you performed. For example, analyzed a process and redesigned it to be more efficient or created specifications for purchase of equipment. These are things an employer might view as part of he job that you can demonstrate you have experience doing.

Rick Russell ⋅ Fort Worth , TX ⋅ 30 years experience

Thank you for your service! Timothy is right. I'll add that it is well worth it to have your resume reviewed by a professional resume service. I see lot's of resumes from Veterans and civilians and resume writing isn't exactly the easiest thing to do. As a Veteran myself, when I wrote my first resume it was details, details, details. Far too long and had military slang and verbage. Once I had a professional writer look at it it became apparent where my improvements could be made.

Timothy Strickland ⋅ Frederick , MD Defense Health Agency ⋅ 10 years experience

Donald,

Generally speaking only the last 7-10 years of your work history is the most relevant to hiring managers. Feds and some career fields may want a laundry list of every job you have ever held, how long, etc. But that is usually leads to overly long resumes.
So, with this in mind I'd suggest you look to combine your jobs.

Say, for example, you were an LPO over a specific shop and then moved to a different one. Just list them under the same job title and use bullets to list the different duties.

Say you went on an IA downrange or TAD somewhere. If your duties were significant to warrant calling it out as a separate "job" then do so. If not, just say you were temporarily assigned to X doing Y under your normal job.

Make sure you civilianize your titles and always list US Navy for the company you worked for. You can call out a specific ship or department if you like, but keeping everthing under US Navy should make it clear that you were promoted or moved into another billet.

Good luck.

Timothy