Peter Flierl ⋅ Greenwich , CT MaxExposure! & Broccoli Soup ⋅ 40 years experience

You might consider using a life coach to guide you or a counselor at your local SCORE office, Senior Corps of Retired Executives. The latter is free. You can quickly find the fitness and sports centers in your area using Reference USA. Good luck and God bless.

David Moore ⋅ Spokane , WA Realtime Associates ⋅ 35 years experience

A couple of job hunting tips for you. The resume tips offered previously are good advice. You might also obtain a copy of "What Color is Your Parachute?" for further tips. Now for my two cents!! Resumes don't get you a job. You must meet the person who will hire you and develop a rapport with him/her. Don't waste a lot of time with Personnel/HR. They are gatekeepers who are charged with screening you out... You want to get to the hiring authority. If you know someone who works for the organization either try for an introduction and referral or get the name of the person who will hire you and call him/her directly. The best time to call is early (before 9am or late in the day ..after 5pm when the secretary/gatekeeper has gone home and the boss is alone.) Don't be too pushy. Ask about the position and tell enough about yourself to develop the curiosity to give you an interview. Ask for the interview and ask what is a good time to meet. One other thing. An wise sage in the headhunting business once told me that "Everybody goes to work...if you keep looking. You may not know when or what job but don't give up!!"

Good luck...

Jamie Doud ⋅ Houston , TX JRD Consulting; (Prior): Easton Sports ⋅ 20 years experience

Hi Anthony, thank you for your service to our country, my father was in the USAF. I've been in HR for 20+ years, and I was the VP of H/R for Easton Sports (bats, hockey, bike, helmets, etc.) for many years.

Phil (above) provided good info on resumes. Remember, it is OK (and desirable) to have several "different" resumes to use for particular jobs you are applying to. Just make sure they are true and factual, and modify a "base" resume to accenuate your particular experience/skills, etc. for each particular job you are applying to. Same thing for cover letters (make sure you always send one, keep concise and to the point, and address to each recruiter/company). You can google cover letters and find samples all over the web as a starting place.

Make sure to have a well thought out and robust LinkedIn (LI) profile. LI is a top place to look for jobs, and connect with and network with others. Make sure your LI profile and your resume/cover letters say the same "basic" thing (don't have conflicting information, timeline, education, etc.).

WWW.sportsindustryjobs.org may also be a good place to look for sports related jobs.

You might want to google "sports marketing groups" and find an industry group of like minded people to join and network with.

That's it, good luck with all.

Anthony Roy ⋅ Clarksville , TN U.S. Army, Staff Sergeant ⋅ 19 years served

Phil,

Thank you for the advice. I will use those ideas and augment my resume to fit. Especially in a few months I will be traveling to different areas on job fairs and try to find a position to start my next career.

Phil C. ⋅ Fort Worth , TX ⋅ 3 years experience

I was born and raised in Dallas and I can tell you that's a very good place to start your new life. Great job/housing market and lots of educational opportunities. I left the Army in 2008 and believe the ACAP computer generated resume is not very effective if things have not changed. After I graduated college I gutted my resume 4 times before I found something that works. Here's a couple of recommendations I have:

- Have a professional sounding email address
- Spread the margins out as far as possible
- Leave as little white space as possible (use columns)
- Have general resumes for jobsites such as monster and usajobs
- For specific job sites at the actual company you are looking for, take key words (action verbs, etc) from the posting text and throw them into your resume (ie. Lead, Trained, Mentored, Coordinated, etc) --> this will be a targetted resume
- Augment your resume with list of references
- Any professional or academic projects will also augment your resume well
- ALL files to be uploaded (resume, references, projects) NEED to be in PDF format
* MS Word and Powerpoint files can be saved in these formats
* If you do not have MS Office on your personal PC, I would recommend getting it. There is a Military Appreciation Edition of MS Office that is about $50
- Do not submit any resume without a Linkedin account that has good parity and support of your resume. Make sure to make a unique Linkedin URL and put it next to your email address on your resume. Do not forget to put a picture up there as well.
- At job fairs use resume paper with watermarks, color, and anything else that lets it stand out from the stack
- Having a business card paper-clipped to your resume for the job/career fairs
- When you give out resumes, make sure you wear something that makes you stand out, like a US Army pin, Hooah-looking tie, or combat boots with your suite. Handing out a resume is a two-way exchange. You relinquish the resume and in exchange they should be giving you a business card or some other means of contact them so you can send a follow up email or phone call. It should never be a one-way transaction
- Try to talk to hiring managers or people in the position you want, avoid HR people.
- Sadly, you may have to assume HR will take your resume and lose it and forget you even exist as a human being.
- Research the companies you submit resumes to. This will go a long way! Learn their jargain.